A Teen Entrepreneur Pays Dearly for Fraud
(“Over and Out,” Forensic Files)
Many a duped consumer has thought for a moment or two about sending a bomb to the culprit on the other end of the transaction.
A 35-year-old Indiana truck driver named Chris Dean distinguished himself by actually doing it.
It’s a particularly sad case because the dishonest seller, also named Chris, was only a teenager.
Forensic Files told the story of the clash of the Chrises in “Over and Out.” It’s a Greek tragedy spanning the internet, surface mail, and citizens band radio.
He’s with the band. For this week, I looked around for an epilogue for the bomber. But first here’s a recap of the episode along with information from internet research:
Chris Marquis bought and sold CB radios and parts over the internet.
Although Forensic Files depicts him as an obscure hobbyist with a devious streak, the Vermont native actually had established himself as a widely known and reviled entrepreneur among CB radio enthusiasts.
To inflate his image, Marquis portrayed himself as a married 27-year-old dad with a retail shop called the CB Shack, according to an investigative piece that appeared in Wired magazine six months after the bombing.
None-too-endearing. In reality, Marquis was 17, single, and childless and he ran the CB Shack online out of his bedroom in his mother’s house — there was no store.
The tall, blond teenager wasn’t as much of a loner as Forensic Files hints, however. He managed to score a serious girlfriend who was a year ahead of him in school.
Marquis acquired his bad reputation as a CB enthusiast by making obnoxious comments to people on CB radio networks.
And he got his ill repute as a business owner by routinely misrepresenting the merchandise he sold and traded.
UPS had already received a number of complaints about Marquis from customers who said he cheated them.
No second chance. He might very well have been scared straight if the shipping giant had tipped off U.S. government authorities about the fraudulent interstate commerce and the feds showed up at his mother’s house in Fair Haven, a town of fewer than 3,000 residents.
A bit of a grifter herself, Sheila Rockwell was very close to her son, sometimes working with him as a DJ at events, and the two engaged in a little mother-son shoplifting from time to time, according to the Burlington Free Press and Wired.
Nonetheless, having FBI agents materialize on her doorstep would have in all likelihood made Rockwell flip out and beat up on her son about using her house, the mail, and the internet to defraud people across state lines.
But no intervention ever happened, and Marquis never had a chance to repent and reform.
Fateful day. On March 19, 1998, UPS delivered a package for him with a return address he didn’t recognize, a Samantha Brown from Bucyrus, Ohio.
When he opened it, a pipe bomb exploded, severing his femoral artery. His mother, who had just handed him the box, lost several fingers and part of one knee.
Police heard the explosion and saw smoke (Rockwell’s house sat right behind the municipal building) and ran inside the residence.
They saw huge craters in the floor and ceiling and found the mother and son still alive.
She survived, but he soon bled to death.
Aggressive manhunt. The murder was colossal news for a town with three police officers in a state known for public safety, and Rockwell didn’t have to wait long to win justice for Marquis, who was her youngest child (his father died before he was born).
The FBI and ATF joined the hunt for the bomber, and investigators quickly zeroed in on Chris Dean.
The trucker had told friends about being cheated out of a $400 ham radio in an online deal. Dean had repeatedly contacted Marquis to complain but got no answer.
Files never die. The house in Pierceton, Indiana, that Dean shared with his wife held a cache of incriminating evidence, including the types of hex nuts, wires, and pipes used in the bomb.
A package of 9-volt batteries in Dean’s drawer had the same lot number as the mangled one found at the crime scene.
Dean, who apparently didn’t watch Forensic Files often enough, thought he had permanently erased a computer file with the CB Shack’s address and the fake “Samantha Brown” return address used on the package with the bomb.
Police retrieved that file as well as information Dean had downloaded about how to create an explosive device.
Hazard in the air. The package with the bomb had been mailed from a UPS store in Mansfield, Ohio. Sprint North Supply, the product-distribution company Dean worked for, confirmed that Dean was in Mansfield on the day it was sent.
To top it off, one of Dean’s buddies told authorities that Dean said he “was going to send the guy [Marquis] a package in the mail and boy is he going to be surprised,” the Washington Post reported on March 21, 1998.
U.S. Marshals transported Dean to Burlington, Vermont, where Federal District Court Judge William Sessions charged him with offenses including murder and “sending an explosive device on an airplane, knowing it could endanger the safety of the aircraft,” the New York Times reported on April 5, 2000.
A mother’s mercy. To avoid capital punishment, Dean pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He also met with Sheila Rockwell one on one and apologized for killing her son.
Rockwell said that while she couldn’t forgive Dean, she didn’t want to see him get the death penalty either.
As far as why Dean, who had no prior criminal record, committed capital murder over a $400 fraud, it may have been a case of a tightly wound guy stewing until he snapped. Dean had some compulsive traits, according to the Wired story by writer Scott Kirsner:
“Dean was obsessively neat. Neighbors remember him constantly washing his cars—a Corvette and a Blazer. Joe Stump, his landlord, recalls that Dean kept his lawn buzzed down practically to AstroTurf length. ‘And the house was always spotless inside,’ Stump adds.”
Last message. A judge gave Dean life in jail without parole after federal prosecutors alleged that he had threatened to kill witnesses and hatched a plan to break out of St. Albans jail. They also pointed out that “it will be just as easy for Dean to construct a [bomb] at age 70 as it was at 35,″ the AP reported in 2000.
The judge also ordered Dean to pay Rockwell $50,000, although the Burlington Free Press noted that it was unclear whether Dean was able to come up with the money.
He mouthed “I love you” to his wife, Diane, as he was led out of the courtroom.
Defense never rests. But just because Dean pleaded guilty didn’t mean that he accepted his punishment. Early on, he trotted out complaints about having an unhappy childhood.
That didn’t get him anywhere.
In 2006, he argued that a U.S. Supreme Court decision that said federal sentencing guidelines weren’t mandatory should apply to his case.
A federal magistrate in Vermont ruled against him.
Today, Dean resides in Hazelton, a high-security federal penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.
Hazelton is a rough place. In April 2018, an inmate died after a fight with a fellow prisoner.
The Bureau of Prisons website notes that all visiting at Hazelton has been suspended; it doesn’t provide a reason or an end date.
CB radios remain. On the bright side for Dean, the institution seems to have a menu of commissary items priced far more reasonably than the $5 cans of Coke the Orange Is the New Black ladies complain about.
The list includes cinnamon raisin bagels for 55 cents each, a pizza kit for $3.40, and an entire six-pack of Pepsi (no Coke) for $3.30.
By the way, if you’re curious about the state of the CB radio in the age of GPS and smartphones, you can check out a piece in BND.com.
That’s all for this week. Until next time, cheers. — RR
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Thanks, RR, for the interesting update. I saw this ep just the other day on UK tv. I felt terribly sorry for the mum – but now feel ever so slightly less so seeing as she wasn’t a total angel herself (and you wonder whether she was ‘in on’ frauds. FF presented the son as having Asperger’s, or something like, so again I now see that perhaps that mitigation isn’t available.) Nonetheless, this was a breathtakingly awful crime – one that could be indiscriminate in its devastating effect (and was in that the mother was harmed too). It’s the danger to ‘innocent’ victims, never mind the intended, that makes this amongst the worst homicides, so it must be right that the perp will never see the light of day.
