An addled state spares killers’ lives

[Police Moderator]

An addled state spares killers’ lives but specializes in works of commerce
December 6, 2012 by David Tulis

The faces of the seven sheriff’s deputies are glum. The photo of these dark clad men in a courtroom shows among them, dressed in a bright orange, the figure of cop killer Jesse Mathews. He is attending a hearing that will let him cop a plea, avoid trial and escape capital punishment.

The newspaper headline states plain facts, “Life without parole, Mathews pleads guilty to killing police sergeant.” The expressionless officers seem nearly bored, as if plea hearings are a commonplace. The family of the slain officer, Tim Chapin, accepts the prosecutor’s formulation of the case and endorsed what the newspaper suggests is an act of mercy, one proposed by Mr. Mathews’ attorney. The attorney proposed Mr. Cox cage the furies of justice aimed at his client, and that his client would be content to remain in prison until his last day.

In a plea bargain the facts are kept from public view. The state avoids the arduous task of a death penalty trial and the years of appeals that follow. At stake are convenience, workload and economy. For these, the courts’ officers — the lawyers, the judges, the state’s attorneys — dodge a duty to try cases before juries. Jury trials are a constitutional right arising out of reformational Christianity’s democratizing and de-absolutizing of government. The jury is a means of keeping totalitarianism in check. Open trial is also a requisite to imposition of a death sentence in a case where God’s law and Tennessee common law call for capital punishment.

So routine are humanistic reinterpretations of ancient rules of justice that the district attorney, Bill Cox, is quoted as saying that life in prison is effectively a death penalty. No doubt, Mr. Cox is doing the best he can to clear Judge Barry Steelman’s docket. But life in prison is not effectively a death penalty. Mr. Mathews will live out his days at a charge to taxpayers of F$23,663 a year, and won’t stir himself toward any effort at restitution to the Chapin family.

Read more: nooganomics

[Kordax]

Looks like Mr. Tulis, the author of this piece, randomly plucked some note cards from several 200-words-or-less essay homework assignments -- one dealing with crime/punishment, another with theocracies, another set of cards contained pretentious Latinate phrases suitable for filling up space, and so on ... .

With apologies to VP Joe Biden, this can be summed up in one word:

Mangled Misguided Mishmash

[TNBear]

I find Mr. Tulis' writing to be mostly decidedly dumb drek.

[Tsavodiner]

Quite the contrary, from my experienced point of view, he's spot-on.

In the early days of my career, a nighttime business burglary, unoccupied structure, routinely brought an eight-year sentence.

EIGHT YEARS.

Tennessee, like many other States of the time , followed the Platonic dictum of dealing harshly with small matters lest they become great ones. Most of the time they didn't.

1989 came, along with the Criminal Sentencing Reform Act, and all that changed.
you'd be hard-pressed to get someone eight years they'll actually SERVE for their third or fourth armed robbery, and NOBODY goes to jail now until they rape a child or kill somebody, AT LAST, usually after a lifetime criminal career.

People like Issac Jones and Jesse Mathews flee or get sent here precisely BECAUSE we're such a PUSSY criminal justice State and everybody KNOWS it.

Meanwhile, we live in a City that now owns a Riverfront, at least two entertainment venues that operate on a "cash" basis and LOSE a million dollars a year, and so many pieces of public "art" you'd be hard-pressed to count.

Meanwhile, the Feds marched in the right direction and BURY criminals for forever.

No, Tulis is onto something, and it smells like the decay of a once-thriving City.

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/dec/12/chattanooga-missy-crutchfield-must-go/?opinionfreepress