90% of us will agree a person caught in the act of committing a very specific abomination should be eliminated. After that, things get complicated, and people disagree on the kinds of punishment which should be meted out.
I personally believe that the following people have proven themselves generally worthless to society, and undeserving of the costs incurred in criminal rehabilitation:
a) Murderers
b) Rapists
c) Paedophiles
d) Terrorists
e) Terrorist supporters
f) Liberals.
The last one's a joke, but the rest of them should be killed. I'm not a sadist, I don't insist that they die painfully, I just don't want them existing on my planet, sucking up my valuable resources anymore. Just shoot them in the head.
But there are cases where a despicable person has not committed a sufficiently bad crime to warrant their death. For instance, I don't believe that men who batter their wives should be killed unless they have killed their wife during said battery. Instead, they should be castrated and imprisoned in the "we're horny sociopaths and we love to rape men, all day, all night" section of the local federal penitentiary.
Most leftists out there will be shaking their delicate heads at this sort of sentiment, decrying it as "bloodthirsty" and "barbarous". But watch how quickly they change their tune if a woman is found to have murdered her husband who beat her. The woman is undoubtedly a victim of intense cruelty, but does she have the right to exterminate her husband, instead of simply seek escape from the marriage through the law?
No doubt many conservatives will (rightly) think that wife batterers have it coming. I'd agree with you, provided that the abuse is heinous, repeated and demonstratable. In that case, good riddance to them. But if there is even a question as to the nature of the abuse, the woman should not just be given a free pass.
This applies even more significantly in cases like the following, where a well-meaning dupe of a (Welsh) Judge has possibly allowed his liberal "woman first" sentiment to cloud his judgement:
Abused woman killed husband
A woman who stabbed her husband with the knife she was using to make his sandwiches is beginning a three-year community rehabilitation order. The judge at Cardiff Crown Court was told Doris Keningale, 43, had suffered frequent verbal abuse.
The distinction is an important one. While verbal abuse can, of course, be terribly cruel and insensitive, it is
never grounds for murder. A man who is verbally abusive is best repaid with divorce and a painful alimony arrangement.
The court did not agree with this idea, having already consigned the fellow to the same category of criminals who evidently deserve to die:
German-born Keningale had previously denied the murder of her husband, Vincent, 61, but admitted manslaughter.
The court heard her husband was a "Jekyll and Hyde" character, and had refused to seek counselling.
The court was told she had not intended to seriously hurt her gardener husband when they started arguing about her plans to launch a jewellery business.
I seriously question the honesty of this statement, for reasons which will shortly be revealed:
The prosecution accepted that Mr Keningale had been verbally abusive. On the night of the stabbing, Mr Keningale, was sitting on a stool in the kitchen of the couple's home in Risca, near Newport, south Wales. He had been drinking and was shouting at his wife.
Keningale moved towards her husband, the court was told, intending to slap him to stop him shouting, but her husband laughed.
It is very interesting that she was the initiator of the transition from verbal to physical conflict. Not something one would typically see in someone allegedly cowed from years of degredation and abuse.
That was when she picked up the knife, which she had been using to make her husband's packed lunch.
It is not revealed exactly what she was making for lunch, but it is clear that this is mentioned in order to make the acquisition of the knife seem almost incidental. To mitigate what was a clearly deliberate act. "Yes, she got the knife, yes, she bore it toward him,
but it was already out on the counter, your honor", etc.
The court heard Keningale turned towards her husband, holding the knife, and he stood up and moved towards her.
It is, of course, completely unverifiable whether or not the man at any time moved toward her. So far, the defense freely admits that all overt physical aggression was initiated by the woman. It is the only time he is described as acting in a physically threatening manner. From their description, the woman having already become violent, then seizing a deadly weapon, it would seem that his one and only physical reaction was a defensive one.
This is where we get to the part of the woman's story that is the most questionable:
The knife, which had an eight-and-a-half blade entered his chest. She had not meant to seriously hurt Mr Keningale, the court heard.
