I’ll tell you with considerable pride that I haven’t given more than the compulsory two minutes of my attention to the Laci Peterson case. It really wasn’t a conscious decision so much as that is how little I watch network news and read the local paper. If it were a conscious decision to avoid this stuff, it’d probably have been more like a couple hours of my life wasted on a murder (notice I didn’t say “alleged”) way across the country. As a side note to my lack of awareness on this case: NPR’s search engine shows that they have only TWO articles containing the term “Laci”, as compared to the some 30 articles dealing with the “Artic National Wildlife Refuge”. I think that explains it pretty well.
Further, Louisville has had a bona-fide rash of murders in it’s own right the last couple of weeks. At least seven within the last week, totalling some 60 for the year, a figure that far outweighs the 2 people killed by Scott Peterson both in number and personal relevance.
As I heard the father of the most recently slain boy (17-year-old Johnathan Watson) in Louisville say this morning (paraphrased): “I just want everyone with the guns to know that, yeah, you’re the big men today — but know this — you didn’t just kill a boy, you killed a whole family.” So, while the death of Laci Peterson and their unborn child is certainly tragic and reprehensible, we’ve got 60 families right here in town that could use a little more attention.
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The fact that a woman and child died at the hands of someone else is sad and yes, it happens in our own home-towns and overseas. This initself may not be worthy of mass discussion. However, the travesty of justice played out in the media with Scott Peterson’s conviction and the jury’s decision to have him die by lethal injection is something that you, as Americans, living in that system, should fear. Not so much the death penalty, though I take issue with that, but with the guilty verdict itself.
Those of you who were shouting cheers.. do you just trust in the jurors coming to an accurate conviction based on ‘evidence’ presented. Maybe, he didn’t do it. Maybe he did. Do we now “know” that he is “guilty” because a jury said so. In an ideal case. But, this wasn’t. Maybe. Maybe is not good enough. Unless, you live in the USofA and cheat on your wife.. then I suppose the death warned by God for immoral sexual activity and for breaking commandments such as “thou shalt not commit adultery” can be extended to a sentencing of death by Lethal Injection. If you support the outcome of this farce of a trial, whether or not your opinion is of the fact that he did do it or he didn’t, I should be very afraid, if I were you. You just got had by your justice system. Scott Peterson was convicted because he was an adulterer. Not because the investigators and prosecution did their job correctly. And, had their laxidaisical efforts been seen for what they were, he would be free, based on the truth and justice of “innocent until proven guilty” that is touted throughout the home of the brave and free. Was he guilty? Is he? Maybe. If maybe is good enough for you, beware of what you do, that you may not end up unremorsefully innocent in your own unfortunate set of coincidental circumstance. But, then again.. maybe he did. We’ll just have to hope that is true. And, hope that hope and intuition serves this justice well, because reasonable doubt and fact did not.
I didn’t watch the trial, and as I stated in my post, I made a point to avoid it. I’ll agree that media saturation on a trial often exerts pressures on the judicial system that cause the “circus” that those trials often become. I can’t go as far you do in saying that Scott Peterson “might be guilty” or “might be innocent” — none of us save for the jury members could really sit in judgement of him. Our judicial system here in the United States is certainly flawed, but I find it “less flawed” than most. Some few who are innocent are proven guilty and those guilty proven innocent, but for the majority, I believe that justice is served, and served by a jury of our peers. (And will be served by numerous appeals, I’m sure).
I can’t go so far as to state that the trial was a farce, but I do think that the death penalty is a rash, hypocritical and ultimately useless measure. If our government is “for the people by the people”, then shouldn’t our government heed the same laws against killing? I do not believe that any man, woman, child or a government comprised of those people have the right to kill another person.
By the way — I’m assuming you aren’t a US citizen from your comment — if so, where are you from?