[Peace] Bravo to Ryan

[John Fettig]

* Dlind49 at aol.com <Dlind49 at aol.com>: 
> reichel at students.uiuc.edu writes:
> 
> << racist, classist death penalty >>
> 
> This statement is not verifiable. If you review crime and murder rates you 
> will find a disproportional part of the population , minorities, commit the 
> crimes.   The latest homicide 2001 statistics for Chicago reveal:
> <large snip>

Your statistics only show that a large number of minorities are being
convicted, which is not always equivalent to guilt.  It does happen that
people are falsely convicted, which is why we should be even more
vigilant about racism in the legal system.  If you start lumping all
minorities together as criminals, you will start making a million
mistakes.
 
> In  conclusion: Criminals/murders  must be  punished swiflty and
> without all the repeated arrests before they are put on trial and
> trhen convicted over and over brfore being incarcerated. Now we see
> career criminals given communtation and they will then get out  to
> kill, rob, rape again and that is their choice!
> <snip> 
> Next time anyone advocates letting these jerks, killers, rapists, off
> then maybe you need to provide protection for past victims families
> and go live with these criminals yourself.  See how long you last?

I think perhaps you have mistook what commutation means.  According to
Cnn.com: 
"All but three of the commutations will reduce the inmates' sentences to
life without parole; the remaining three will be reduced to 40 years to
life to bring their sentences in line with co-defendants."

Life without parole is hardly letting them off! (note, there are 157
people total affected by this commutation) Personally I don't believe
that killing murderers solves anything, so naturally I don't see
anything wrong with what Ryan did.  But even if you did support the
death penalty, it has been made abundantly clear that innocent men have
been executed in Illinois.  This is unnacceptable, and is the reason for
Ryan's actions.

John