As the hunt for a suspected cop killer intensified, Seattle police question and search a man Monday afternoon. "I feel sorry for every husky black male with a mole on his face," a state trooper said, regarding the suspect's appearance.(Seattle Times)
The horrific story in the Seattle area finally reached some degree of closure early Tuesday morning when Maurice Clemmons was shot dead shot and killed after a chance confrontation with a Seattle police officer. Law enforcement officials believe he had been sheltered by family and friends.
The suspect was well known to police both in Washington State and Arkansas. 37-year-old Maurice Clemmons had a record that is truly astonishing. Mr. Clemmons also had an extraordinary string of good luck that has extricated him from some of the most dire circumstances a person could find himself in --things like a 60-year jail sentence or a 95-year jail sentence.
You can say a lot of things about Maurice Clemmons but the one thing you can say for certain about Maurice Clemmons is that he did not hesitate to tell us on numerous occasions what a bad actor he was.
This man had been charged over his lifetime with no less than 15 serious felonies in his 20-year criminal history. This man has committed felonies while on parole and managed to be out of jail and available to murder this four cops, if in fact he is the shooter.
He had mental problems. His parents were long dead. Relatives said he was a nice guy.
He thought he was the Messiah. He told his wife and some of his relatives that they had to spend five minutes together naked every Sunday in order to satisfy religious demands. He told them that President Obama would be coming to Tacoma where he lived in Washington State to certify that he was in fact the Messiah.
(Arkansas Press Democrat)
He was considered so dangerous that over the years, judges in trials in which he had been the defendant ordered additional security because they personally felt threatened. He, in the past, had lunged for a deputy's gun while being transported, put a hinge in a sock and threw it to be used as a weapon (he missed the police office he was targeting and hit his mother).
This was a dangerous, homicidal lunatic who had been allowed to victimize the people of Arkansas and Washington.
Former Gov Mike Huckabee issued a statement in which he said if this man, Maurice Clemmons, was responsible for the murder of the four police officers, we will be faced with a string of failures in both Arkansas and Washington State's criminal justice systems.
Yes we will. And we will be left with four dead cops, all family individuals who now have paid the price of the inability of the criminal justice system of these two states to deal with Mr. Clemmons.
It seems to me that the cherry on this sundae was provided yesterday when it was reported that the Supreme Court of the United States had rejected an appeal from a man on death row in California who was sentence for a particularly brutal and gruesome crime --a multiple murder of a family-- in 1983. 26 years ago.
They say justice delayed is justice denied. I don't support the death penalty, particularly since life without parole is far cheaper and accomplishes the same thing: Keep anyone who is unfit to be in society out of society. Still, society, at least in just over half our states, supports the death penalty as the ultimate sanction, and for any penalty's application to drag on for 26 years is an outrage.
So here's what I'd like to suggest, and I suggest it with all seriousness. I've wondered about this over the years: We need to develop and write into our Constitution and criminal law a sanction in place of the death penalty. Instead, replace it with the following penalty: Upon conviction of a capital offense --that is, a penalty for which the death penalty might otherwise have applied-- or any other offenses we want to specifically list, immediately upon conviction, your citizenship in the United States will be revoked and you will be exiled never to be
Redonda Island (Marianas)
allowed back in this country again.
I propose that we contract with a country --preferably a poorer one that needs the money-- to buy a significantly large tract of land --an island would be best-- that is isolated and easily controlled, and make that into a prison colony. We're not going to be cruel. The land should have potable water, earth in which things can be grown and cattle grazed, and appropriate raw materials for things like shelter. That way, these people who have indicated to us that they wanted to convert our society into a jungle (since we declined them the honor of doing so by exiling them) will be able to create that kind of society for themselves, in this distant place.
There was once a book called, "The Uninhabited Islands of the World." There are some, you know. They have potable water and you can grow things on these islands, and that's where these people oughtta be put.
A significant part of this country doesn't want to execute anyone --it's understandable why. A significant number of states that have the death penalty haven't executed anyone in years, wasting valuable tax dollars on death rows, which cost more that operate than facilities for the general population. The case of Maurice Clemmons demonstrates clearly that we have neither the capactiy nor the will to deal with a deranged, homicidal maniac who had been in our custody and control time and time and time and time again since he was 17 years old and we never seemed able to find a way to control his behavior.
We put him in jail, we let him out of jail. We let him out of jail, he commits more felonies. We put him back in jail, somebody decides to commute his sentence, out he comes again to commit more felonies, and we somehow couldn't seem to put him back in jail. He was let out of jail just a week before he committed the murders.
He was demonstrably crazy and dangerous.
Why did we let him stay here? What did we owe him, or people like him?
For those who demonstrate by their behavior that they will not or cannot live in accordance with the social rules by which we order our society, let us relieve them of the need to try and put them someplace else where they are no danger to that society because at the end of the day, in arguing for permanent exile, it's the one thing that we must always have the law do in these cases: Forget justice in these cases, forget compensation in these cases, forget the satisfaction of seeing the perp dangle metaphorically from the end of a rope. None of that means squat to us if there's any chance they can get out.
