Since then, each has been denied parole dozens of times. Supporters say their continued imprisonment makes a mockery of the idea of rehabilitation. Minier, now a retired judge, favors parole for all three kidnappers.
"Quite frankly, I am simply amazed that Richard Schoenfeld, given his record as a model prisoner, was not paroled years ago," Minier wrote the parole board in 2006.
At the Feb. 23 news conference in San Francisco, Dale Fore, one of the lead investigators in the case, said: "They were just dumb rich kids, and they paid a hell of a price for what they did."
After retiring from the Madera County Sheriff's Department, Fore worked as a private investigator for the Woods family's attorneys, tracking down kidnapping victims to see if any would write letters of support for parole. None has.
"I might not be the most popular guy when I get back home," Fore said. "But right is right. How much time do you want out of these guys?"
If you ask the people of Chowchilla, the answer is life without parole. On one hand, the crime as planned was horrific. On the other hand, no one was seriously hurt in the end. Many people convicted of murder receive lighter sentences. On the other hand, this crime could have ended as a mass murder. What do you think? Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Associated Press)
They have already payed for their actions, making them continue living an aimless life in prison is just cruel and excessive.
Sounds about right to me.
So much is wrong here.. if you want punishment, just fricking torture people and cut the 'time' and 'cost' to a minimum....
Let them rot.
35 years in prison is a long time. But so is 16 hours buried alive.
This was premeditated and there is no proof that they would have even let them go if they even got the cash. I like what John A. said, the victims should get the last say. Maybe have the convicted record a plea/apology and see if the victims actually believe them.
Can't we just once have an example of rich people getting the sentence that a poor person would have?
That said, a lot of prisoners are redeemable and would benefit from counseling, therapy, etc. But that costs money and most people just want to see prisoners suffer instead of get rehabilitated. Sad, no?
i envision the two hands being weights that will be dropped at the same time on a lever, the heavier weight will toss the lighter(therfore weaker) weight up in the air. one weight is "no one was serously hurt in the end". we'll call that one maybe 50 lbs because its A)true and B) 35 years is a while. now on the other hand "bury a man and 26 children alive in a quarry and hope to make $5 million off it, and in the subsequent lawsuit fail to convince a SINGLE(remember appealling cases) judge or jury that you had ANY intention of letting them out". if that weight isnt over 27,000 times heavier, than your outlook into the world is A)flawed and B)dagerously scary.
these men may have changed, 35 years is a long time to live in such a gloomy place as prison. but the fact remains i dont care how much it costs the taxpayer(ME), i WANT my tax money spent on keeping these types of people in jail. as noted in the thread, there are many flaws in our system of justice and such, but lets all just act Happy when it is working EXACTLY as we want it in this case
Interestingly enough the general idea and naming of "penetentiaries" was penance; remorse for past conduct. And that is the stated goal of the current prison system, otherwise given as rehabilitation.
There are a couple of high-profile cases that I think can be considered when evaluating this one. The first is that of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold who were convicted of the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks. They abducted him because he appeared vulnerable and not because of anything personal between them. They then killed him and left his body in the woods. After killing Franks, Leopold and Loeb attempted to get ransom money from the parents. In hindsight this behavior was odd because Leopold and Loeb were both from wealthy families and could have just about anything they wanted. Certainly more than the Franks would be able to pay.
A clue to their motives came with the confession of Richard Loeb. He accidentally said something like "I planned it so well, you won't figure it out." to the cops. So what was the reason? Loeb had an IQ rating of 210 and Leopold's was rated at 180. Psychoanalysts called into the case determined that Loeb planned the murder as a test of his intelligence and ability to out-smart police investigators. Leopold on the other hand was more enamored by Loeb and had requested homosexual congess with Loeb. Loeb agreed if Leopold would help him carry out his plan to commit the perfect crime. Ironically, investigators were led to Leopold when a pair of eye-glasses were retrieved from the crime scene, the bridge piece came from a local retailer who recognized them as belonging to Leopold.
What is interesting about this case is the particular kind of neuroses that led to the murder. Both Leopold and Loeb were "model prisoners" inside the United States prison system. Leopold even founded one of the first libraries and schools in a prison. Perhaps Loeb continued to fancy himself smarter than the police, more than likely however, his delusion was shattered when he was caught.
