Replies to post #1222 on Poet's Corner

[Bird of Prey]

Should Mrs. Yates get the Death Penalty?


This is not a question to be taken lightly. Yet many have already decided that she shouldn't have even been found guilty of Capitol Murder. Why? Because she is mentally ill, she shouldn't be held accountable for her actions.
Pardon me, but that is the most ludicrous poppycock I have ever heard. Using that standard John Wayne Gacey, Jeffery Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, Otis Thorpe, Ed Gein, Albert Fish and a host of other killers, pedophiles and rapists would have been freed to inflict unmentionable horror on other unsuspecting families.
That some kind of mental disorder exists or existed in all of the above named individuals is a given. No sane person commits mass murder. But mass murderers do know what they do is wrong. They go to great lengths to conceal their activities.
Mrs. Yates is a mass murderer. She coldly calculated and executed the systematic murder of five individuals...one at a time. She has actively participated in a scheme to absolve her of responsibility for her crimes.
Luckily the jury did not fall for her game. Let's hope that they continue to follow the law and not be swayed by the "popular" appeal for "sympathy" to her "condition".
Let Justice prevail for her victims. Sentence her to death.


The Bird of Prey

[CharleyMike]

What, then, should we do with this poor woman?

Treat her for her mental illness, then release her to suffer her guilt until death?

Incarcerate her in an institution for the insane for the remainder of her days?

Put her out of her misery as a compassionate mercy?

In her saner moments, she must suffer horrible guilt. Do we want to punish her by treating her illness and thus making her suffer?

In her less lucid moments who knows what she might again be capable of.

I vote for euthanasia. We do it for pets, we do it for animals, why are we so reluctant to administer mercy to a human who so desperately requires it?

[j.c.]

Yates... yeah, I think she should get the death penalty, but, in her case it's more an opinion based on mercy... that is assuming she has any realization/remorse of what she has done.

This woman's crime, imo, was at least as, if not more horrendous:
On Oct. 25, 1994, Susan Smith, distraught over a love affair, released the safety brake on her car and let it roll down the boat ramp with her sons still strapped inside in the back seat.
For nine days, she insisted that a black man had commandeered her car, and she begged tearfully on nationwide television for her sons' safe return. On Nov. 3, she confessed that she had drowned the boys.
Ms. Smith was sentenced in July 1995 to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 2025.

Doesn't say much for the consistency of our legal system...