There is a Center for Wrongful Convictions attempting to spring a serial murderer from prison despite the killer's confession, and physical and circumstantial evidence tying him to three murders. I am tempted to sponsor a Center for Wrongful Releases in response.

Sixty-three-years ago, William Heirens murdered three people. His victims included a six-year-old girl, whom he kidnapped and then decapitated, leaving her head in a sewer. "There is no reason to keep this man behind bars," claims Steven Drizin, legal director of Northwestern's Center for Wrongful Convictions. "He meets all the criteria for parole." In bizarro world he meets all the criteria for parole. In our world, he doesn't. We're just not that stupid yet.

There are certain people who can empathize only with the living. They see an 81-year-old man suffering behind bars. They can't see the three people he killed. There's a good reason for this: they are dead and gone. But the blindness goes beyond this. They can't even imagine these victims as people with lives and loved ones. Being gone for the bleeding hearts means being forgotten.

For similar reasons, they imagine the criminal justice system as an institution that rehabilitates prisoners and protects society from criminals. They don't see the criminal justice system as an organ to mete out justice on behalf of those who have gone, voiceless, to their graves. Put yourself in such a jumbled mindset, and you begin to understand why they wish to spring a triple murderer from jail. He's 81. Whose safety does his freedom jeopardize? Probably nobody's, but that misses the point of the criminal justice system--to administer justice.

Many of these same morally confused people mistakenly believe that monsters don't age. Once the monster's hair grays, eyelids droop, and stomach protudes, he graduates to from perpetrator to victim. The monster effectively dies when the monster's form changes. But the incarcerated man who suffers from diabetes in 2009 is the same man who terrorized Chicago in 1945 and '46.

"Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent," quipped Adam Smith a long time ago. Times change, but truths remain.

Excellent post, Dan. I particularly liked your comments about 'monsters.'

Still, justice has not been served. That requires his death at the hands of the state. A lengthy prison sentence is severe punishment, but it is not proportionate with the crime.

This type of thing is exactly why I favor the death penalty. Somewhere down the line someone will be trying to get some sicko released.
We had some guy beat a woman with a hammer, let her regain conciousness, raped her over an over with various things he found in the house and only then finished beating her to death with the hammer.
It only took ten years before this guy had groups pleading for his release claiming he was a "changed man", the guy in prison now isn't the same man we locked up. If only we would release him he could contribute to society instead of being a burden to it.
It made me want to puke. Thankfully this monster had been given the death penalty and a couple years later it was carried out.

I am personally ambivalent about the practice of the death penalty, given my strong desire to protect the innocent from falsely bearing the punishment for others' crimes. But I am not against the death penalty in principle; rather, I am very much in favor of it esp. in cases like this, as long as process is truly just. This case sounds cut and dry.

There are many problems with our criminal justice system. Starting with the fact that we incarcerate a higher percentage of our population than any other advanced nation, and most third world nations, too. This stems from the misbegotten notion that every crime is a "crime against society" and must be punished accordingly. That is completely wrongheaded in my view. (The other big problem is the sadistic desire of "society" to punish perpetrators of victimless crimes through incarceration and the consequent straightjacket on the "criminal's" prospects for making a living. The fact that our prisons are overflowing with potheads is a perfect example of this. The blacks are right to be aggrieved about this disproportionate application of "justice.)

Rather, the focus should be on restoration of the victim. In most cases, that should be provided from some modern variant of indentured servitude, where the perpetrator must work for the victim (perhaps through substantial garnishment of wages, etc.) until the victim is "made whole." (The other

In cases of murder and other acts of personal violence, restoration is often not possible (esp. in the former), or not sufficient. In those cases, the role of the criminal justice system should be that of meting out retributive punishment on behalf of the victims. Such a focus would quash the pathetic appeals of groups like the one Dan mentions here.

It's easy: exterminate the vermin.

Four or two legged kind, doesn't matter.

Grossly defective humans should not be allowed to inhabit the planet.

Meanwhile a guy gets 30 years for robbery and throwing his feces around in the courtroom. Tough sentence! Who amongst us has not thrown their own feces at a fellow human being, be it in jest or anger?

"Who amongst us has not thrown their own feces at a fellow human being, be it in jest or anger?"

ONLY if you're a lower primate. I think.