News Forum - Florida school shooter gets life in prison, avoids death penalty

[Thaiger]

A shooter who killed 17 people at his former high school in the state of Florida in the US, has avoided the death penalty for his crimes. The US jury decided that Nikolas Cruz should spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to the Straits Times, the jury deliberated for a full day before deciding on the 24-year-old’s fate over the 2018 murders of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. As the death penalty needed a unanimous vote, at least one juror found it […]

The story Florida school shooter gets life in prison, avoids death penalty as seen on Thaiger News.

Read the full story

[Fanta]

Good. Death penalty is an act of vengeance not punishment. imo, Life without parole with no hope of ever seeing the real world again is a far worse punishment than being given the easy way out.

[Pinetree]

4 hours ago, Fanta said:

Death penalty is an act of vengeance not punishment

and your point is?  There is nothing wrong with vengeance as a tool of rightful retribution.  

[Chatogaster]

47 minutes ago, Pinetree said:

and your point is?  There is nothing wrong with vengeance as a tool of rightful retribution.  

Is that point really that hard to grasp? (not that I'm surprised)

 

Retribution and vengeance are near-synonyms. Proving one valid based on the assumption that the other is "rightful" amounts to a circular reasoning. It leaves the obligation to prove that one aspect (and hence both) are rightful (which is a concept that goes beyond local laws and into the territory of current moralities and beyond). 

Humans won't be able to determine rightfulness for as long as emotions remain dominant. Hit me? Me hit back you. That's actually the status quo, and so you're right in a sense, but only because we're still at the stage where most of us are juvenile Neanderthals.

 

 

[Vigo]

1 hour ago, Pinetree said:

and your point is?  There is nothing wrong with vengeance as a tool of rightful retribution.  

Ahh fire and brimstone, Europe circa 1422, or Iran or Afghanistan in 2022.

The youth is mentally ill and damaged. There were 20+ opportunities to intervene and to deal with him prior to the killings. These were public security and mental health events.  The public had warned the police. He had sought mental health help and was dropped by the state  system. Broward County Sheriff office response to the shootings was incompetent, resulting in  additional death and injury. He easily purchased a weapon which was just as easily converted to automatic with the use of a "bump stock". The response from  the NRA and its hard core supporters was to fight any fire arm access restrictions that prevented a repeat of the killings. many mitigating circumstances I believe.

Nikolas Cruz is a product of Florida society. They reaped as they sowed.