“Please Kill Me”
Former Mafia boss Carmelo Musumeci has written a letter, published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, in which he asks Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to convert his life-in-prison sentence into the death penalty. Musumeci wrote: “I die a little bit each day. Honestly, I’d rather die immediately.”
After a long career in the mafia, he has been in prison for 17 years now. In prison, he finished (his) high school, and got a law degree. However, he writes, “light has become shadow.”
310 other prisoners co-signed the letter.
There is one problem: Italy abolished the death penalty after World War II. The prisoners would like the President to reinstate it (for them).
President Napolitano did not want to take this decision and has forwarded the request to the government and Parliament. Chances that Musumeci’s request will be honored are slim.
It goes to show how horrible, how hopeless life in prison can be. Of course, life in prison is not meant to be entertaining and uplifting, I am not saying anything to support these people, but too often people make it look like life in prison is fun.
It’s not.
Life in prison is horrendous. It’s boring. It’s alienating. It’s mind-numbing.
19 Responses to ““Please Kill Me””
Provide him with a noose and a place to hang it.
I have no problem with the death penality in theory, but I don’t trust the justice system in any country for it to be put into practice.
Let the coward kill himself. I would guess in his crime career he didn’t have a problem with murder.
This is a good reason to be against the death penalty. If their crimes are so heinous that they merit a life sentence, rehabilitation is useless and unwarranted in such cases, they should be forced to remember every day they are there because of what they did. Let them rot. I can think of no better deterrent to others.
Carmelo, meet Dr. Kevorkian!
Ashen Shard I disagree. It’s not that I don’t think that remembering every day and living the hell that is prison is overly cruel, especially for certain prisoners, it’s that I don’t trust life sentences. They have a nasty way of not being real sometimes. 20 years later, when the horror isn’t as fresh in the mind of the people, and the cameras have turned away, many a monster is quietly released, despite having been sentenced to 1000 year sentences. Execution makes sure that doesn’t happen.
Yes, Execution prevents all kinds of things that don’t justify its use and as a deterrent – it isn’t.
Whatever happened to ‘turn the other cheek?’
Justice is justice, but in my view it should not bear the blood lust of vengeance.
I’ve always hated the death sentence. One reason is that the governemtn has to make killers out of the people who administer the sentence.
Capt. Fogg. A) the death penalty was never meant as a deterrent for others, only to deter the accused and convicted. B) it is 100% successful as a deterrent. Name me an executed murderer who has ever killed again. Case closed.
Justice is vengeance in a suit and tie. get over it. And there is a fundamental diff between killing and murder, just as sex and rape are different.
You have your strong views, as I would expect, but I don’t agree with you in this case.
Rape is involuntary sex.
Killing is always involuntray, so the killing/murder analogy does not apply.
And I have no intention of getting over it.
Wow, the analogy between sex/rape and killing/murder is so flawed I cannot even begin to counter it.
For many reasons I am opposed to the death penalty. If a murderer is getting out of prison after 20 years on a life sentence, killing the murderer doesn’t really sound like the right solution.
Cosmetician:
Indeed killing prisoners has for centuries been marketed as a deterrent to others whether you admit it or not. It’s been an issue in several presidential campaigns as others will remember.
But I reiterate my point, your fear of being murdered by an escapee does not justify killing anyone. Justice is not about accounting and it’s not about revenge and it’s not about putting safety above all. If what you posted were a real argument instead of a patronizing platitude, you would have to accept, for consistency’s sake, mutilations as a way of reducing recidivism for minor crimes, because it would certainly work. Pickpockets need hands.
Of course as a deterrent to others, it’s failed in the Sharia theocracies and it’s failed massively through history. Countries without judicial murder have far less murder than we do and of course, even if cowardice were justification for barbarity as you believe, there’s always the established fact of judicial fallibility. No falsely executed prisoner was ever set free either.
Doma: Killing can be justifiable, and a good thing. The killing of a murderer is an amelioration to society, as it makes all safer. Murder makes society less safe. Killing can be good or ill, murder is ill. Rape is ill. SEx can be a good or bad thing. If one has a one dimensional approach to things, black and white are easy to suckle. Life is gray.
DJ: Wa sthat a reply or a belch?
Capt: ‘Indeed killing prisoners has for centuries been marketed as a deterrent to others whether you admit it or not. It’s been an issue in several presidential campaigns as others will remember.’
Starwman alert. Here’s what i wrote: ‘the death penalty was never meant as a deterrent for others, only to deter the accused and convicted.’ It has always been a specific solution for a specific act. That politicians politicize it is irrelevant to what I stated. Abortion is politicized, but it’s still a personal decision. Your point has no relevance to what I stated.