None of us can know why a relatively minor fraud could have elicited such a monstrous response: I wonder, also, whether this was a psychopath, ticking away on a hair trigger, waiting to explode at someone. Had I been his lawyer, my only recourse would have been to try to mount a psychological defence as mitigation – if I could have found some pathology. You’d think there must’ve been…
The case reminded me of another FF ep: one where an estranged husband left a ‘Christmas present’ on his still-wife’s (and his young daughter’s) doorstep. The wife opened it and it exploded in her face, killing her, blinding her new partner in one eye, and burning the house down. As he had every reason to believe his daughter, whom he seemingly loved, may be in the house (and might even open the parcel) – she was, but unharmed – it was another breathtaking act of indiscriminate terror. The motive appeared to be anger that she left him and the cost of a divorce (the latter a theme in several FF episodes of homicide). Another ticking psycho…?
“…why a relatively minor fraud could have elicited such a monstrous response.” The most likely reason is the fraudster was using leverage to rip off his customer. He hides behind the anonymity of his computer keyboard, safe in the thought he’ll never be caught. Having been ripped off several time by such crooked eBay sellers, I can certainly feel the man’s frustrations.
Yes but murder is not the answer. It IS frustrating, but juvenile hall is a thing. He was a dumb kid who committed fraud. So what, you think being bombed to death was acceptable?
The ep I mentioned:
Live Wire (Season 11, Ep 20)
Chris Dean is exactly where he belongs. So is Chris Marquis. Of all the great things the Internet was famous for promising in those formative days, nobody ever predicted the Internet would become the most dangerous place on the planet.
Responsibility for this lands squarely at the door step of auction giant eBay. Their overnight success set the tone for all Internet merchants to follow: make enough profit, and you can dispense with ever creating any customer service. Even after it became apparent eBay was hosting every form of fraud known to mankind, and plenty of newly minted ones, they refused to do anything but shrug, and claim they have no control over what their users do on their site. Had eBay been run by honest, credible developers with any degree of moral fiber, their early experience with Marquis would have been a wake-up call there needs to be some level of responsibility delegated to those in charge. Instead, it was ignored with the same indifferent smirk eBay gives every problem they prefer not to confront. And eBay is not the only Internet giant who is paying lobbyists billions of dollars every year to prevent the Internet from ever coming under any form of regulation.
Today, eBay, Craigslist and other large and small sites are top-heavy with scammers, thieves and crooked advertisers in numbers many times greater than in 1998, when Chris Marquis was running things. And there is still no government oversight.
Does that make vigilantism legal?
Many states have laws that permit citizens to “abate a nuisance.” The problem is, the issue is compounded by lack of any legally recognized definition of what constitutes a nuisance. A loud television set left on all day and night while the residents are on vacation is certainly a nuisance, if it affects neighbors.
But what about the thousands of anonymous Internet crooks and thieves who are hard to find? Shouldn’t they be fair game under the abatable nuisance laws? After all, nobody else is doing it…
You’re a very disturbed person to think that being bombed is an appropriate punishment for committing scams. To think that Marquis deserves to be dead.
Do you not see how disproportionate these two crimes are in relation to each other?
Thank God you’re just some keyboard warrior and not in government.
@Allie, finally a common-sense comment. You are exactly right murder is not the answer! We all have been scammed at one time in our lives. I’ve had my share LOL. You don’t blow the person up because of it. Nowadays thank God for PayPal or you can call your bank and get it fixed quickly! This is why to this day I don’t do business on the internet like this, you simply don’t know who’s on the other end. All this man had to do was contact his bank, they would have opened up a resolution center and they would have handled this for him. 10 years ago I opened up my first PayPal account and I didn’t trust it at first, but I realized it is safer to have because if somebody cheats you, it is easily fixed.
It was a stupid remark by the poster that I wouldn’t waste your time arguing against. Of course homicide because of (minor) fraud is absurd – and the means used, astonishingly reckless, for it almost killed the victim’s mother, never mind other entirely innocent agents.
Similar disproportionality’s posited of the murder of Bobby Kent by some posters:
https://forensicfilesnow.com/index.php/2018/04/17/bobby-kents-killers-an-update/comment-page-1/
Here we have an alleged bully – ‘bullying’ being what the poster(s) want it to mean, and taken as a given – who apparently justified premeditated murder because of it. The jury had no truck with this, of course, but ‘I hate bullies’ seems to be a good enough reason to some to kill them (or, it would seem, anyone one sufficiently dislikes – particularly if one can get others to agree and form a gang to commit the killing).
You are one very lopsided hooligan not to be able to see more than one side of an issue. Why do all these old movie star guys get prosecuted for rape, and Donald Trump skates? How can the Rosenbergs be executed for committing treason, and Donald Trump just laughs for committing the same crime?
Last year, an 18-year-old male was drunk and stoned on pot, when he slammed his foreign car into a boulevard fire hydrant at 1:30 am at 80 mph, then plowed into a closed store front and died. He, like Marquis, had a criminal history, only this time it was drug abuse and DUIs. People who knew him or were there, celebrated the fact he was dead, because it was one less drunk driver to get killed by in the future.
You really need to grow up a little bit more, and learn how to see the world from others’ perspective.
Jason: Hi; well, as RR says, we’ve all been frustrated at times with scammers (I’ve been scammed on eBay myself), but nothing can justify, nor I think explain, Dean’s action — not least ‘cos, as I said, a bomb’s indiscriminate, and it beggars belief that someone could be so perverse and reckless. And while Marquis sounds like a bit of a shit, he was 17, disabled, and his mother was likely a poor influence on him (according to her estranged daughter, she routinely shoplifted and had a conviction for this). She may even have encouraged him to scam his customers at his impressionable age and as his carer. It’s reasonable, then, to consider this as mitigation — not that he needs any to render murder by bomb unspeakable. I can’t possibly agree that he deserved this. Theft/fraud does not equate to murder.
Good morning, Marcus.
With all due respect, your comments are compelling, but not persuasive. They reflect the same illogical thinking judges all over America use: find all kinds of ways to explain away the perp’s actions, and blame it on those influences; never hold the criminal responsible. uuur3
People who send anonymous bombs are cowards at the very least, but so are crooks who scam sitting behind their computer keyboards.
As far as feeling sorry for poor Chris Marquis, “the turd never falls far from the asshole.” Seven is an impressionable age; 17 is not. If you haven’t developed moral fiber by age 17, you’re never going to, and you’re going to be a drain on society the rest of your life. The mother was a Bonnie and her son was a Clyde. They were low-life, bottom-feeding grifters who lived off others. There’s a reason her daughter was estranged. Your same arguments could be made for Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and Randy Kraft. The only inequity here is that poor Chris Dean didn’t get put down, like a rabid dog.
