Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Miami Trial Begins in Turnpike Slayings

The Miami Herald reports on the start of the death penalty trial of Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez Jr. Danny Varela and Liana Lee Lopez will stand trial as well on drug charges that could bring life sentences for each if convicted. All four allegedly were involved in a massive drug-trafficking operation managed by Jose Luis Escobedo.

Murdered was the entire Escobedo family of four.

The Escobedo slayings became national news on Oct. 13, 2006, when the family's bullet-riddled bodies were found a few feet from the turnpike. Investigators found Yessica's arms wrapped protectively around her sons, 4-year-old Luis Damien and 3-year-old Luis Julian, but the mother's body failed to shield the boys from multiple gunshots.

It seems to me there's a big difference between a crime like this and that of George Jenewicz, for example. Although I oppose the death penalty in any case, the crime committed here, the cold-blooded execution of an entire family, comes about as close as one can. Men who kill for a living are the worst.

What's your opinion? Do you think Jose Escobedo had it coming, being that he was in the drug business? That's how Hyman Roth would see it.


10 comments:

  1. Both cases deserved the death penalty.

    The mercy is how we treat the killer on his way to the gallows, giving him every chance to get right with his Maker --and his favorite last meal.

    That's not what they gave the little 13 year old rape victim in Somalia --her death penalty for adultery (she was the victim!) was to be buried up to her neck and then stoned to death by 50 men in front of 1000 spectators.

    Now that is cruel injustice --and about the most heinous death penalty I ever heard of.

    It makes me feel quite humane for what we do to killers in this country --either life in jail or death by injection. And too often, even lesser sentences.

    I think there are extenuating circumstances justifying our mercy --and I would not want to be the one to carry out the will of the state --there is a wee doubt in the back of my Christian mind as to whether or not we should have a death penalty --but it's not like we don't give them a chance to save their souls --a chance their victims didn't necessarily have. What I mean is, from a Christian perspective, a man who KNOWS he is going to die has a chance to repent and go to Heaven and he can have all the biblical counsel he wants. Killers don't give their victims that chance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barb, Are you one of those who oppose abortion but accept capital punishment?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mike,

    Are you one of those that say it is okay to kill an unborn child who has committed no wrongs but it is not okay to kill those convicted of committing the most heinous wrongs?

    Which position seems most incongruous, yours or Barb's?

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is amazing that someone would approve abortion and oppose capitol punishment for murder

    Far less amazing than opposing abortion and approving death to killers.

    However, I have admitted here to discomfort with capitol punishment --but when I hear of the cruelty of a man who would bury a child alive in a plastic bag --I think death is too good--probably we should punish killers with the same death they inflicted on their victims. Behead someone? Get your head taken off. Rape someone? Castration. Suffocate someone? same for you. Shoot someone --stab someone --same to ya.

    BUT asking someone to carry out the sentence. I wouldn't want to do it. Maybe I would want to bury someone if he buried my child alive.... just gotta be honest here. I love my children so much....as normal folks do.

    I don't find it too hard to forgive pathetic people --but sociopaths? I dunno....

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Are you one of those that say it is okay to kill an unborn child who has committed no wrongs but it is not okay to kill those convicted of committing the most heinous wrongs?

    Which position seems most incongruous, yours or Barb's?"

    Yes is the answer to your question. I plead guilty of incongruity, and here's why. I believe the rights to personal autonomy with respect to one's own body, a right that men enjoy, should be granted to women as well. I feel that's more important than the rights of the unborn. About the killers facing execution, you know how I feel about that. Killing is wrong, whether for vengeance or for some idea of justice or for expedience, it's all wrong, in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think women have reproductive rights when they make the decision to hop in the sack --with or without birth control.

    Unfortunately legal abortion is more to the man's perceived advantage --so he won't have to be responsible financially to his product of conception. He has his fun-- and abortion is his way to undo the responsibility that resulted from it.

    Rape victims --another situation. That's where the world's debate should be. I myself favor the rape kit immediately after the event which MAY abort a fertilized ovum --but we have no way of knowing for sure since pregnancy can take place within a short time of the rape or a few days without being detectable.

    I say rape is a foreign invasion, not God's will, and cleansing afterwards is divinely permissable. Others might say to wait and see if a life was conceived, stressing the sovereinty of God aspect. but I argue that the rape was not God's will--so pregancy in this case would not be His will either --though i inconsistently do NOT make the same argument for children conceived out of wedlock --which is also not God's preference/will --but strict pro-lifers will say all the children have a right to life regardless of the circumstances of their conceptions.

    The fetus is NOT the woman's body, unfortunately for your theory, Mike. It has its own fingerprints, brainwaves, heartbeat, organs, hair, skin and eye color, and sex --all may be different from the mother's --and definitely not her body but its own little, unique, baby body --a combo of the mother and the father's genetic potential, a new creation with more right to life than a murderer.

    ReplyDelete
  7. i don't see any incongruity, mike. that would only be an issue if fetuses were all to be considered the equivalent of born, independent humans, but that's not reasonable.

    adult humans --- independent persons --- surely must be held in higher moral regard than organisms which are not independent, not sapient, and which by no sensible definition qualify for personhood. if not, it would become terribly difficult to explain (for instance) why rather a lot of animals should not be held in equal regard also. Peter Singer's theories are hard enough to dismiss as it is, without giving him that sort of ammunition.

    ReplyDelete
  8. adult humans --- independent persons --- surely must be held in higher moral regard than organisms which are not independent, not sapient, and which by no sensible definition qualify for personhood.

    Why? Your subsequent animal argument doesn't make sense. Your saying fetuses are like little animals and not equivalent to human beings? But fetuses are human beings at their earliest stages. We were all such in our beginnings. And we were dependent on our mothers even AFTER we were born --so independence has nothing to do with right to life.

    To murder you in the womb is no less murder than to wait until you are grown.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Barb, I can't believe you make that distinction for rape. To me that seems to demolish your entire argument. In your worldview, doesn't God often use bad things for our good? If you believe the fertilized egg has rights, wouldn't you have to stick with that regardless of how the fertilization took place?

    I think Nomen has a good common sense approach to understanding why the adult woman's rights are more important than the fetus.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bob, What about you? Can a rape victim abort without committing sin? What if she's 12 and her father impregnated her?

    ReplyDelete