I'm feeling very stabby right now after reading that.
If that happened to my kids I would have to show those responsible the backwoods of Maine.

//Maine has more unincorporated territory than any other state east of the Mississippi.
///Almost like Nevada, just with trees

I'm not trying to argue against the punishment for the two offenders, and I'm certainly no student of U.S. jurisprudence, so I've got to ask these questions to seek clarification:

1. Are these statements by the children an appeal to emotion?
2. If so, does it have a place in how juries should sentence?

If anyone has answers, I'd love to hear them.

cretinbob: Ever see a severly burned kid? I have, and luckily he's still alive. It's not nice.

I've seen several severely burned people, including a kid, in the burn unit at Bridgeport Hospital in CT. I'm not even going to try to describe the horror.

One night, after debriedment of a particularly badly burned patient's wounds, one of the best nurses I have ever known came out, stared just past my left ear, and whispered, "I wish she would die."

Quasar: Victim impact statements are for sentencing, not juries.

Thanks for the clarification.

"Flaca"? She sounds fat.

"enter the sun"? Subby, I don't know why they'd want to do that. The burns would be much, much worse.

She certainly has no future as an artist.

i cannot understand that headline. what is this?

Marley: cretinbob: Ever see a severly burned kid? I have, and luckily he's still alive. It's not nice.

I've seen several severely burned people, including a kid, in the burn unit at Bridgeport Hospital in CT. I'm not even going to try to describe the horror.

One night, after debriedment of a particularly badly burned patient's wounds, one of the best nurses I have ever known came out, stared just past my left ear, and whispered, "I wish she would die."

fap?

DIAF

Can we pretend they did this in Saudi Arabia? Just use gasoline and a match on them?

The Saudis are batshiat crazy but they do have a way with justice sometimes....

One of the people who wrote a "character letter" on Gonzalez's behalf is her half-brother, Heriberto Viramontes. In April, he was charged with fracturing the skulls of two women with a baseball bat as they walked home in Bucktown. One of the women, Natasha McShane, was left in a coma and hospitalized for months.

Damn. Angry mob anyone?

2 girls, 1 testimony.

GAT_00: Are we supposed to base judgements on the age of the victims?

Yes.

GAT_00: Why should a sentence be harsher for one person over another?

Because if you burn a 5 year old they spend decades living with it. If you burn a 95 year old, they wouldn't spend as long. The actual consequences of harming a younger child are larger than someone older.

As for your death penalty stuff, I'm not sure I want to venture there. I don't see a need for the death penalty in any cases where there the victim doesn't die. But if a 5 year old was horribly tortured and killed versus a 55 year old, I'd be much quicker to want to execute them for the 5 year old, based on the reasoning above.

This offender likes fire. Time for some medieval justice for a medieval crime.

I picked a bad day to give up my eye-for-an-eye stance.

Panty Sniffer: She certainly has no future as an artist.

You sound like a pirate.

Goose4: "enter the sun"? Subby, I don't know why they'd want to do that. The burns would be much, much worse.

Came to say this..
/ "no more birthdays"? seriously, do you really think those kids wrote that?

Panty Sniffer: She certainly has no future as an artist.

Though her work does have the potential to appear on Maddox's website.

Gonzalez's lawyers say she flew into a jealous rage that escalated after months of threatening exchanges between the two women over men and never intended to harm the two girls.

Well guess what, the fire you started damn well farking did.


Farking oxygen thief... >_

lennavan: GAT_00: Are we supposed to base judgements on the age of the victims?

Yes.

GAT_00: Why should a sentence be harsher for one person over another?

Because if you burn a 5 year old they spend decades living with it. If you burn a 95 year old, they wouldn't spend as long. The actual consequences of harming a younger child are larger than someone older.

As for your death penalty stuff, I'm not sure I want to venture there. I don't see a need for the death penalty in any cases where there the victim doesn't die. But if a 5 year old was horribly tortured and killed versus a 55 year old, I'd be much quicker to want to execute them for the 5 year old, based on the reasoning above.

So if some sicko rapes some 5 year olds and keeps them locked up and tortures them, you don't think the death penalty would be deserving? There are MANY cases that should result in the death penalty, the problem is determining guilt as the Death Penalty is an absolute, there is no room for margin of error. I don't think the question should be whether or not to use the Death Penalty, just when the Death Penalty could be used. The evidence should have to be absolutely irrefutable.

GAT_00: I don't understand the death penalty stuff for this woman. Are we supposed to base judgements on the age of the victims? What's the age when it's death penalty time for maiming someone and when does it transition to life in prison? Why should a sentence be harsher for one person over another?

It's not the age, it's the fire.

Fire, as a show, is awesome. I'm a pyro. I've set fire to things in ways probably should've gotten me killed. I like seeing explosions and sparks and blazes.

Fire, as a weapon, is nasty. If you use fire on something that's alive, you're a sick, sick person. A sadist, a psychopath, a dangerous freak who needs to be shot for the sake of the world.

If I was already burned, I definitely would not try to enter the sun. In fact, I might put some thought into avoiding it regardless of my burn status.

/set the controls for the heart of the sun

If you ever think that your life sucks, go visit a burn ward in any major hospital. I have a friend who got severely burned in a car wreck many years ago, mostly on his legs and torso, to the point where he was very close to losing his feet for a while. I don't remember the degrees or percentages or anything like that, but off hand I would say "Not as bad as many, but worse than most".

You show up for visitation, when they eventually allow it, and they've got you scrubbing your hands and arms under the watchful eye of a nurse, who isn't shy about telling you when you're doing a piss-poor job of it, then you're putting on this gown and feet covers and maybe a mask as well. You go in there and because it's your friend you're trying to be jovial and lift their spirits, while they're lying there in so much pain they're begging the nurses for more morphine, and dreading the next roll-over or bandage change with a fear you know that you will never be able to understand. It's selfish to think it, but really it's just a horrible experience for you: here's this person who a week ago was kicking your ass in basketball, now a wad of gauze and scars, and quite honestly it's all you can do to just make an appearance and find a reason why you have to leave.

Then as you're leaving with these horrible thoughts and images and guilt because you're leaving still in your head, you look to the left and there's a 5 year old girl, surrounded by her family, in even worse shape. You get out to the exterior waiting room and have to sit down, because for a few minutes you no longer have the will to do anything.