I also take issue wth Forensic Files. It’s a great show, but they often do revisions to select episodes, wherein they delete some portions and add new ones, the Asperger’s angle just one example. In addition, I’ve seen other versions of this story and while they’re all basically similar, there are always facts and details that aren’t consistent.
(PS: That verb you want is “begs”, not “beggars.” Begs is a verb, beggars is a noun.)
“Beggars belief” is a well-established and completely legitimate English phrase that has existed for a lot longer than you have. I’m just addressing this smarmy little comment you made.
I don’t like to get involved in online arguments, but I felt compelled to look up the phrase “beggars belief.” According to The Grammarist: “In British English, beggar is a verb meaning (1) to exceed the limits of, or (2) to impoverish. The first sense is what’s meant in the verb phrase beggar belief, which is used to describe something that exceeds the limits of belief.” A number of other sites support this definition.
I’ll accept and thank you for your correction, with the caveat that early traditional English isn’t spoken in most parts of the world, including the U.S.
Again, “beggars belief” is in no way an uncommon phrase that no one ever uses. Even in the United States. You would be very familiar with it if you were a prolific reader of anything from literature to editorial journalism. The fact you have not heard of it doesn’t mean that other people don’t use it. Not to mention you were so confident in your own perceptions being the same as reality, than you didn’t even google the phrase before “correcting” the person.
Wow, a mom and son shoplifting team. What could go wrong?
Thanks, Terrie and Jason. The idiom here in UK is certainly ‘beggars belief.’
I wholly agree that Marquis is responsible for theft/fraud, even with the mother’s influence. ‘Mitigation’ reduces, but certainly doesn’t nullify, responsibility; and I suspect most people would accept that if a child is taken shoplifting by its mother — routinely? — she, rather than it, bears some of its responsibility when it ‘copies’… Regardless, the crux of the issue is that in no jurisdiction does the fraudster’s crime equate to the murderer’s. No, the same argument cannot be transposed to the murderers you list — ‘cos Marquis was far from a murderer. You beg the question there. To conflate fraud and murder (and anything in-between) suggests that you would capitally condemn most offenders, lumping most together regardless of crime. You would have very few supporters!
I feel sorry for Marquis because while he merited punishment for crime, what he received was grossly disproportionate — profoundly wicked. On your premise the US would be ‘offing’ hundreds of thousands of criminals on the (forgive me for putting it so) sloppy ground that they’re more or less as bad as each-other — whether fraudsters or Bundys. This is untenable.
But I agree that personal responsibility has been eroded by the reductionism that explains behaviour in terms of biological (drugs; food/drink) and psycho-social ‘influences.’ The ‘I’ before the law becomes about ‘those’ or ‘them.’ The task is to sift sound from unsound argument rather than wholesale rejection of the concept of mitigation. Why do we not accord a 10-yr-old murderer with the same responsibility as an adult? Because his relative lack of psycho-social (and so moral) development mitigates — but does not remove — personal responsibility; and the Scales of Justice measure that responsibility. Those Scales weigh heavily against Dean viz Marquis.
Best wishes.
OK… Now, we’re mixing cultures. Suffice it to recognize the US and the UK have vastly differing problems and solutions. US courts weigh mitigation against aggravation, in view of the prescribed punishment. In the US, a child is not responsible for torts or crimes he commits if he is age 7 or less. A juvenile is under 18 and usually gets preferential treatment in the courts, unless he comes with an abnormally egregious record, in which case he is tried as an adult, which is age 18 and over. In US courts, a 17 year old is considered knowledgeable and responsible, unless it is proven he is of deficient mind and unable to differentiate between right and wrong.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting Marquis deserved to be executed for being an Internet crook. He died by the hand of another, not by any justice system. The real lesson to be learned by others is that if you cheat people, there are several possible outcomes. A victim may just be mad enough to hunt you down like a rabid dog and take you out. Or a juvenile or an adult justice system may arrest you and send you to jail.
The first inequity was that Dean didn’t complain to the authorities. And knowing US laws, he was well justified in being frustrated. Since there is no legal regulation of the Internet, there is a slim-to-none chance of someone being arrested. The 2nd inequity was he didn’t get the death penalty.
Ask any American if they believe in the death penalty, and 85% will agree. But when America’s devious politicians vote, it’s always against it. So go figure…
In the US, when you make excuses for bad behavior, you’re constructively turning the villain into the victim, and therein lies the reason Americans no longer trust the justice systems.
In August, 1960, Alexander Robillard, a 19-year-old with a lengthy California criminal record, stole a 1959 Pontiac Catalina and murdered two police officers who pulled him over, unaware the Pontiac was stolen. Unaware he was being stopped for another reason, Robillard shot and killed both officers. He was arrested in Utah a few days later, put on trial, convicted of two counts of murdering a police officer, and sentenced to death. In July, 1961, Robillard was executed. Within a few months, he was all but forever forgotten. Today, if Alexander Robillard were lucky enough to get the death penalty, he would languish his entire life on death row until he died of natural causes.
I am persuaded you misunderstood my point in defending those other famous criminals. I was only pointing out how abused the use of mitigation is in the US, and obviously, I was not comparing their crimes. Again, a vast difference in US and UK criminal law ‘culture.’
All that said, I have a hard time feeling sorry for people like Marquis. There are risks for everything we undertake to do. If I choose to rob a liquor store, swindle people on eBay, burglarize someone’s home or steal someone’s car at gunpoint, I do so knowing I may end up shot and killed. I may hope I only get grazed, but there are no guarantees in life, especially when rolling the dice. Marquis was not stupid. This wasn’t his first rodeo by a long, long shot. He knew the odds, and when is number came up, he finally lost.
Hello Jason: You said, “I don’t think anybody is suggesting Marquis deserved to be executed for being an Internet crook.” You also said, “Chris Dean is exactly where he belongs. So is Chris Marquis.” With respect, you are retrenching somewhat. Maybe I took your earlier comment too literally – but I was arguing to that statement.
I’m interested in your observations about the death penalty. I favour it in principle, not in practice. What am I on about? Well, like the Catholic Church, I accept that there are crimes so terrible capital punishment is morally permissible — but the threshold of certitude of guilt must be very high: there can be no doubt whatsoever. There’s the problem. The UK abolished CP in the 60s. What I see in the US is that persons have been sentenced to death only later to be exonerated; and the poor (inc blacks) routinely receive the harshest penalty of the law. I’m no liberal, and I abhor political correctness, but the imposition of the penalty in the US is deeply flawed and profoundly unfair, such that, for me, it is simply unsafe (ie, unfair and inequitable) to impose it. If one could be perfectly sure of guilt, and that the same crime and culpability attracted it, I could accept it. But the latter is certainly not true in the US, and the former very possibly not. Both conditions need to be met for a fair justice system. The US has unquestionably executed those who couldn’t buy a better defence, while others have got much off lighter. This is unconscionable.
Now, hard cases make bad law, and it may be argued that these are hard cases. My reply is that when lives are at stake the utmost caution must be exercised, and it is far better that someone receives too light a sentence than the other extreme. All these considerations were at play in Europeans’ demuring from CP.
