Scott Peterson found guilty

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' date='Nov 12 2004, 06:53 PM'] Well, the defense put a mock boat outside the courtroom, with equipment and weights and a mock dead body inside it, about a block away from where the jury would be. Legal analysts from both sides were having a cow, and that they could have gotten sanctioned from it. I don't understand what they were getting at, other than having some kind of visual to bring a circus atmosphere to a court case and psyching out the jury. It was bizarre. They were ordered to remove it. [/quote]
No one really knows why he put the boat there. The boat was used during an experiment he and the defense team carried out. Basically, he made a video of the boat tipping over when a heavy weight was thrown over the side. The thing is, the boat only tipped over on the third try -- and it wouldn't have if Scott anchored it correctly. Because the defense's experiment didn't take that into consideration, and because the exact sea conditions from December 24th 2002 couldn't be replicated, his tape wasn't allowed as evidence. It simply wasn't an exact, controlled experiment. He wasn't too happy about that. There's talk that he put the boat there because he wanted the jury to get wind of his experiment. The jury was sequestered, but there's still a chance that they could hear of his experiment. If that was the case, he could lose his license. He'd have been trying to contaminate a sequestered jury.

At best, it was a protest on Geragos' part. If that was the case, it was an extremely distasteful stunt.

God bless,

Jen

[BeenaBobba]

I don't think he should get the death penalty. I don't see how he'll be a threat to the other inmates. The prison he'll be going to overlooks the Bay. I hope he thinks of the two lives he took when he's out in the prison's exercise yard and can see the water. I hope he repents, and I hope he dies in a state of grace.

God bless,

Jen

[AngelofJesus]

[quote name='phatcatholic' date='Nov 13 2004, 02:58 AM']it is my understanding that capital punishment is only justified when society has no other means with which to protect itself. as such, it is certaintly NOT "perfectly just in this case."

but, if this has been debated many times before, then i am content to leave it at that.[/quote]
You're right. Taking the whole paragraph in context, there is really no reason for the death penalty.

Paragraph 2267 of the Cathechism:

Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

[the_rev]

I feel that this is the wrong conviction. Some evidence may suggest he has. But I believe he really didn't.

It was a conspiracy of local government.

Playing the system, for a year, of falsified charges, only makes me suspicious.