RIP: Eliza Fletcher - teacher (and Orgill heiress) abducted while running in Memphis TN - was murdered

By who though? Would you place any bets on the results?

I know everyone wants to make this racial, but the killing itself was probably just sick sexual reasons not race.

Now how the news presented is another thing, but I really don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if this hasn't been edited for effect.

I worked with a forensic psychiatrist on a case where someone claimed they could not be held to a contract because of their mental illness (they could and lost the case). This guy's main gig was doing mental fitness examinations to determine whether people could stand trial and jailhouse examinations to determine whether violent child molesters could be released or needed to be retained due to a risk of repeat offenses. It is an extremely difficult task to try to determine whether even the worst of the worst offenders (who frequently are mentally ill) have been reformed or will go out and do it again. A few will snap during a session with a forensic psychiatrist and are easy to keep locked up due to an obvious outburst. But most are very aware that they need to say the right things in order to get out and often the worst of the worst are the best at getting through the process. The forensic psychiatrist I worked with told me that the main reason he sees recidivism in the cases that he handles is that the criminals are put right back into the same circumstances that existed when the first committed their crimes (no access to mental health services, extreme poverty, drug addiction, family violence, etc.). These end up re-triggering the same psychotic break that caused the original offense. This is why politicians like to call criminals "evil". It gets people to believe that certain people are just captured by the dark forces of Satan and can only be saved through religion or put down by execution (ironically, one of the most common moves child molesters use in their psych evaluations is to claim to have found religion in prison). But countries with very low recidivism rates all basically have the same approach. Prisoners are given the chance to get an education, learn life skills, work at a decent wage in prison and are give real support when they re-enter society.

Doesn't a lethal injection cost taxpayers significantly more than sending someone to prison for life? And what better way to punish a murderer than a life in solitary confinement with no human contact, no books, no outside light, and no way of ending their own life? I'd be happy knowing that my tax dollars went towards a lifetime of suffering for a killer.

Putting a man to death is foolish. It is one thing to lock up criminals to ensure the safety of the communities in which they have transgressed. But putting them to death, that accomplishes nothing. It does not bring back the victims. It does not heal the wounds in the family or the community. It is merely a cruel punishment to satisfy the human desire for vengeance. Many innocent people have been put on death row (some estimates say around 4% of death row inmates are innocent)—a terrible calamity. If you root for the death penalty, you accept that innocent people will be put to death based on historical fact and basic probabilities. Horrific.

This is such a tragedy, and I feel awful for her husband and children. As a runner who often ventures out in an urban area at strange hours, I will be more cautious. So sad

It makes sure that the person being put to death cannot do further harm, and reduces the cost to society who would be the ones paying to keep him alive.

So why even bother with the first 20 sentence when it accomplished nothing.

Rope is cheap.

Rojo why on earth is it so difficult for you to write an articulate headline? You went to college, correct?

You do realize that the Western Oligarchs have killed tens of millions of people over the last few decades?

Sanctions, wars, endless bombings, assassinations, drones, policies that ensure starvation and illness.

Yet with their propagnada apparatus and divide and conquer strategy, they get you to focus your anger on the poor

There have ~190 death row exonerations in the past 50 years in the US. Many who read up on these cases become alarmed at the pattern of police and prosecutorial misconduct that allow these convictions to occur, and come away certain that there have been many more wrongful convictions in capital cases. Most will then concede that there should be additional guaranteed legal procedures in place to prevent wrongful executions. It is these procedures that end up costing more than a lifetime of incarceration.

I'd love to see homicidal sexually violent predators expeditiously expunged from existence. However, from available data I'm highly skeptical about the deterrence value of capital punishment, and I'm more comfortable removing this power from our legal system than trusting the people in power to wield it justly and without error. A prompt, painful, public execution may be what this perpetrator deserves, but it doesn't take a whole lot of thinking to realize this is not where we want to head as a society.

Why does everyone act so surprised? Just look at the crime stats in the country. Then add additional variables. Memphis being the most salient factor. This wasn't going to happen in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Yes. Death penalty cases wind up costing the state more than life in prison. Other reasons often cited for life in prison over the death penalty are 1) Courts make mistakes. Although the evidence seems quite strong in this one, we can’t really have a two-tiered system of guilty and definitely guilty. 2) The death penalty is more likely to be applied to poor minorities even in cases with similar facts. Again, not applicable in this case as people would be calling for the death penalty regardless of the murderer’s race, but system-wide there is a definite problem. 3) It has a very limited to zero deterrent effect. 4) The government should not have that power.

On the other side, you have the justice / revenge argument.

Separately, given the status of rapists in the prison hierarchy, it may be worse for him in the general population than solitary.

Because this is a rare occurrence.

And who lives in all these cities?

https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-us

These sort of things happening just fills me with rage- I can't imagine how I would feel if this was a sister or S/O. You gotta remember though:

Being racist is not the answer

Choose love and kindness

Many humans are very, very lost- hopefully some will eventually find their way again, but not him.

You tell me, along with how that makes this not a rare occurrence.