My sense of the US — a country which I am fond of and nearly lived and worked in — is that the 85% you cite are understandably fearful of the US’s much greater incidence of murder and violent crime than, say, the UK, and it results in this ‘extreme’ view. CP addresses (inadequately and indirectly) the effects of homicide, not the more challenging causes. Why do a relatively large proportion of US citizens murder? Is it gun ownership — and is that merely an effect itself of a prior cause (rage, drugs, etc)?
We should remember that mitigation is only as usable and effective as juries allow it to be. The defence’s job is to do their best with whatever means they can — including sophistry. The prosecution’s job is to puncture trash mitigation for what is — but it’s the jury who assesses what you (very possibly correctly) believe to be trash. And if they don’t see trash for what is, what’s to be done? This is one example of the imperfection of juries — but what replaces them?
I too think Dean should have received CP given it’s availability — and maybe he’s an example of the inequity I cite. With poorer defence he could now be RIP. It’s precisely this lottery I cannot accept and about which I would object if a US citizen.
FF presents us with persons of sometimes equal egregiousness yet with different outcomes before the law. It’s one of its captivating aspects.
Thanks for the ongoing and interesting debate! What state do you live in?
Best wishes,
Marcus
Good evening, Marcus,
First, it is indeed a pleasure to debate with someone who is obviously erudite in so many ways. You are also a clever and creative wordsmith, such as using terms like “possibly correctly,” “maybe,” “favor it in principle, not in practice,” “very possibly not,” and other escapes where the reader cannot lock you into a certain influence.
When I tell people, “I do not support organized religion,” they robotically interpret that to mean, “I’m an atheist,” when nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not sure what your obscure reference is to the catholic church, so I cannot address that.
On the issue of my opening comments, “I don’t think anybody is suggesting Marquis deserved to be executed for being an Internet crook,” and, “Chris Dean is exactly where he belongs. So is Chris Marquis,” you did take that out of context. Literally, Chris Marquis is dead; it matters not how he died, the fact is he’s deceased and that’s fine, because if he remained alive, he showed all the aspirations of becoming a lifelong criminal and ultimately a parasite on society.
My ideas on the US death penalty go thus. Prior to 1949, courts saw punishment as a form of deterrent. “If you rob a liquor store and kill the clerk, you will be executed, too.” Then the softies and liberals and bleeding hearts started reproducing and crawling out from under the woodwork and bleating about how the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. And guess what? Sure enough, there’s a line in the US Constitution that prohibits such. So then the courts had to assess what is a fair retribution for killing the clerk… and that’s when the deterrent theory lost ground in favor of non-uniform sentencing, and it keeps spinning faster and faster out of control.
I know of no case in American jurisprudence in which a convicted person was executed who didn’t already have a lengthy, violent criminal record. No first offender ever got the death penalty. Most repeat offenders have crimes under their belts, including murder, for which they were never charged. And the argument could be made, “Well, he got away with so much crap anyway, so what’s the difference? See (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=528vZHflpSA) for a parody of this theory. The majority of cases where a convicted person was exonerated usually involve young, black male defendants who lacked resources. And while most had petty crimes behind them, none I’ve ever seen were violet or egregious.
Another realm that enters into the mix is the theory of rehabilitation.
I never heard anyone say juries were a panacea. The most brilliant attorneys can manipulate juries as easily as turning the dial on a garden hose nozzle.
As an historian and student of behavioral psychology, I collect well-researched documentaries on US mass murderers and serial killers. Forensic Files is a TV show made primarily for entertainment and secondarily for research. All of their shows are edited and reedited from time to time, making extrapolation the true facts extremely unreliable.
Hello Jason: Thanks for your kind remarks, which are reciprocated.
Terrorists often have no criminal record, such as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I believe, capitally sentenced (Boston Marathon bombing); and Thomas Whitaker, for example, engaged in parental murder-for-hire, got the DP, which was later commuted to life. I dare say that if we dug we’d find other cases. While I accept that the majority of those receiving the DP will have criminal records, often serious, this need not be, and certainly isn’t always, the case. The conditions of heinousness, etc, can well be satisfied by a solitary, very serious, crime, and in the early 20th century in the US (and UK), there was no messing about operating the penalty, which was typically satisfied within a year of sentencing.
My ref to the Catholic Church is obvious one for me: I’m a priest — but I don’t agree ‘cos it’s a line I feel obliged to take: it well expresses my personal view.
“The majority of cases where a convicted person was exonerated usually involve young, black male defendants who lacked resources. And while most had petty crimes behind them, none I’ve ever seen were violet or egregious.” A web search of those exonerated I suggest refutes this claim; and having accepted that those who lack resources may suffer (grave) injustice, what about the possibility that they were not exonerated when innocent? As one executee said: “Capital punishment means those without the capital get the punishment.” Who could deny that there is at least some truth to this? For that reason alone CP is unsafe (because unfair by being literally discriminatory).
Execution prevents the erasure of error. This article’s interesting:
http://www.newsweek.com/one-25-executed-us-innocent-study-claims-248889
Have a good week and best wishes,
Marcus
And a good morning to you, Marcus,
Religious types rarely ever favor capital punishment. Many cloak themselves with delusions that every bad-ass is capable of being retrained not to be violent. Nice blind theory, but impossible in practice, when compared to the stone-sober reality that there are people born every day with irreversibly bad genes, particularly sex offenders, who have a near-100% recidivism rate, with no known cures.
A larger problem is the complete collapse of the deterrent issue. Today’s violent criminals learn that when someone says, “You could get life in prison without parole,” what he’s really saying is you’ll get five or ten years, and be out in three… and our brainless idiots who voted for Donald Trump wonder why they continue to be victims of violent crime.
Another troubling problem is the media. When someone is executed in the US, every news media from Anchorage to Orlando turns it into a world-wide event. If executions were carried out as rhythmically as traffic fines, people would cease being shocked.
“Gee, I wonder whatever happened to Joe Blow the ChoMo?”
“Let me look him up on Google… There he is, he was executed back in 2009.”
“Would you like to go for dinner tonight?”
“Hey, that sounds like a great idea. I’ll get dressed…”
There are a ton of things wrong with the US, the first being no one here wants to admit we’ve lost the edge we had before the 1970s, when Big Brother Government got too big for its britches.
“Capital punishment means those without the capital get the punishment.” What a great quote, yet so true.
PS: Marcus, your accompanying article is interesting, but makes no reference to the issue of executions of people without criminal violence histories.
I always find it interesting that death penalty enthusiasts are so raring for the state to have the power to execute citizens. So many people who are in love with the death penalty also describe themselves as “conservatives” or as being devoted to “freedom from tyranny”, but they think the state should be allowed to execute people who’ve been found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” – which is not the same as actually being guilty, as the system as proved time and time again. So I guess I’m to understand that people who believe in small government and extreme self-determination to live ones life without state interference, will just chuck all of that aside if it comes to giving the state the power to poison people to death – or if you’re in SC, be killed by firing squad. Their political ideology isn’t real if bloodthirstiness can overcome it.
