[speaker001:] do you ever think that there's a crime that's just so heinous and so bad that the person who commits this crime just doesn't deserve to live anymore
[speaker002:] that's a good question uh there would be a point there was a point where I would have said know that no one would deserve to die for for a crime that he committed but uh since I've become a parent and since I've seen uh things like Jeffrey Dahlmer I really have to question that I really uh I I can't conceive of someone being that brutal to that many other people
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and uh try and figure out what would be a suitable punishment uh
[speaker001:] of the statements made by people against the the death penalty um I I like the statement made by uh Cuomo Cuomo I I believe is um he's he's governor of New York but uh he's against the death penalty but um he said that he would he would want to to seriously hurt or if not kill someone if if they did something to his wife and that's but but even even in that circumstance in that uh uh situation he would be he would hope that there would be people around him who would uh keep him from doing the doing those things
[speaker002:] oh it's a uh it's a question of your your gut reactions to something like that versus an intelligent reason response
[speaker001:] right exactly
[speaker002:] uh and and that was the thing that uh killed Dukakis back uh four years ago when someone asked him a similar question and he he thought for a second and gave a thoughtful well reasoned reply when uh people wanted to see if he was going to go for an emotion
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] a a gut level reaction and I think that the people who are strongly in favor of the death penalty are really working from that gut level uh you know whether it be a biblical force uh you know the eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth a life for a knife life type logic or just uh uh some sort of anger at putting people putting uh murderers up in federal pens for the rest of their life uh while we foot the bill
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I think people are are working at that from more of a uh a gut reaction than a a reasoned humane one
[speaker001:] see I don't think a decision's ever gonna be made on death on the death penalty until we decide what our prison system is intended to do are they reformatories where we're trying to take people who can't survive or or that that aren't conforming enough to society so that that we work well together or are they is it a penal institution is it designed is it designed for punishment um the death penalty surely fits in well with uh in a penal situation where you're trying to punish um perhaps not in the manner that we do it but but it it in in theory it fits in in reformatory system in a reformatory I mean if you if you put someone to death you you obviously can't reform them
[speaker002:] that's true
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] uh the the other argument is that the death penalty is a deterrent and I really don't uh agree with that I don't think anyone who would commit a uh a crime that would get them the death penalty would stop at the moment and say well I was about to kill and dismember this person but ooh if they catch me they're going to kill me so I better not do it I I just don't think that uh that it works that way
[speaker001:] yeah I don't think it's done I don't think we run it as a deterrent I mean people say that but I mean if it was really a deterrent I mean I think like horse thieves in the old west you know they saw other horse thieves hanging by their necks every once in a while and
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] if we really want if it was really seriously gonna be a deterrent deterrent I would think that it would be public I mean I don't think it would be this private thing because nobody ever nobody ever sees it if someone ever if you know like say some young kids or something like that that that might be inclined more towards the life of crime had to sit and watch and and see a guy burn or or you know something or shot by firing squad or something like that I would think you'd make a bigger impact on their life rather than you know telling them that there's there's protestors out here at the you know
[speaker002:] well I I don't know if that would really work that way or not uh there's a lot of violence