Capital punishment simply means an execution. Canadian
Ronald Smith is now facing a capita l punishment for committing murders in the
USA. Mr. Smith had been hitchhiking in Montana close to the Canadian border
with his two friends. They were drunk and needed a lift and Blackfeet Indian
cousins Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man, were kind enough to give
them a ride. Smith forced them out of the car, shot (and killed) them, and
stole the car. He was drunk and high on LSD (a drug) during the shooting so the
events are not 100% accurate and it might have led him to kill them. In court,
he was given the choice of a life sentence or a death penalty. He chose the
death penalty since he "couldn't imagine spending the next twenty years in
prison". After that, Smith rethought about it and wanted to live the rest
of his life behind bars. Now, Smith is wanted to be executed by the families of
Thomas and Harvey, and by some of the local government since it has been too
long for the state and taxpayers to take care of him. Should he live? There
have been many arguments whether he should live or not.
If a student gets in trouble in a different classroom,
then usually their teacher decides the consequence. In some more serious
situations, then both teachers decide the consequence. The USA should not have
total control over punishment of a Canadian. In some parts of USA, capital
punishment is allowed, but in Canada, there is no capitol punishment, so being
jailed up forever (or until you die) is reasonable, but capital punishment does
not work since Canada does not do it. Smith should be able to choose if he
wants to be executed or not, and he chose not to. If they really did not want him
there, they could send him to Canada to be locked up.
In the article, it is said that Smith had changed
personally and that his family believe it too. Sometimes criminals pretend to
“change” just to get a shorter time in prison. I believe that if a criminal has
truly “changed” they would accept the full consequences and in this case,
death. In another article, Smith said that he would accept death, but only
worries about his family. Therefore, I believe he shouldn’t be executed.
XingLu, it isn't fair for others when you change the time on blogger to Wednesday before you posted, when you posted Saturday. The learning intention to doing blog posts isn't to change the posting times to meet the criteria. Please take this in for consideration.
ReplyDeleteThanks
I am aware of this, but as you may know, my computer's internet has been up and down this week. On Wednesday I had started writing it and my internet suddenly crashed. To save my work I had to set the time to when my internet went down. I finished it on Word and posted it, but had forgotten to switch back the time. Hopefully by now it is set to the correct date. I know you feel "cheated" as we have the same sources. Thank you for pointing this out.
ReplyDeleteOh, okay. Thank you for explaining.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have done a thorough job of explaining the circumstances behind the case, but I'm confused by your personal position regarding the issue:
ReplyDelete"if a criminal has truly “changed” they would accept the full consequences and in this case, death... Smith said that he would accept death, but only worries about his family. Therefore, I believe he shouldn’t be executed."
Although I understand your reasoning behind why you believe we should accept the full consequences, your statement that you believe he should hot be executed seems to contradict your previous viewpoint.
You touch on the international nature of this controversy- as you mentioned, Canada does not use capital punishment, and it will generally not extradite any accused criminals, its own citizens or not, if it feels he or she may be at risk of being sentenced to death.
Do you feel Canada should try to push for Rodney Smith to be returned to Canada, much like the people he was with when he committed the crime (What is Canada's track record on this? Are there any similar cases of Canadians facing execution?) Do you think that even though the choice of sentence was originally Mr. Smith's, the victims' families should have any say into what the punishment ultimately will be?
All told, this was a very thought-provoking subject, and your post opens up even more opportunity for discussion.