Claire: Hello; you make an interesting juxtaposition of conservatives wanting small state gov’t yet preferring a kind of big state determination to execute. I’m opposed too, but while I do think that (where there’s certainty of perpetration) a perp can ‘deserve’ death morally speaking, for a host of others reasons it’s wrong to do it. It could be argued that those conservatives (I am one – but not on this issue) should then be required to ‘pull the switch’. That would concentrate the mind…
Contrary to perception, classically Christianity has permitted the death penalty morally where there is certainty of guilt (most times there is; some times there isn’t) – but that doesn’t make it right per se. Just two counter arguments that you may subscribe to as I: the cost of executing in the US (I’m from UK – no DP here since 60s) is huge – well over $1m and far more than imprisonment for life. To spend that just to kill someone instead of using it to prevent crime/support its victims seems perverse (and there is NO evidence of DP deterrence. Another is the more obvious: the risk (however small) of miscarriage of justice. We know prisoners have been on ‘death row’ and subsequently exonerated (as well as plenty who were lifers also exonerated).
In other words, this matter isn’t just one of morality (narrowly interpreted): the scales, it seems to me, weigh heavily against the DP, which also victimises the innocent family of the executee (sorry, a third reason!), even if his fault.
What I reject is the claim that the DP is intrinsically, or necessarily, morally wrong (that is, it could never in any circumstances be right).
Hello Jason: I grant you that – but it does address the central question we began with: is the death penalty justified and safe? And it does address your position.
Yes, ‘religious types’ do tend to oppose capital punishment – but that observation’s not an argument: maybe they’re right! Contrary to popular view, it’s not ‘cos the bible or Christian tradition is absolutely opposed to CP (as Southern Baptists would affirm!), but that effective caution’s enjoined in the judgements we make, such that, for example, justice must be equally dispensed for it to be justice. As you concede, economic inequality almost certainly means in the US that poorer people get screwed. A poignant question: is it acceptable that someone we know to be guilty of ‘egregious’ murder is executed, yet someone we have reason to believe to be isn’t, because they bought a better defence, they took a plea deal, or they turned state’s evidence? Of course, we can never say we ‘know’ of guilt in the second scenario precisely ‘cos the defendant was exonerated or found guilty of a lesser crime; but the reason(s) why persist… Something of the flavour of this apprehension lies in criminal innocence but civil guilt (eg, OJ Simpson): on the balance of probabilities he’s a double-murderer, but not beyond reasonable doubt. It’s very possible that were OJ poor, without celebrity, he’d now be dead…
Now, some would say that ‘some justice’ – the one who was executed – is better than ‘no justice’ – they both avoided execution. Others, that the very concept of justice requires equal punishment for equal crime, and where the law is partial, whether through buying ‘luxury’ defence’, or through the horse-trading and lottery of plea deal of turning state’s evidence (usually to avoid execution), justice ceases for a kind of legal pragmatism. If justice ceases, on this view, so does morality. This is broadly my view: that if justice has ceased (or at least been imperilled), the worst outcome is capital punishment; the lesser, life imprisonment (not least because it’s reversible).
It seems to me, then, that proponents of the DP have to swallow grave and proper objection to insist that it’s still justified – at the very least accepting that it can never be fair in the sense that it’s equally dispensed to those who deserve it, just that some are lucky and don’t, others are unlucky and do. That makes it for me a perverse game with people’s lives…
Good evening,Marcus,
Well, at least we are in agreement. In capital punishment, an example of “justice equally dispensed” would be, if I murder my spouse in a moment of passion, and you rob, kidnap, torture and murder a bank president, we should both get the death penalty. In US criminal law, there is no “equal justice” in capital cases, which is why I’d get two years and you the death penalty. In a more stable America, if you intentionally murdered someone, you were executed. No defense of insanity, diminished capacity, he had a bad childhood, she was an abused prostitute, and all these other ridiculous, extraneous bullshit defenses our courts waste millions of hours and dollars entertaining.
If you actively worked within the legal community, you’d know that no two criminal cases are ever identical. You also cannot fathom how devastated US court systems would be (criminal and civil) if every case went to trial.
Is plea bargaining a bad system? On its face, no. But neither is it fair 96% of the time. So far as sloppy plea bargains and the wealthy walking are concerned, all that’s ever been said throughout history is, ‘it’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best we have.’ That is still as true today as it was a thousand years ago, if not more so.
You wrote, “If justice ceases… so does morality… the… outcome is capital punishment.” I’m not sure I understand the logic behind that one. Crumbling morality is hardly the fault of capital punishment issues. In fact, executions take place so infrequently, most Americans alive today have never experienced the hoopla that comes with all the stupid publicity. Moral cessation, at least in the US, is caused by lack of love, respect, the family unit, unemployment, drug use, alcoholism and gang violence, among others. They still have laws in a couple of states that hang young males, and that hasn’t stirred anyone to action.
As to religious people being “maybe they’re right!”, how about “maybe they’re wrong!” I’ve never heard anything from a religious person that was right, unless it was something so plainly obvious anyone could see, like, it’s raining outside. Their opinions, for the most part, are skewed with hypocrisy, science fiction, intolerance and mythology, none of which fit forward-thinking societies. I’ve even met some people so academically naïve, they actually believe the world was built in six days. They believe the 1969 moon landing was a fabulous feat of trick photography. They refuse to believe that man is an animal, or was even derived from animals. But they believe in witch hunts, ethnic cleansing and outdated ideology: “God said it, I believe it, that does it.”
As a lifelong, dedicated trial watcher, another facet of death penalty cases I’ve observed with 100% consistency is when a trial judge allows cameras to film the proceedings. Invariably, those cases result in a not guilty verdict or, in one case, a hung jury. That exception is the Menendez brothers first trial. It was televised and resulted in a mistrial. At their second trial, without cameras, the result was a guilty verdict. There has to be an explanation, but nobody I know in the legal community wants to research it, except me. I’m persuaded it’s the psychological effect of knowing cameras are present, that has some subconscious effect on the confidence of the jurors which, if chosen carefully, are never the brightest lights in the harbor.
Everyone agrees the American system of justice is in deep trouble, and has been for decades. And as I pointed out earlier (it appears you may have missed it), crime had nowhere near the percentage rate when the death penalty was used as an example for potential new offenders, and carried out with due diligence and without fanfare.
Hi Jason: I’ll say good-afternoon, ‘cos it’s 1600h in UK.
Yes, we seem to agree that if CP could be equally and therefore fairly dispensed, and there was certainty of guilt (beyond admission – people have confessed to capital crimes they are later shown couldn’t have committed), it would be right. But as that condition probably could not, never mind will not, be satisfied, I won’t sanction CP.
Now, your observation that each case is different is of course quite true – but that could equally be an argument AGAINST CP as you suggest if it FOR: the fact that one can never really compare and weigh guilt between cases means that ‘absolute justice’ is unachievable, therefore we don’t execute, accepting that taking a life may not be fair (on this definition of fairness), but as we have to do SOMETHING with dangerous criminals, life imprisonment is the better, safer (ie, most just, not perfectly just) option.
