Yesterday, Brian Dorsey was executed for a crime he committed in 2006. By all accounts, during his time in prison, he became remorseful for his actions and was a "model prisoner," to the point that multiple corrections officers backed his petition for clemency.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/us/brian-dorsey-missouri-execution-tuesday/index.html
In general, the media is painting him as the victim of a justice system that fails to recognize rehabilitation. I find this idea disgusting. Brian Dorsey, in a drug-induced stupor, murdered the people who gave him shelter. He brutally ended the life of a woman and her husband, and (allegedly) sexually assaulted her corpse. There is an argument that he had ineffective legal representation, but that doesn't negate the fact that he is guilty.
While I do believe that he could have been released or had his sentence converted to life in prison, and he could have potentially been a model citizen, this would have been a perversion of justice. Actions that someone takes after committing a barbaric act do not undo the damage that was done. Those two individuals are still dead, and he needed to face the ramifications for his actions.
Rehabilitation should not be an option for someone who committed crimes as depraved as he did. Quite frankly, a lethal injection was far less than what he deserved, given the horror he inflicted on others. If the punishment should fit the crime, then he was given far more leniency than was warranted.
So you want to kill people to save money? That's a dangerous precedent.
My number one priority for America is restoring a liberal presence in government.
My number two priority for America is reducing the Pentagon budget, and stop American weapons and soldiers from murdering impoverished people overseas.
My number three priority for America is to reduce incarceration and make it less lucrative the for-profit prisons system to grow and spread and create more excuses to incarcerate people/saddle people with invasive probation programs.
My number four and five priorities are to reduce the cost of healthcare/increase access to proper healthcare, and to make home ownership possible for 25-30 year olds again. These only fall to 4 and 5 only because I think the first 3 are needed to free up the funds and lobbying-hours to make them possible.
What isn't a priority for me is loading up the prison warden with millions of dollars a year for a term of 60 years to keep a murderer/rapist locked in a concrete box because my bleeding heart cant stomach the idea of just pulling the trigger. Money that he will spend 5% on the actual inmate, and 95% on lobbying to lower the bar to put more people in his jail so he can rinse and repeat.
Carroll O'Conner did a movie way back when where his character testified against a murderer who after decades of legal battle was executed. He had this great monologue where his character was asked "So how does it feel now that justice has finally been served?" and he said something to the effect of "it doesn't feel like justice was served. That man shouldn't have and couldn't have been released back into society, but we were stuck hemming and hawing for decades. This man sat in a cell knowing that he was eventually going to die, missing freedom he knew he would never have again. If we delivered compassionate justice, the moment he was found guilty, we would have told him that we were giving him one more chance, we would have walked him out front of the jail, we would have let him go, we would have let him take a few steps where he could feel at ease, at peace, looking forward to his freedom, and we would have shot him in the back of the head. Lights out. Story over. Problem solved. Compassionate justice delivered."
I think there was a metric fuck ton of wisdom in that monologue.