Japan's Forbidden Ghost Island (BLDG Blog)
We need to get them away from us so they can't hurt any of us. Clearly, we do not have the will or the facilities to isolate them in the long run, and if we try, we wind up with jails packed with people in bad conditions that the taxpayer then spends billions of dollars to fix, and a great many taxpayers look at a situation like what happened in Washington and say,
"Why am I spending money to provide a jail for a homicidal maniac like Maurice Clemmons, who has been in our control time and again to no avail, when I can't afford medical insurance for my own children?" It's a good question, and the only answer is, the Maurice Clemmons' of the world don't deserve to be American citizens.
I know that's shocking for some to suggest that anyone who is a citizen of the United States of America should lose the right to be such. But why not? Why should they not? They have indicated that they can't live with us. They won't follow our rules. So they expect us to house them for the rest of their natural lives or execute them, and run the risk that we're going to execute somebody who is not guilty.
No. Let's do the one thing that solves this problem and gets rid of them: Revoke their citizenship and off to a prison compound outside this country. Now, you might wonder what happens if they somehow manage to return to our shores after being exiled, then what. Simple: Once you are found guilty, you're gone; if you return, you're dead. Show up in the United States after being exiled and you will be subject to being shot on sight. That's a lot more fair warning than those four cops got.
So, shall we get serious about this problem or shall we continue to dither with cases like Maurice Clemmons until we get another four decent cops murdered in cold blood because we can't get our act together?
What have we got to lose; a few of them? Who cares?
"The whole Pacific Ocean is so large you could fit the world's continents inside it with nearly enough room for another Africa."
Comments
Not a bad idea.
How'd this turn into a fantasy island piece?
Cheaper to house for the rest of their life rather then execute? I'd like to see the numbers on that.
You want to exile them . . . make them someone else's problem and pay them . . . so you don't have to pull the trigger? Nothing like pushing the responsibility and blame onto others for money . . .
Realist says: "Cheaper to house for the rest of their life rather then execute? I'd like to see the numbers on that."
Actually, two recent studies have verified that. California has over 600 felons on Death Row and they cost $90k annually to house. General population inmates: $50k. The appeals process (constitutionally protected) is expensive for many different reasons on both sides of the case. Even in Virginia, look at the time and cost to prosecute the Beltway Sniper. The death penalty is a key campaign issue in Texas right now as many are questioning the process, worried whether anyone may have been wrongly executed.
People who are a threat to society need to be kept from society in the cheapest possible way. That ain't the death penalty. Killing the guilty won't bring back their victims, and I don't want to bleed taxpayers keeping them alive in our country. There are better ways to spend our money.
Here: www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2277967.html
This is ridiculous. You are clearly setting up boundaries that are so easy to break. You are creating a class, a caricature of a people who are barbarians within this society and defining it without ANY context--just a personal disgust that disregards any external causes that might influence people to go postal like Clemmons. This is something governments throughout history have created: A fearful other, a barbarian that will tear the seams of society apart. It doesn't exist! Society is a dysfunctional organism, especially one such as ours with it's conflicting views. It can never contain the seeds of discontent. If you subscribe to this idea of an Other to be disappeared on to some fantasy island, then yeah, you're showing your true colors: another fascist, another murderer.
So what's your answer Cameron? How do we solve a problem that society doesn't seem to have the stomach to solve? Do you have a solution?
recycling an old idea? Australia and America (now USA) once were the distant lands where the criminals were shipped out of Europe. Stalinist regime sent out the undesirables to the islands of Gulag. Time to fix the ills of our societies by building sound social structure (with health services for all, including children and the mentally ill) and NOT through fascism.
Simple. Cease government control of public protection, they’re not good at it anyway because they arrive after the crime. Allow the citizenry of this great country the right to bear arms and protect themselves from evil men. By disarming the public, only law-abiding citizens are unarmed thus the evildoers are unafraid; they know there is no opposition to their violence. If more violent offenders were stopped during the commission of a crime by the victims, there would be a deterrent that does not exist today, we would likely see different choices being made, and if not, we would see a reduction is jailed violent offenders and more gravestones.
Murph
"Time to fix the ills of our societies by building sound social structure (with health services for all, including children and the mentally ill)."
Talk about an old idea... I wish we could do what you suggest, but we've proven that we don't have the will to do that. So now that we've proven that we're incapable of that, what do you propose?
And hey, if we ship a bunch of people off to some island and it turns into Australia, that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Meanwhile, if we as a society are incapable of dealing with dangerous misfits, maybe it's best they not be in our society at all.
I like your thinking. But a better use of these people would be to make them work to pay for their keep - much like the rest of us have to.
They work in secure factories producing simple consumer goods whilst they serve out their sentances. The money that they would normally earn from this if they were free would be taxed at 90% and the balance given to them. The 90% would then be used to fund the prison service and help to support the dependents of their vitims.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!