We’ll have to agree to differ on the matter of the principle of mitigation, while agreeing that it’s probably gone too far…
“If you actively worked within the legal community, you’d know that no two criminal cases are ever identical. You also cannot fathom how devastated US court systems would be (criminal and civil) if every case went to trial.” I agree – but that’s just another argument AGAINST CP ‘cos the law is to some degree a lottery, and the point of a lottery is that those who win and lose don’t do so because of desert but by chance – and you can’t kill people, in my view, in that context. Furthermore, you cite the resourcing issue. As you know, it costs typically $1.5m to execute someone ‘cos of the checks and balances (appeals, etc). I suspect your answer is to get rid of the vastly expensive appeals, etc and get on with the execution. I need not detail my position there… Suffice to ask: is CP, given the cost, the best use of resources? A final point here: although not working in justice admin I was a prison chaplain, so I’ve worked at the other end of it.
I said earlier, “If justice ceases…” By that I mean that if by justice we mean equal treatment before the law, or fairness – which is what the law proclaims it is and does – then when unequal treatment prevails for the many reasons it can (one being relative lack of resources for a defence) then, logically, we have what we may term injustice, imperfect justice, flawed justice, etc. In such a situation is it reasonable to takes some lives and not others? We seem to agree that there can never be perfect justice, but disagree on response to that. I think that if we cannot have perfect – or ultimate – justice, nor can be have ‘perfect’ or ultimate punishment, CP. In that sense it’s a matter of logic.
You said, “Crumbling morality is hardly the fault of capital punishment issues.” I never suggested it was, either explicitly or tacitly. I will simply add that unjust execution can never properly aid moral rectitude (moral utilitarians argue that doing an evil that good might come – ie, frightening would-be murderers into not being with CP – is justified, but that position has been thoroughly debunked by ethicists).
Yes, of course religious people may be wrong: I was only debunking your ‘All you lot tend to disagree with CP…’ as though it’s a argument in favour of your position. It’s no argument at all either in your or my favour, so I wondered why you said it as it adds nothing to the debate!
Your point about filming is interesting and should indeed be researched, as if you’re correct it has grave implication. As a start I’d ask what proportion of capital cases filmed resulted in acquittal, as opposed to an equal number of capital cases unfilmed? Any conclusion would include your own caveat that ‘each case is different’ – a variable that would discourage firm conclusion.
You said, “…crime had nowhere near the percentage rate when the death penalty was used as an example for potential new offenders, and carried out with due diligence and without fanfare.” I disagree, not only ‘cos such a confident assertion is highly contested in the US and here in UK (When we had it) and very difficult to evidence (it wouldn’t be so contested if it were as easy as you imply to establish). In any case, on the definition of fairness the law allegedly holds to – equal treatment before the law – under such a principle (the utilitarian one discussed above), executing people REGARDLESS of fairness to put others off murder would be justified. It is just this principle that has been used in communist countries to control the populace: execution (however careless and unfair) to frighten people into conformity, with the argument that if potential lost lives are saved by frightening would-be murderers (or activists, revolutionaries, etc) – that’s morality in action! It’s just the opposite.
After all this back-and-forth, it seems clearer to me now that we’re just comparing the wrong things. You seem more interested in parsing sand from twigs, while I’m more concerned about falling trees and boulders.
If it’s unfair to execute criminals who kill humans, then it’s unfair to kill mosquitoes that kill humans. So, let’s find a way to rehabilitate the mosquitoes so they won’t kill humans and we won’t have to kill the darling mosquitoes.
It sounds like you’d be more comfortable living in a crime-ridden society than not. I prefer to live in a mosquito-free habitat, than not. And if that means killing some nice, cute mosquitoes, then so be it. And if I don’t want to live in a crime-ridden society, that means exterminating the dangerous people who are out to kill us. I have no more guilt killing a murderer than I would stepping on a disease-carrying cockroach.
Sounds pretty ballsy when I phrase it that way, doesn’t it? But that’s the reality of life: either you accept it and live with it or fight it and get rid of it. Church people tend to turn the other cheek when it comes to the unpleasant sides of society, blind to the future costs to themselves. Reality-based people usually strive for a better environment for everyone.
What it boils down to is you and I just prefer different levels of comfort and security in our respective lives.
You talk a lot about how you’re an expert in behavioral psychology, but you completely belie that by claiming that the death penalty makes society safer. There is not only no evidence that’s true, there’s a crapload of evidence it’s much more to the contrary. The United States is the only Western democracy with the death penalty, but other countries like us aren’t falling apart at the seams. Somewhat embarrassingly for the US, they’re typically doing a lot better as far as violent crime goes.
C: I agree that there’s simply no evidence for its deterrence – and it’s not possible there could be. What JL may be suggesting is that homicide would be even more prevalent in the US without it: again, impossible to evidence. Do potential murderers in Texas (the most active death chamber) think that ‘cos they could be executed instead of receiving life without parole they’ll desist from their homicidal inclination? Seriously to be doubted… Academic argument on capital punishment doesn’t use ‘deterrence’ these days due to its being purely speculative.
Hi Jason: Now, I didn’t say it’s unfair to execute criminals, just that if it can’t be done fairly (so all who deserve it get it, not just some, as you would have) – and it can’t – it shouldn’t be done at all.
Your mosquito analogy is false: they don’t have the moral worth of humans.
No, I’m not more comfortable in a criminal society: I’d imprison them. You’re suggesting a false dichotomy between criminal society and execution – false because you preclude imprisonment (for life in the case of those who’d otherwise be executed). I’ve already addressed your contention that the death penalty reduces murders: where’s the evidence (and how could it be evidenced except by inference, which is necessarily speculative)? You can cage (glass!) the mossies.
“Church people tend to turn the other cheek when it comes to the unpleasant sides of society, blind to the future costs to themselves. Reality-based people usually strive for a better environment for everyone.” Life imprisonment is hardly turning one’s cheek! And, as you can imagine, for some it would be a fate worse than execution – which is why prisons have a high suicide rate despite prevention initiatives (I worked in two). As much as you seem to want to characterise me as some lefty liberal, I’m really not. I advocate firm punishment, believing that discipline is essential for an ordered society (especially of the young). But that is a different matter from supporting execution.
“What it boils down to is you and I just prefer different levels of comfort and security in our respective lives.” I think we prefer exactly the same – reasonable safety and security (we can’t have absolute): we just disagree how.
Of course, the mosquito analogy is silly. Not false, but certainly silly. If mosquitoes aren’t capable of having moral worth, then neither are violent criminals – a fact of human makeup church people know nothing about and don’t want to hear. The trouble is, you know as well as I do, church people treat violent, destructive criminals like they’re cute, harmless little pets, and must be treated like they got hit by a car. Lock them up, sure, but make sure they get all the rehab money can buy… and turn a blind eye, should someone suggest it’s just polishing brass on a sinking ship. You also must know by now, church people don’t have much appreciation for the social studies of humanity, such as learning behavioral psychology… which is why having discussions like this with church people is like playing chess with a chicken: the chicken knocks over all the chess pieces, craps on the board, and then struts around as if he won.
