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Monday, July 22, 2013

ANDERS BREIVIK’S MONSTROUS CRIMES A LIFE-AND-DEATH ISSUE [ARTICLE ON THE DEATH PENALTY OF THE WEEK ~ SUNDAY 21 JULY 2013 TO SATURDAY 27 JULY 2013]



NOTICE: The following article is written by the author itself and not by me, I am not trying to violate their copyright. I will give some information on them. I chose this as the article on the death penalty of the week, as on this date, 22 July 2011, is the 2011 Norway attacks.

ARTICLE TITLE: Anders Breivik's monstrous crimes a life-and-death issue
DATE: Tuesday 9 August 2011
AUTHOR: Ted Lapkin
AUTHOR INFORMATION: Ted Lapkin has worked as a ministerial advisor to the federal Coalition and as communications director to a senior member of the Republican leadership in the US Congress. His writing has been published by leading newspapers in both Australia and the United States, including The Los Angeles Times, The Australian, The Herald Sun, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review. Ted also featured as a commentator on ABC Lateline, ABC Radio National and SBS.

Ted Lapkin


Salute: For the second day in a row, killer Breivik clenched his his fist in front of him as he entered the Oslo courtroom (SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2130881/Anders-Behring-Breivik-trial-Norway-killer-boasts-spectacular-attack-Europe-WWII.html)
You can already mark it down on your calendars: July 22, 2032, is the day that Norway's terrorist mass murderer Anders Breivik will get out of jail - free.

As of that date, the perpetrator of the Oslo bombing and the Utoeya Island shooting spree will have a new lease on life. The people he blew up and gunned down have not been so lucky.

Breivik's 21-year prison sentence - the maximum allowable under Norwegian law - works out to about 3.2 months for each one of his 77 victims. Sorry, but that's simply not good enough. It falls abysmally short of the moral mark.

There are some crimes so incontestably heinous that they cast their perpetrators irretrievably beyond the pale of civilisation. The murder of a child and the deliberate mass killing of the innocent exemplify a moral class of acts for which contrition is irrelevant and repentance impossible.

It is my view that those who so profoundly succumb to barbarism do not warrant the privileges and protections of enlightened society, and that the commission of such abominations triggers the forfeiture of any right to continued life.

Even if Breivik were consigned to a prison cell for life, to my mind his punishment would remain grossly inadequate. Here's a man who methodically hunted down and slaughtered scores of helpless children.

There is only one penalty severe and well deserved enough to match the obscenity that was his crime. Anders Breivik should pay for his actions with his life.

None of the stock arguments against capital punishment is relevant to the Breivik case. There's no question mark hanging over his culpability in this matter; no possibility of a conviction in error. Breivik's haughty claims of responsibility for the Oslo/Utoeya murders are confirmed by overwhelming proof linking him to the crime.

Nor does the incipient insanity defence under preparation by his lawyer stand up to scrutiny. There's more than enough method in evidence to nullify claims of madness.

Breivik was lucid enough to spend many painstaking months manufacturing the bomb that exploded in Oslo's government quarter. He was sufficiently coherent to use eBay for the purchase of equipment required to tip his bullets with poison.

And then there's Breivik's rambling 1500-page manifesto of holy war, where he justifies the deliberate slaughter of the innocent. There can be no serious doubt the Oslo/Utoeya massacres were executed with deliberate purpose and demonstrable premeditation.

So if Breivik's guilt is beyond dispute and his sanity is not in serious question, we're returned to the moral question of retributive justice. Does a prison term - even for the entirety of life - constitute adequate punishment for such monstrous wickedness?

My own response to that question is a definitive no. And my negative resolve is strengthened by news of the palatial conditions that await Breivik behind bars.

Last year, Time magazine published an article entitled ''Norway builds the world's most humane prison.'' If Breivik is sent to Halden Prison, south of Oslo, he'll enjoy ''amenities like a sound studio, jogging trails and a freestanding two-bedroom house where inmates can host their families during overnight visits''.

Among the prison staff ''there's plenty of enthusiasm for transforming lives'', reports Time's William Lee Adams. But even the most radical metamorphosis within Breivik's psyche will not compensate for the havoc he wrought and the lives he destroyed.

It offends my sense of moral equilibrium that Breivik might while away the hours making musical recordings as the 77 families of his victims are crushed by the indelible burden of grief.

But even if he were consigned to the most brutal of Third World prisons rather than a five-star Norwegian jail, the essential issue would still not be addressed. The question is not one of vengeance, but one of justice. And society should be entitled to make a moral declaration that some acts constitute such unadulterated evil that they warrant the ultimate penalty.

Capital punishment also provides finality to the families of those who have been murdered. It prevents them from being twice victimised - once by the original crime and a second time by the sight of their loved ones' murderer walking free.

In Australia, the death-penalty option might have spared us the ad nauseam bush-lawyer appeals of Ivan Milat and his latest antic - a hunger strike to acquire a PlayStation for his cell.

The debate over capital punishment in Australia will surely be rekindled when Hoddle Street mass murderer Julian Knight becomes eligible for parole in 2014. Call me quixotic, but I think that occasion would be the perfect opportunity to revisit the issue.

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