Officer McPhals mom speaks to the media

[nadinbrzezinski]

both families are suffering

http://www.cnn.com/

I feared this, she is starting to realize that there is no closure, truly even if "justice has been served."

Ma'am find your peace...

"his family is suffering right now."

As I said, the realization is starting to get to her... revenge is not the end... it really is not the end.

[NaturalHigh]

1. I feel for both families.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Oh absolutely

they are both victims

[oddmanout]

11. Me as well

As do I......

[ixion]

2. she wanted her pound of flesh, and she got it.

so goes the adage: 'Be careful what you wish for.'

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Here, sorry if I don't feel like retyping

I get actually by the way... that OP will tell you why.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1982392

I will add this. The STATE promises this relief and very rarely they deliver.

[Brigid]

13. Shylock got his, too.

And look where that got him.

[ixion]

27. exactly...

it never serves to extract such a grisly price.

[readmoreoften]

5. My friend's mom just died. I'll advise him to find a black man to blame it on

so that he'll get some closure. So long as it's someone and that someone is a black man, it'll do, right?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Read this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1982392

I really do not feel like retyping.

But what I said in that OP is starting to dawn on her... and actually in record time. It usually takes a couple days.

[NaturalHigh]

12. Yours is quite possibly the worst post I've read all night.

That's saying something.

[cordelia]

28. Ranks down there with the worst. n/t

[tblue]

7. I wonder if it ever enters her mind that the killer walks free.

She was rooting and praying for this day. But I have a feeling she will never find peace.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Families rarely do

that is the other false promise of the DP... once the perp is dead you will be at peace... nope.

And what she said... she's starting to realize that.

As to the real killer out there, that will not enter her mind UNLESS they vacate the warrant and decide to prosecute the other guy... odds of that happening are anywhere from nil to none.

[oddmanout]

8. Where is the his justice

Where is the justice for Officer McFals? A man doing his job trying to help a homeless man being attacked........I dislike the death penalty because it cannot be applied infallibly, and the recantation of the eye witnesses cast doubt enough to throw out the death penalty. But let us not forget that a man was brutally killed that night.....Where is the justice for him...his family?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Not in the execution

and that is what mom is starting to figure out. That is the empathy there...

Life in Prison would allow for corrections of bad convictions... and justice.

[oddmanout]

14. There can be none

There can be no justice for either, they are both dead, they're families are broken.........A sad day....

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Exactly and that is the problem with it

And the more executions of people where there are serious problems... will move people to start questioning it more. The MORAL COST to the nation is starting to prove high. It always was... but more and more cases will only help to turn more and more people against this barbaric practice.

[oddmanout]

16. I agree

Life in prison does not return Officer McFals to his family........This is a difficult problem that our country needs to address...the nature of crime and punishment. The officers murder was a barbaric act as well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Oh any violent death is barbaric

but life would allow to correct if we actually make a mistake.. death... no way they will vacate the death warrant even if they got 100 % evidence that somebody else pulled that trigger. It would admit the error. We are not going to do this.

[oddmanout]

18. Sadly no

It will take a great effort to change how people see this issue, too many predjudices, old hatreds, suspicions....wrath is a deadly sin...

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Yup, agreed

I was shocked though... that it started to hit her TONIGHT... for her sake, I hope she gets some help.

[sabrina 1]

20. Apparently since they most likely killed the wrong man,

there is no justice for the murdered officer. Justice would have been getting it right. Being certain that they had the actual killer. Now the family will always have doubts about that, and they can't get a do over.

Revenge is not justice. But too many people think of it that way.

[Rex]

21. Exactly! Two men were wronged!

Both men will never get the justice they deserve.

[countryjake]

22. I think the former warden of that death house put it best...

when Allen Ault, Dean of the College of Justice and Safety at Eastern Kentucky University, a man who once had the sobering responsibility of carrying out sentences of death, spoke of the haunting, nagging feeling he and others who participated in such executions, in which prisoners maintained their innocence til the very end, were forever left with...the shame, the guilt, the psychological impact of having any part in the pre-meditated murder of another human being.

The irreversible finality of the DP should never ever be an option when considering justice, regardless of the crime committed...not for any supposed "closure" for victims' families, and especially not for those who hold the power in a nation whose recent history is clouded with the oppression of it's minorities. No peace comes from a killing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Thumbs up

The moral cost is too high.

[countryjake]

24. And that's pretty much what Ault said...

If people of conscience knew all of the facts regarding a death penalty, it would be abolished as a punishment in our country.

There is no justice in vengeance.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Here from another view

I was never for it, I grew up in another country Mexico considered bringing it back after a kid was kidnapped and tortured and torn to pieces.

It horrified the country... and yes that is a textbook of who you want to apply it to. So there was a tortured discussion. I remember talking to the AG at the time, he was a friend of the family, and he put it this way. "The cost to the national soul is too much to bear, and for one case a century that might deserve it, we are not willing to go there."

I asked him when I went down for my dad's funeral if his views have changed due to the war on drugs...

"this too shall pass." That was his answer,

[countryjake]

26. "the cost to the national soul"...exactly.

And in that other article you've posted, about the weighing of the finality of judgement against deliberation and mercy, what has become of such core values as liberty and justice when bills are enacted that refuse writs of Habeas Corpus and the Appeals of the condemned are limited? Dr. Ault also said that he did not believe that the DP has ever been a deterrent to crime. I think that as we move into even more desperate times, any "virtues" of Constitution this country may have once held will crumble along with the economy, as crimes of the downtrodden and "have-nots" go on the rise. Support for the DP is almost higher than I've ever seen it (and I've been speaking against it since the sixties) so all I can wonder is when do we people of conscience stand up for our own national soul.

Sorry for the downer to your thread on Annaliese MacPhail, but I am so drained tonight, numbness is setting in.