I’m not charging you with being “a lefty liberal”, whatever that is. But you do have a demonstrated inflexibility by rejecting basic common sense, at least on humanitarian issues. You say you don’t want to live in a criminal society, but somehow have a mental block to the alternatives.
OK, I’m done. Go ahead, tell me I’m all wrong, etc. This is never going to be resolved between us, any more than anyone can ever win an bottomless debate with a church person.
Hi Jason: When it comes to ethics – and the DP is certainly an ethical debate – there are good and bad arguments, for ethics inevitably involves logic. The logic doesn’t solve the particular question, but it does properly establish what the question(s) to be solved is/are. Now, your mosquito analogy is indeed false (or fallacious): a false analogy consists in assuming that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they are necessarily alike in some other respect. Your mosquito is like a person ‘cos both are living entities – but your analogy doesn’t establish what you suggest or assume it does – that they are alike in their moral worth.
Now, you balk at the intricacies of philosophical debate, suggesting it gets us nowhere (untrue!) yet you precisely offer a philosophical argument – of logic – in your analogy. It happens to be incorrect – and I only mention this because you insist it is, not to be awkward or ‘clever’. But your fallacy is a good example of a bad argument – showing just how important good argument is when lives literally depend on them!
As I said, good argument will not itself solve the problem, as values are also involved, which aren’t established by logic alone, and also empirical fact – what I think you mean by ‘common sense’. So, it’s a factual CLAIM that the DP reduces murders by discouragement – but is it (factually) correct?Facts themselves are not always easy to establish, and this is a good example of that.
May I say that you make some further logically bad arguments, which therefore literally do not advance your case? An ad hominen (literally ‘to the man’) argument is of the sort that ‘your type would say that, wouldn’t they?’ – as though X-type persons must be wrong (logically: people of X-type are always wrong; you are of X-type; therefore you are wrong.) This is what you do with ‘church people’: instead of addressing the argument(s) offered by a church person (me!), you dismiss the argument(s) on the grounds that the class (church people) are generally wrong, so I must be. Jason, that’s not an argument but merely an expression of (sweeping) opinion; as is your observation about their knowledge of social studies. I could equally and oppositely say that comprehension of logic – essential to good debate – eludes many (something that the clergy are trained in), whose arguments should therefore be dismissed as ignorant. For this is effectively what you’re saying church people are in social studies, so dismissable. If I asked you to evidence your claim about ignorance, of course you couldn’t: it’s merely a prejudice you have.
The philosopher Descartes said, “Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense; no one thinks he needs more of it than he already had.” What is your common sense is my ignorance; and what is my common sense is your ignorance. The appeal to common sense gets us precisely nowhere, for if by common sense you mean the clear and obvious, why is the matter we’re discussing so contested? We could equally ask this of many ethical questions: abortion; euthanasia. The very worst comeback you could make, but which is implicit in your appeal to common sense, is that ‘those who agree with me are right; the rest are wrong’ – because the answer’s obvious.
“You say you don’t want to live in a criminal society, but somehow have a mental block to the alternatives.” Do I? The alternatives we’ve discussed are execution or life imprisonment instead; I choose the latter; you choose that former. Wherein my mental block – and if I have it, why not your good self too?
“… which is why having discussions like this with church people is like playing chess with a chicken: the chicken knocks over all the chess pieces, craps on the board, and then struts around as if he won.”
You’ve predetermined what you think they think and rejected it, instead of addressing the argument(s) head-on. To continue your analogy, the chicken can only knock over the pieces if they’re weak – unsteady. I’m not sure this chicken’s crapped anywhere! Nor strutted as in victory! The only thing the chicken can do is knock over weak argument; he can’t, for it’s impossible by good argument alone to, resolve the issue we started with: is the DP justified. So there’s no victory to be had on either side (hence I demure from the chess analogy).
We can agree to differ in our view of DP – a perfectly respectable position. I wasn’t seeking to change your position, just to suggest that it may not be quite so obviously right… Thank you for putting up with my ramblings!
As usual, you’ve taken nearly everything I’ve said out of context and spun it 180 degrees and made it “all wrong.” I pretty much figured as much. Church people are wrong because they abhor reality. They avoid unpleasantness, whatever it is. They live in a pseudo-world of intemperance, fantasy, mythology, science fiction, righteousness, having the last word and a “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy. It’s always their way or the highway. They love to create strange, new facts and fresh accusations, but never offer proof. They ignore valid points produced by their opposition, because it’s too embarrassing to be wrong. They’d rather live in the 1700s than in the 2000s. And, like you, they’ve got a ready spin rehearsed for whatever someone says that doesn’t conform to their views. And, of course, they love to muddy clean waters with double-talk (“I wasn’t seeking to change your position, just to suggest that it may not be quite so obviously right”) or, in the case of the chicken, assigning “human moral worth” that chickens don’t have any more than mosquitoes do. So, as you see if you open your eyes wide, church people talk in circles, and there’s no accounting for their orbiting thoughts that are always in conflict but rarely connect.
Have a pleasant evening.
Hi Jason: Thanks for your thoughts. I wonder what you’d say about what I’ve said if I hadn’t told you I’m a ‘church-person’? That seems to’ve changed the dynamic, in that you’ve brought to bare resounding disapproval of us because we ‘tend to’ (read ‘always’) spout nonsense. That may well be true of some of us, including me. But when it comes to logical argument there can be no taking out of context, as you claim. The logic either succeeds or it doesn’t – logical or illogical. It’s not double talk (unless philosophy itself is). What if I’d said I’m a philosophy teacher? Would you still say what you have or appraise me differently?
Re my statement about not seeking to change your view, let me put it another way. You will probably agree that you’re pretty certain in your view about the DP. You might also agree that while certainty can be comforting, because we’re not troubled about moral dilemma and persistent questions that we’re right, it can also be a fools’ paradise (which is what Descartes was on about), where debate is closed-down because it comes from outside one’s purview (so, I am guessing from your statements you could be described as an atheist or humanist?) Because, from your viewpoint, I’m a member of ‘another’ group (the theists), of whom your disapprove, you think I must be wrong before I’ve even started!
When we ‘see things differently,’ perhaps because of debate, argument, learning, we don’t necessarily see a different thing but the same thing in a different way. This is what I mean by not seeking to change your view – what a boring world if we all agreed about everything – but encouraging you to appreciate that there is another way of looking at the matter which challenges the arguments you use. There may be even better arguments in favour of DP than you’ve used that you could deploy, in which case I’ve done you a favour if I’ve incited any reflection on your part – as you have me in challenging my arguments. So, far from trying to undermine your position, as you seem to imply, I may be consolidating it.
I think I must’ve been confusing about chickens. I only mentioned them to continue the analogy of the chessboard you used – intending no claim about chickens’ moral worth or whatever. But enough said.
