Thursday, May 25, 2006

Heh

Don't think he's going to get to plead out of this one.

5 comments:

Becca said...

Heh. Wow. And after the attorney did all that work, probably at no expense to the defendant. Ungrateful. I'd ask to withdraw, too.

The Bard said...

No, no, you have this all wrong. The poor crook must have been a victim of some kind of societal oppression that forced him to the act (note I did not say crime) that got him into court in the first place. Then, I am sure that the lawyer did not serve the client well. The whole thing is the fault of everyone except the Latrell Spreewell wanna-be choker, and I am sure there is a strong ineffective assistance of counsel claim somewhere.

Becca said...

Indeed, Bard. Forgive me: I had once again slipped into my white middle-class privileged paradigm. Where is my compassion? But then, who can blame me--after all, it's not my fault I'm white, middle class, and privileged... Where's my victim card?

Ben said...

Well aware that this conversation is already dead and I should have been reading Monica's blog more often, still gotta say....

No, no, you see it was the straw man who made him do it...the same straw man who constructed your satirical argument. There's a huge difference between saying mental illness or a lifetime of abuse mitigates responsibility enough so that a defendant should not be executed for murder.....and saying that a person is entirely not responsible for his actions because of his race, childhood, etc.

The former is a valid argument in deciding whether the ultimate measure of execution should be taken. The latter is a fantasy, a construct in the minds of some conservatives to demonize the idea that there is such a thing as collective responsibility (as well as individual responsibility).

Monica said...

I'll buy it, Ben. Thanks for posting that up. :-)