Justice is abput holding the perpetrator accountable and about organized vengeance by society vs. personal vengeance by the aggrieved or their families. Again, this is reality, not theory.
Platitudes are the doublespeak that alibiers for silly policies use. Pickpocketing is a minor crime. To be equivalent with capital punishment, the severance of one’s hand would have to be a punition for someone who cut off another’s limbs. And I think that would be a just punishment. But not for a pickpocket.
As for failing throughout history. No. Again, ‘Name me an executed murderer who has ever killed again.’
If by judicial murder you mean the death penalty, you misdefine, for execution by the state is not murder. Thus the diff between killing and murder. Murder is the wrongful killing of an innocent. A murderer is not innocent.
And, I’m all for establishing high standards for guilt. And if no case meets that standard, so be it. And prosecutors who falsify facts and evidence should face severe punition, possibly up to cap pun itself. That’ll keep things honest. But, to be against death for the McVeighs, bin Ladens, Bundys, Gottis, Gacys, etc. is a sign of callousness to the innocent that is almost comical- considering that kindness is always a rationale against cap pun.
And, we all know that for every possibly falsely accused and convicted murderer, there are 999 Claus von Bulows and others that get away with murder, literally. The judicial system is not perfect, but in the worst and indisputable cases, such as that Mafiosi that wants to die, DO IT!
Your silence to my query of no executed murderer killing again is called concession that the death penalty is the ULTIMATE deterrent.
Cosmo-
Your logic is jumping around like a crazed frog.
You say life is gray, but all your arguments are just black/white pronouncements.
KIlling is killing. And one of my main arguments against capital punishment is that it requires the state to create killers to apply the punishment.
BTW, when people talk about deterrence value, they usually think of whether or not capital punishment deters other potential killers, not the already executed. The latter case is nonsensical.
Oh, enough of the Cosmetic casuistry. the eye for an eye accounting system may have been fine for the bronze age, but this isn’t the bronze age and time makes ancient good uncouth as the poet said. Your argument is all about justifying the killing of people out of fear: kill them all so that the one in a million that escapes can’t kill you.
You don’t have to reduce it too far before you hit the absurdum part. If you want to live in a country where you kill people you’re afraid of, don’t waste our time with the rebarbate sophistry – just go find one. I won’t, without protest, live where the state kills people it does not need to kill because that’s close enough to a good definition of murder for me and I do not wish to participate in murder. Your “high standard” is unachievable and when it comes to even one mistake, it’s murder – judicial murder. Your hidden assumption that any particular convict will kill again if he escapes is another statement begging for some evidence that cannot be produced. Was that supposed to fly by unchallenged as well?
The function of the State is not to offer you complete and ultimate safety at the expense of someone’s life, but to facilitate justice. These are not completely compatible ideas as freedom and justice require acceptance of fallibility and acceptance of risk. Killing pro salute Imperii is the justification of cowards and the police states they love.
It has been proven far too well in this country that innocent men have been sent to death row. Supporters of the death penalty try to claim that there is no evidence that an innocent man has ever actually been killed. Their logic doesn’t wash. The only reason the men who have been saved from an unjustified execution are still alive is modern DNA testing. The same judicial process that convicted these innocent men has been in place for the entire history of this country. How anyone can logically say that the same system that put these innocent men on death row has never executed innocent people before this testing was available is beyond me.
Doma: ‘KIlling is killing.’
If a stranger breaks into your home and kills your wife or daughter, that is fundamentally diff than if you arrive in time and kill him in the process of killing them. This is why there are degrees of killing- from murder down to justifiable homicide. A legal executioner is diff than a serial killer, for he is legally sanctioned to execute murderers, who kill without sanction, and w/o mercy and reason. ‘Tis your logic which ain’t. The very fact that cap pun exists is to provide TOTAL deterrence so the murderer never murders again. That’s why it is seen as a punition.
Capt: Learn to read. My argument is not about fear, but justice. Your standard of murder is ridiculous, because it contains no acknowledgement of good and evil, nor guilt and innocence. Keep sailing and one day you’ll find a land with sugra gumdrops and fairies. This is reality.
‘Your hidden assumption that any particular convict will kill again if he escapes is another statement begging for some evidence that cannot be produced. Was that supposed to fly by unchallenged as well?’
Google the term recidivism. Also look up accounts of people released from murder sentences who’ve killed again. Challenge that.
Oh wait, you still haven’t even answered ‘Name me an executed murderer who has ever killed again.’
Until you do, keep tooting on the corn cob, Popeye.
‘The function of the State is not to offer you complete and ultimate safety at the expense of someone’s life, but to facilitate justice.’
