Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Arizona finally executes murderer after 20 years

Robert Comer was executed today, 20 years after murdering Larry Pritchard, and raping another woman in front of her boyfriend. Mr. Comer decided in the year 2000 that he wanted to give up his appeals and die. It took him 7 hears to persuade the courts that he was competent to make that decision.

I believe that the death penalty is correct for the likes of Mr. Comer, and it should be done quickly. I believe that we should limit it to cases where evidence of guilt is overwhelming. Overwhelming evidence would consist of one of the following:

1) A single item that is very difficult to fake and is absolutely convincing. Such as a videotape of the person committing the murder.

2) Two or more chains of logic, each of which independently points to the killer. At least one of these chains should consist of physical evidence.

If one of these two conditions is met, then give the person a few months to raise any doubts about their guilt that they may have failed to raise during the trial. If they can't raise significant doubt, then go ahead and execute them. And I don't care how much pain they feel.

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