Rethinking life without parole.

• Author: Thomas, Bill
• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

"Don't Throw Away the Key" (October issue) by Luis J. Rodriguez was, in my opinion, both one-sided and naive. Conspicuously absent were the voices of the victims. Unfortunately, they have been deprived of their voices--permanently. I'm sure they would be able to make a much more convincing argument that the violent, heinous crimes perpetrated against them constitute a more cruel and unnecessary punishment than does life without parole.

It is difficult to imagine what Rodriguez would consider to be an appropriate response to these heinous crimes. That those sentenced to life without parole feel a sense of hopelessness, despair, remorse, guilt, and loneliness is not cruel and unnecessary punishment; it is simply the consequence of having committed such crimes.

The cries for rehabilitation, hope, healing, giving back, and community enhancement are, in the majority of cases, naive. These are people who have demonstrated the ability to commit the most horrible crimes and as a result have been deservedly isolated from civilized society.

I am against the death penalty. It is as barbaric as the crimes it is designed to punish. It is based on vengeance. It disrespects the sanctity of all life. It promotes and perpetuates the notion that violence is a solution. It is irreversible when done in error, and it is not a deterrent to those who consider the taking of life to be of no consequence.

Life without parole is a preferable alternative.

Bill Thomas

via e-mail

I have just put down the article by Luis Rodriguez regarding life without parole, and it left me mulling over my own preference for it after my sister was so brutally slain in northern Arizona.

My sister's killer was nineteen. She had taken him under her wing as a friend and mentor since he was age fourteen. He was abused by his mother and suffered brain injury at the hands of his so-called friends in high school. With an IQ of sixty-seven, he has been declared ineligible for the death penalty, according to the Supreme Court.

Neither my surviving sister nor myself wanted capital punishment in the first place, thinking at the time that life without parole would be a fitting sentence.

It does not...