Whic is why I wrote: ‘And, I’m all for establishing high standards for guilt. And if no case meets that standard, so be it. And prosecutors who falsify facts and evidence should face severe punition, possibly up to cap pun itself. That’ll keep things honest. But, to be against death for the McVeighs, bin Ladens, Bundys, Gottis, Gacys, etc. is a sign of callousness to the innocent that is almost comical- considering that kindness is always a rationale against cap pun.’
You can try to hide your callousness behind bizarre moralities, but it is what it is- more pie in the sky BS. And little is more cowardly than retreating from reality.
Jim: There were obviously people, like Judge Roy Bean, who hanged innocents, and I’m sure a few have slipped through the cracks, just like I’ve advocated that no woman should be able to get away with date rape claims so easily, and that far too many men have wrongly been convicted of rape.
AGAIN: ‘And, I’m all for establishing high standards for guilt. And if no case meets that standard, so be it. And prosecutors who falsify facts and evidence should face severe punition, possibly up to cap pun itself. That’ll keep things honest. But, to be against death for the McVeighs, bin Ladens, Bundys, Gottis, Gacys, etc. is a sign of callousness to the innocent that is almost comical- considering that kindness is always a rationale against cap pun.’
Perhaps you feel candlelight vigils for the Bundys, Gottis, or McVeighs shows humanity. I say it shows cowardice and callousness toward the victims. Look how many are sure OJ is guilty. I think he did it, but I’fd never send him to death row. The only thing his case proved was that the LA cops were incompetent at falsifying evidence. BUT, when serial killers and hitmen and terrorists are caught redhanded0 hang the bastards, and don’t worry about their levels of pain. Make them suffer, broadcast it on national tv, and make it a requirement that every schoolchild write an essay on what they learned from it. Etch it into their minds. Then maybe the deterrent Capt & others desire will exist. But, I can say with certainty, that Gotti’s ordered no more hits since he croaked, Bundy’s left no more bodies sincehe fried, and McVeigh’s planting no more bombs. Damn effective, whether you believe it, or in fairy tales!
Ans show me where I ever stated or claimed, ‘How anyone can logically say that the same system that put these innocent men on death row has never executed innocent people before this testing was available is beyond me.’
Jim, you’ve been victimized by strawmen on this blog. Don’t join the mob.
Back the pretender into a corner and out comes the ad hominem every time – fantasies about candlelight vigils and all that nonsense from a mind that equates justice with a ledger sheet and morality with safety! Who wants to argue with a guy who invents facts about other people while accusing them of fantasy? Frankly I think we’d all be safer if people like that were lobotomized to prevent recidivism since you can’t really reform them any more than you can make a stupid man smart. Neither can you talk a paranoid out of his fantasies about Ted Bundy breaking out of prison and climbing through his bedroom window.
Let me say it one last time – Justice is not based on how afraid you are or how angry you are or upon how much it reduces crime and your silly argument has been the basis for police states and dictators since the beginning.
What about cutting off the hands of pickpockets and cutting out the tongues of slanderers? can you get past the point that your argument demands these too? What about putting out the eyes of drunk drivers? think of the lives it would save! China shoots people for over 70 crimes – would you feel safer there?
And about recidivism – look up a definition for applying group statistics to individuals and try to fit that into any system of justice. Your logic argues for killing all poor people and all Black people since the statistics have them more likely to commit a crime. Is this beyond you?
Yes, if you kill someone he can’t hurt you. If you kill everyone they can’t hurt you. Really brilliant stuff. Have a good time getting from there to any concept of civilized behavior.
Capt: Do you even know what ad hominem means? If you did you would not use it so inappropriately.
Let me say this one last time: I’ve never argued about justice based upon fear, but upon justice. You have reading comprehension problems, then strawman, and whine when called on it.
‘What about cutting off the hands of pickpockets and cutting out the tongues of slanderers? can you get past the point that your argument demands these too? What about putting out the eyes of drunk drivers? think of the lives it would save! China shoots people for over 70 crimes – would you feel safer there?’
More proof you don’t read. I stated, ‘To be equivalent with capital punishment, the severance of one’s hand would have to be a punition for someone who cut off another’s limbs. And I think that would be a just punishment.’
Feel free to bellow a Homer Simpsonian ‘D’oh!’ any time now.
‘And about recidivism – look up a definition for applying group statistics to individuals and try to fit that into any system of justice. Your logic argues for killing all poor people and all Black people since the statistics have them more likely to commit a crime. Is this beyond you?’
Have you pissed in a bottle lately? Groups are made up of individuals. Again, look up all the crimes, up to and including murder, committed by those pardoned or paroled. Try the fresh air, Poopdeck Pappy.
Your last paragraph is the rationale of a serial killer. When you evolve to think like a normal person, then try replying.
Toot, toot!