Of course, I have no information as to whether or not the knife (sword?) was entirely embedded in the man's chest, but if it was, it is as good an indicator of the woman's intent to murder as a signed confession. If you don't believe me, I suggest you have a slight woman of advancing years try to "accidentally impale" (according to the defense, that is what occurred - an impalement brought on by the husband's advance) a knife with an 8.5 inch blade inside a moving side of beef, all the way up to the hilt.
You'll very quickly find that you can't, unless the test subject deliberately stabs at the flesh, keeping her wrist firm, driving the blade in all the way. It is very easy to slash someone accidentally. But to stab someone lethally in the chest, you need to penetrate through at least 2-3 inches of flesh and muscle. This fellow was a big man, he is described later in the article as being a former bodyguard to British singer Cliff Richard. For a single stab to kill him, it would have to have been quite well directed, and deeply penetrating.
Also, one wonders what kind of dinosaur the woman was carving up for her husband to eat. She was supposedly making her husband a "packed lunch", and had been using a virtual samurai sword for its preparation. Normally, a breadknife would more than suffice in preparing sandwiches, but I suppose we will have to take the defense's word for it that the giant scimitar from hell was indeed required. Otherwise, their mitigating argument that the knife was readily to hand is completely annihilated:
She later told police: "I did not want to kill him. I just wanted to say: 'Please stop'. He was so aggressive I could not cope any more. It was a cry for help."
This is where sympathetic confusion happens. What is, I believe, a terribly opportunistic defense is plugging in to the natural empathy we all have for legitimately battered wives. This woman, however, was
not a battered wife. She was a humiliated wife who was nonetheless sufficiently self-possessed to initiate physical violence against a man who presented no immediate or historical threat to her wellbeing. This was no "cry for help". A cry for help to her divorce lawyer would have sorted everything out just fine.
The husband is convienently dead, so he cannot answer any of the allegations made against him, none of which seem to be in any way evidenced:
The court heard that the couple were both Cliff Richard fans and had met at one of his concerts in Usk in 1991. Mr Keningale had worked as a bodyguard to the star.
The husband was described as a "Jekyll and Hyde" character, and had refused counselling. His wife had asked him to seek medical help for mood swings and forgetfulness.
Keningale had told the court that mental abuse was worse than if she had been abused physically.
Where oh where are the liberal women's groups who might have shown her some pictures and x-rays to persuade her that being called a "worthless bitch" is perhaps less traumatic than being throttled, thrown down stairs or beaten to a bloody pulp?
But remember, this whole thing happened in Cardiff, Wales, so we can't expect common sense to be a guiding influence. That's probably why the prosecution was seeking to help the defense:
Ieuan Morris, prosecuting, said the couple had few friends and Mr Keningale did not encourage his wife to socialise, and had used "cruel" words. He said it was "a very sad, cruel background, where the verbal abuse was intolerable".
Judging by that discerning prosecution, one suspects that Welsh jails aren't overloaded with convicted occupants.
Peter Murphy, in mitigation, said: "This is as close to an accident as it is possible to come."
Note that the defense themselves acknowledge that this was a deliberate attack, and not an accident. If the man had fallen on the knife while it was held securely vertical by a vice, then it would be an accident. This was a deliberate, calculated assault. The man had not shown any indication that he was going to attack her, so it cannot be classified as self-defense. She advanced on him, she slapped him, she picked up a knife, bore it at him, and
only then did he advance on her (according to the accused, at any rate).
He said his clients remorse was genuine and heartfelt and she remained in love with her late husband, but displayed features of "battered wives' syndrome".
How she feels about the man she murdered is irrelevant, and her attempt to associate her criminal self with legitimate victims of repeated domestic violence is appalling. The judge should have been angered by this charade, not mollified by it.
But mollified he was, displaying yet more of that wonderful Welsh gift for manic idiocy:
Sentencing her, Judge John Griffith Williams QC said: "You were truly and genuinely shocked by what happened."
He gave her a three-year community rehabilitation order.
Not the law, not justice and nowhere near good enough.
Read More...
Summary only...
