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Sunday, January 05, 2003 |
Breakout by Richard Stark
I love a Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake) novel. Parker is kind of the flipside to Westlake's Dortmunder. Both are criminals, and it usually happens that nearly everything goes wrong in their heists. But Dortmunder is comic and Parker is deadly serious. He's a fascinating character, nearly without emotions, and even after a couple dozen books, it's hard to get used to how casually he kills. This is a good Parker novel, it starts with him getting caught in a warehouse robbery gone bad, and follows him into, and then out of, jail. An entertaining, fast read.
7:40:38 PM Permalink
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To Kill or Not To Kill
Here's a terrific Scott Turow piece about how, as part of the Illinois commission investigating capital punishment, he came to oppose it. The article is well worth reading:
Capital punishment is supposed to be applied only to the most heinous crimes, but it is precisely those cases which, because of the strong feelings of repugnance they evoke, most thoroughly challenge the detached judgment of all participants in the legal process—police, prosecutors, judges, and juries. The innocent are often particularly at risk. Most defendants charged with capital crimes avoid the death penalty by reaching a plea bargain, a process that someone who is innocent is naturally reluctant to submit to. Innocent people tend to insist on a trial, and when they get it the jury does not include anyone who will refuse on principle to impose a death sentence.
So by definition, the innocent are, in a sense, more likely to get capital punishment than the guilty. Unless you feel that it's OK for a few innocent people to die in order to punish the guilty, I don't know how you can tolerate this. And if you do believe that, then you believe that the ends justify the means, and where do you stop?
7:27:52 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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