Why run the risk with death penalty?
The Brian Dugan trial has stirred up a great commotion on the capital punishment controversy. All elements of the media are front paging articles and stories on various subjects regarding the issue.
Coming from a conservative family, I should follow the age-old "an eye for an eye" expression ... but isn't that too easy? What Dugan (and every other person on death row, alike) did was absolutely unforgivable. Granting him the death sentence would be letting him off too easy. Call me spiteful, but I believe a lifetime of suffering in solitary confinement without parole would be much more effective than death sentence. Hands down, capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment; it doesn't matter what crime was committed.
By sentencing Dugan to death, are we not stooping to his level? After ruining his own chances at a happy life, this estranged man probably wants nothing more than to put an end to his miserable, prison existence, in the long run. We shouldn't give Dugan anything he wants.
My heart goes out, sympathetically, to the family of murder victims. I understand why a family in this situation might argue, "if the victim can no longer wake up in the morning, why should her murderer deserve to?" I challenge people to give the matter thought from other perspectives.
After hearing about Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez wrongly sentenced to death, I stand even firmer about this subject. It is horrifying to think about innocent men being put to death. That's murder. Why run the risk? Lifetime imprisonment without parole can protect the innocently convicted from murder, while granting a punishment worse than death to the guilty.
Bianca Minniti
Glendale Heights