It’s 0450 hours here in UK, so I’d better get to bed…
Best wishes.
My, Marcus, you’re still employing the old spins! It seems to be an irresistible addiction. But they say, ‘Old habits die hard.’
No, I knew you were a church person the 1st or 2nd time I read you, so I was not surprised. There is a thing called “writing forensics” that identifies peoples’ personalities by their hand writing or typing, the words and phrasing they use, the way their thoughts are arranged and articulated, and so on. It’s a fascinating study that’s intuitive by nature. You cannot teach it. The more I read your writing, the more convinced I became you were holding back, and trying not to let your religious cats out of their bag.
I trust everyone I meet, until such time they give me a reason not to. Truth be told, I live in an extremely bigoted, narrow-minded place, where bible screamers and Jesus bangers are everywhere. A lot of these folks are my very dear friends, but I know better than to ever breach politics or religion. I constantly have to remind these relentless folks this country was set up for the purpose of letting anyone come here and live any religion they like – or even none at all, if that’s their choice. They just need to keep their traps shut and not preach to everyone they meet.
The religious people I respect are those who keep it to themselves. Religion is a private, personal choice, like underwear. Nobody cares or needs to know what brand you or I like best. There are tons of religions all over the world, and they all work for those who choose them – just like there are tons of underwear brands that work fine for those who buy them.
Well, you’ve just wrenched me out of another long editorial again. I’m sure you won’t agree with any of it, so just turn to something else – no need to continue this religion war, since I’m done defending myself here and will no longer be responding in the future to this subject.
Over and out,
Jason
Thanks, Jason; wishing you the very best. I’ll just say that if you’re in the South or Midwest – typically religious regions – I might well share your impatience with religion (as it’s evangelical/fundamentalist in nature). Europe, and particularly the UK, is pretty heathen (not a word you’d use), so you’d less to get your goat.
Ironically, England had a large part in founding modern USA, in part for ‘freedom of religion,’ a freedom you don’t feel free from (which I understand). The Pilgrims coming from England weren’t interested in YOUR freedom of or from religion, only their ability to do what they wanted. In this sense I have much sympathy with your position…
Jason Houston can’t debate for shit
Your infinite patience with this guy has been almost inspirational.
C: Thank you. He seems to have decided that ‘cos I am ‘religious’ (Christina) I can only argue from that ‘point of view’ and that as it’s a point of view he thinks perverse, logically my arguments must be perverse. I tried to show him that HE was illogical in this but couldn’t get through.
To put it another way, I argued that there’s NO possibility of value-free perspective. We all have values and can’t escape them – whether secular (his), religious (mine), or whatever else. The secular person’s values are secular; the religious, religious: BOTH have vales to and from which they argue, just different ones. This is kind of philosophy 101… JL seemed to think that his ‘non-religious’ values were superior because they’re non-religious. And maybe they are – BUT NOT NECESSARILY SO, unlike his regard of them. No moral argument (about the DP or whatever) can possibly be value-neutral, contrary to JL’s implicit stance.
I do not feel sorry for Dean, Marquis or his mother. Dean is a psycho who got what he deserved, Marquis was a scamming shitstain who played stupid games and won a stupid prize and his mother was the enabler who got him killed. Bravo mom!
She used to send a taunting letter to the bomber in prison annually. Says a lot about her character. Hope she is dead now, too.
Hello Mike: Small-time fraud deserving of death? Rather harsh! The punishment should surely try to fit the crime, or approximate to it as is decent and feasible? In addition, there may be some mitigation in Marquis’ reported (mild) mental impairment. Agreed that mum seems to have been a questionable example – but she was seriously injured and lost her son: a high price to pay for some questionable motherhood. The claimed taunting letters, it may be argued, are quite understandable given her son’s death and her serious injuries – all over a radio fiddle. Agreed Dean is an appalling psycho, deserving of a life sentence.
An immensely sad and extraordinary business.
There was a reddit post somewhere, (supposedly by her) in which she stated plainly that she sends those letters with pride each year. Seems like she didn’t learn the lesson on her end. Makes me wonder if she is still a shoplifting grifter, if as I said before she is even still alive.
I may sound harsh, but it was all preventable had she put and end to her son’s scams like a responsible adult and demanded he make restitution. All she did was bring about his demise by preventing him from being held accountable. She knew what he was doing, in another site it says she was receiving angry phone calls from people he ripped off and made lies up about his whereabouts to throw them off.
Two people got him killed; his own mother and Mr. Dean.
Remember when you are scamming strangers or cutting them off in traffic it’s only a matter of time until you do it to one that is loaded with the safety off and just waiting for that final straw to hit.
Mike: Aren’t you assuming that she didn’t try to put an end to the son’s scams? My sense is, though, that she was somewhat collusive. However, beware of blaming the victim(s): like girls who dress provocatively and ‘asked to be raped’, as though such criminality is justified or mitigated, Marquis (and possibly mother) did indeed invite counter-action to the scamming – but not murder and injury. It is quite wrong to suggest that she ’caused’ the bombing, in the sense that it was somehow deserved. Dean caused it – period, and such was his absurdity, even a perceived, not real, fraud could well have elicited similar murderous action from him. For this reason you cannot claim that it was preventable as you cannot see through the eyes of a homicidal maniac. Dean caused it and only Dean could have prevented it…
(Happy New Year!)
Mike: Sheila Rockwell would be c 73, so she is likely alive.
Blowing someone up because they scammed you = pathological narcissism. He thought he was so important. How dare this person make him feel stupid? How dare this person cheat the most inviolable person to ever live? How dare this person screw him over with a CB radio scam? You have to be extremely in love with yourself to think that moderate slights deserve maximum retribution. People like that belong sequestered away from the rest of us after they’ve proven they’ll blow a canyon across someone’s femoral artery over $400.
I’ve known a lot of little turds like Chris Marquis. Having the feds turn up on his doorstep would have made him crap his pants in terror, and created a lasting satisfying punishment for his behavior. But spending the rest of your shortened life in prison is worth the cost, I guess?
I haven’t read all the comments, but I don’t generally see a lot of focus on the fact that this man sent a bomb through the mail and endangered every single person who came in contact with it, including what the judge said about the airplane that carried the package. If you think it’s okay to blow up a small time fraudster, do you think it’s okay to put every mail carrier along the way in danger, in service of that goal?
C: Of course you’re correct in all you say. It’s beyond me that anyone could defend in any degree this appalling crime – even to the extent of ‘understanding the perp’s anger’ (not THAT degree of anger!). Sane, normal people could surely not begin to comprehend why someone would mail a bomb (that could kill anyone, inc a child/children) because of a small-scale scam.
PS SORRY: By ‘JL’ in my above postings replying to Claire I meant ‘JH’.
“the tall blonde…” what was the point in mentioning his hair color? What did his appearance have to do with anything? That made no sense. If he was brunette would it have been mentioned?
To me, describing what someone looks like is part of taking readers to the scene. Also, women are referred to as blondes all the time, so I like to even it up a little by throwing in the same descriptor for a man.