March 08, 2007

Crime And Punishment In Southwest Florida

It's terrific to hear that the kidnapper of Clay Moore has been arrested:

Authorities arrested the man they believe abducted 13-year-old Clay Moore from a bus stop last month and left him tied up in the woods, officials said Wednesday.

Vicente Ignacio Beltran-Moreno, 22, agreed to voluntarily return from his native Mexico after several days of negotiations, Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells said.

Beltran-Moreno was arrested in Texas Wednesday morning at the U.S.-Mexico border and extradition proceedings were under way to get him back to Florida.

So what made him agree to come back?

He didn't want to serve his time in a Mexican prison.

The wheels of justice are grinding on another Florida crime today: as expected, home-grown fiend John Couey was found guilty of the horrendous murder of little Jessica Lunsford. By next week he'll be sentenced to death, which as far as I can tell means he'll have better-than-average accommodations for the next couple of decades. As Jessica's father answers when asked how he feels about whichever phase of the legal process Couey's in: "He ain't dead yet."

What aggravations we've been having with our instruments of execution lately! First they got rid of Ol' Sparky because he caught some killer's hair on fire, now it looks like they've been hiring Candy Stripers to give lethal injections -- resulting in some embarrassing misplaced shots. Guess they should have practiced stopping an orange's heart first before jabbing around on the condemned. Actually, I find the whole idea of lethal injection to be so cold and unfeeling: is not the warm embrace of the Chair better for a murderer's send-off? Just give every prisoner on Death Row a membership to the Hair Club for Men.

Posted by floridacracker at March 8, 2007 03:34 AM

   



Comments

I know the whole "eye for an eye" thing seems primitive to some people but stuffing Couey into a big plastic garbage bag and burying him alive, as he did to his victim, seems appropo to me and highly efficient, not to mention "green". Really. There wouldn't be any of those complicated carbon credits to fool with or messy hospital waste like used needles and if they used a biodegradable bag, it wouldn't be any different than burying a large sack of manure, in Couey's case, would it?

Posted by: tfhr at March 8, 2007 07:47 AM

I don't really like the death penalty for a number of reasons, but if we're going to have it, I think the condemned should die in the same manner as he killed his victim. For Lunsford, wrap him in a couple of black plastic bags and bury him alive.

Posted by: Juan Paxety at March 8, 2007 09:28 AM

our boy Couey deserves to have the very best in executions..

If it was my world, and my prison...

I'd give a dozen inmates (the really nice ones) a bunch of confiscated crack, and a case of liquor, and a plastic bag, a DVD of the trial, and for desert....Couey, with a shovel.

man..that's better than SAW 5

Posted by: csason at March 8, 2007 10:32 AM

i forgot the crayons...damn

Posted by: csason at March 8, 2007 10:35 AM

I'm with consonant guy on this one.
Its really to bad there isn't such a thing as 'swift and expediant trial *and* administered judgement in this country. At a minimum he's got a few more years of life before all the automatic appeals are exhasted if he doesn't contest them.

Posted by: Gmac at March 8, 2007 12:55 PM

Namby pamby nonsense.

Daily torture up until the public execution......which should be as horrible as possible. Perhaps a few broken bones prior to death by blowtorch.

Posted by: mike the bike at March 8, 2007 01:22 PM

Vincente maybe fooling himself. US prisons may be better in terms of the facility, but the Latin gangs are ferocious. Puerto Ricans hate the Mexicans...all that. In Mexico, one may not have the meals like in the states, but the worry of getting shived in the face with a sharpened toothbrush while eating it would bother me more. But that's just me.
And Couey...he needs to be executed in any way the State of Florida sees fit.Perverts are a stain, a pollution on the earth.
Further more, there needs to be a castration act for the rest of the sob registered perverts. Couey was on a sex offender list; how did that protect Jessica?
What is more "cruel and unusual" than raping a child and burying her alive?

Posted by: nancy at March 9, 2007 05:23 PM

Could be worse places to be jailed. For instance, the Democrats think Gitmo is a torture palace.

Frankly, I wish we could fire up ol' Sparky again. And make the hair burning part of the process.

But that's just me.

Posted by: right in florida at March 17, 2007 12:41 PM