End the endless appeals by convicted murderers

Read about Edgar Smith, who was convicted of murdering 15-year-old Vickie Zielinski in Bergen County, New Jersey in 1957 but who managed to stave off the execution of the death sentence by filing 19 appeals over a period of 14 years until, with the help of William F. Buckley, he got a new trial in 1971 and was released for time served on the basis of a plea bargain involving a false confession to second degree murder which he recanted as soon as he was released. Five years later he attacked another woman in California and has been in jail ever since, though still seeking to be let out on parole.

One of the worst things in America that must be changed is the ability of convicted murderers to file an endless number of appeals, so that, in the rare event a killer ever does get executed, the execution takes place 15 or 20 years after the murder and has become a meaningless and creepy exercise. A convicted murderer should be allowed one appeal and no more. A reasonable shortness of time between conviction and the carrying out of the death penalty is as important to justice as the death penalty itself.

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Spencer Warren writes:

There are many, many comparable outrages in US state courts, often noted on the O’Reilly Factor—the best TV show on the crisis of liberalism—eg judges, like one in Vermont, sentencing a rapist of a child to probation, others getting vy light sentences for the same crimes.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 14, 2007 08:42 AM | Send