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Path: utzoo!utcsri!utcs!shindman
From: shindman@utcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: war criminals
Message-ID: <596@utcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Apr-85 17:02:01 EST
Article-I.D.: utcs.596
Posted: Wed Apr 17 17:02:01 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Apr-85 17:21:36 EST
References: <2185@utcsstat.UUCP>
Reply-To: shindman@utcs.UUCP (Paul Shindman)
Organization: University of Toronto - General Purpose UNIX
Lines: 37
Summary: 


What Anthony seems to be proposing is a statute of limitations on
major crimes.  Sorry, Anthony, but your arguments just don't stand up.
What, then, would be your time limit? Five years? Ten years? Twenty???

If I murder your family tomorrow, and then elude the law for 30 years
(but I'm a model citizen the whole time) by your standards I'm now
ok.  I didn't get away with it, of course, since I had some terrible
feelings of remorse, but I've been over the remorse for at least 15 years and
I'm sorry I did it....:-).

Then how would you like to meet me in the street 30 years from now...
and even though you were upset that I killed your father, mother, 3 sisters
and 2 brothers (and you witnessed the whole thing in person), you're a
forgiving guy cuz it's been 30 years, and I'm pushing 70, and I've been a nice
guy the last 30 years anyway -:).   Can you honestly say that you wouldn't
want me prosecuted 30 years from now even though I did in your family?

BAH!!! COW FLAPS!!!  A murderer is a murderer.  Just because someone eludes
the law for a long time does not remove their responsibility for the crime
they committed.  I won't discuss what is accomplished, since there are
various reasons (practical, philosophical, irrational, rational) why we
generally try to put murderers in prison, away from freedom and society.
Consider that a murderer has committed the *most* serious of crimes in
having caused the snuffing out of another human's life.  Our judicial
system, when it finds that there is a guilty party, in return suspends
the freedoms of the perpetrator of the crime, no matter when the murder
took place.

Your suggestions just don't fit in to the way the system works.

Paul
-- 
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Paul Shindman, U of T Computing Services, Toronto (416) 978-6878
USENET: {ihnp4|decvax}!utcs!shindman
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