The second case was much more recent and it is that of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Williams was credited as a co-founder of the Crips, a South Central Las Angeles street gang. He was convicted on several accounts of murder and armed robbery. Williams was sentenced to death and lived the remainder of his life on death-row. What is particularly interesting about Williams is that he was the model of a reformed inmate. He became deeply religious and remorseful for his past offenses. In 1997 during an apology he said that he would "spend the rest of my life working toward solutions." Williams penned several books aimed at youth and the laudable "Protocol for Peace" which I recommend reading. Williams filed for Clemency with Schwarzenegger, then Governor of California. While considering the case a large support group built up around Williams to support his application, but an even larger group rose up to see to it that he was executed. Interestingly, a split occurred in the victim's families, some wanted him executed, but just as many wanted him to spend the rest of his life in prison (the result of getting clemency) writing to troubled youth inerested in gang culture.
If there was ever the possibility of the most heinous criminal being reformed, Stanley "Tookie" Williams certainly seemed to fit our expectations. Still, there is some vengefulness in the general population that ensured Schwarzenegger's decision would be a negative to Williams.
On that final note; I've spent some time studying the interviews given by Charles Manson and the man has a surprising amount of insight into the vengeful-hateful nature of the average human being who resides outside of prison and who would readily latch onto the labels "Patriot" or "Do-gooder". He claims there is a drastic decrease in the appearance of dishonesty inside of prison, where a single lie can get you killed. Outside of prison, falsehoods predominate, people are far removed from the reality of their own self-hood, which in prison they are forced to recognize. So perhaps, we should all spend a year or two in prison to get to know ourselves.
The reason I bring up his name is that he came to defend Leopold and Loeb because of his metaphysical beliefs and how they pertain to crime. These can be learned from his 1922 book Crime: Its Cause and Treatment. Which I think gives a clear insight into why the justice system doesn't serve to reduce or prevent crime.
The book can be viewed on project gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12027)
"What is a mitigating circumstance? Is it youth? If so, why? Simply because the child has not the judgment of life that a grown person has...
"Here are two boys who are minors. The law would forbid them making contracts, forbid them marrying without the consent of their parents, would not permit them to vote. Why? Because they haven't the judgment which only comes with years, because they are not fully responsible...
"I cannot understand the glib, lighthearted carelessness of lawyers who talk of hanging two boys as if they were talking of a holiday or visiting the races..."
Darrow then looked at Judge Caverly and his voice hushed in respect, "I don't believe there is a judge in Cook County that would not take into consideration the mental status of any man before they sentence him to death."
"They call it a cold-blooded murder because they want to take human lives....This is the most cold-blooded murder, says the State, that ever occurred....I have never yet tried a case where the state's attorney did not say that it was the most cold-blooded, inexcusable, premeditated case that ever occurred. If is was murder, there never was such a murder...Lawyers are apt to say that."
"This is a senseless, useless, purposeless, motiveless act of two boys....There was not a particle of hate, there was not a grain of malice, there was no opportunity to be cruel except as death is cruel -- and death is cruel."
"They had a weird, almost impossible relationship. Leopold, with his obsession of the superman, had repeatedly said that Loeb was his idea of the superman. He had the attitude toward him that one has to his most devoted friend, or that a man has to a lover. Without the combination of these two, nothing of this sort probably would have happened....all the testimony of the alienists....shows that this terrible act was the act of immature and diseased brains, the act of children.
"Nobody can explain it any other way.
"No one can imagine it any other way.
"It is not possible that it could have happened in any other way."
This book also lead me to research on the influence metaphorical-framing on public perception of crime which is very interesting.
And I can direct readers to Johnathan Cohen and Joshua Greene, Criminologists, Psychologists and advocates of a consequentialist approach to criminal justice.
I'll follow up when I get the title of the other documents.
Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in
Reasoning
Paul H. Thibodeau, Lera Boroditsky*
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/crime-metaphors.pdf
I couldn't find the book I promised, I had closed it I guess. But there is another here that address the issue more directly:
Doing Justice Better: The Politics Of Restorative Justice by David J. Cornwell
And finally, the paper For The Law Neuroscience Changes Nothing and Everything by Jonathan Cohen and Joshua Greene
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/GreeneWJH/GreeneCohenPhilTrans-04.pdf
"Free will as we ordinarily
understand it is an illusion generated by our cognitive
architecture. Retributivist notions of criminal responsibility
ultimately depend on this illusion, and, if we are
lucky, they will give way to consequentialist ones, thus
radically transforming our approach to criminal justice."
The absence of free-will as a belief is common among neuroscientists, however there are a few exceptions, such as Michael Gazzaniga. Some of these men, lawyers and other justice official organized by the Dana Foundation attempted to rebut the consequenalist view.
For more proponents from science of the view that free-will is false and or our justice systems flawed see:
Brain, Mind and Consciousness (conference)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4831204601412295941
Beyond Belief
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival
Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0
Here is a teaser; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdRZk4NRgYs