to most of the folks I worked with in juvenile detention and in the prison system. All they have to do is take away the OCD and insert, let's say, PTSD and we'll call it even.

I don't want him to face the death penalty, either. But I don't want anyone to face it.

Still, I agree with those who don't want the death penalty for Cruz.

If we carefully plan, anticipate, and carry out a killing in order to demonstrate that killing is wrong, how are we any different from this monster?

I'm still pissed that Dylan What-his-name from the Georgia church shootings is getting the death penalty. He's already discovered what an unpleasant place prison is. I was really hoping he would spend the next sixty or so years anxiously looking over his shoulder.

Spectrum trusts gov at any level. We should take this right away from it.

What else am I supposed to think about him and the atrocity he committed?

and I don't know what was going on in his head.

Look, when I use the term 'evil', it's not like the way the right-wingers do, uttering the term from high atop an ivory tower of smug self-righteousness.

It's simply that there is evil in the world; clear-eyed, lucid, self-reflective evil. We can call it psychopathy or sociopathy or any one of a number of terms. And certainly as a scientist myself, I appreciate the value of approaching such subjects objectively. But there are high-functioning psychopaths and sociopaths around the world who never commit such deeds.

Hollywood has conditioned us to think of anyone earning the sobriquet 'psychopath' as a wild-eyed, slavering, hand-rubbing monster eagerly planning his next murder.

But most people suffering from mental illness aren't like that, and themselves, suffer, rather than cause suffering in others.

but there are a wide variety of mental illnesses.

I see a pretty good representative sample of them every single day.

And such intense evil does not spring from a healthy mind. Clearly he's unlikely to ever be of healthy mind but damn, that is one fucked up guy.

I admit that I envy you your simplistic world view. Black/white, good/evil. Tree, pretty. Fire, hot.

'Simplistic worldview'.

There's not supposed to be any rebuttal to that, and you can depart the field with arms raised in triumph.

And saying you 'envy' me is passive/aggressive in the extreme.

Anyway, there are gradations of both good and evil, and we all possess the potential for both.

So we departed from the central subject of discussion, which may have been your objective, and if so, well played.

There is no medication he could have taken, no sort of therapy he could have undergone, that would have prevented this tragedy. He wanted to kill, so he did. Difficult-to-impossible access to deadly weaponry would have scotched his plans right out of the gate. And that's what we need to achieve.

I see that whole good and evil thing as part of a religious view. People aren't inherently one or the other. We are, above all, products of our environments.

Therefore, yes, I am dismissive of the perspective in question. Though at times, I sincerely do wish I saw things in that way as it really is simple, easy to digest and move on. No responsibility on the community to look out for each other. No, people are just good or evil, not much anyone can do.

stigmatizes mental illnesses and makes it harder to get people treated. Calling the mentally ill "evil" is fallacy that predates Medieval thinking, and it doesn't help to align with similar attitudes being shopped around by various rightwing pundits and their fans.

We can be better at this, yeah?

If you are going to argue he killed people because of mental illness, doesn't that stigmatizes mental illness?

Even the law designates that crimes of passion are treated differently. Eventually the law will catch up with science in this regard.

Your reply seems geared toward an argument that is the opposite of the one I made.

I absolutely believe that mental illness can be treated. I also have first-hand experience with the reality that the mentally ill are much more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of crimes.

This guy didn't murder his classmates because he was lonely, or misunderstood, or because he had untreated schizoaffective disorder.

He murdered them because he wanted to, and for no other reason.

There's no misunderstanding here, you're just tossing out unfounded accusations. There's no point to be made in such unsubstantiated speculation, so I'll stick with my original comment.

I'm not sure how something so self-evident could be described as 'unfounded.'

Nikolas Cruz wasn't deterred from killing from by the thought of being executed.

It's long past time to end this barbaric ritualistic practice, even for the most heinous.

If so, the state is wasting money pursuing the death penalty - and even more money given the mandatory appeals that will go on for years.

Give him a life sentence without a chance of parole. Then let him disappear from public view.

I wish he had been committed to a mental institution. I would have been more humane for him, and seventeen teenagers would still be alive and many other teenagers would not have been traumatized. But now that he has proven how dangerous he is, lock him up where he cannot endanger other people.

We don't put people into mental institutions for that.

"It was recommended he be sent to a residential treatment facility in 2013; in 2016, after he made threats to himself and others, school officials considered but did not pursue involuntary commitment."

There is a link to this article: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-reg-florida-school-shooting-mental-health-20180316-story.html

Which states:

If he had been determined to be a danger to himself and others, he could have been kept confined for longer.

Now that he has proven to be a danger by killing seventeen and terrorized dozens more, he should be locked up for the rest of his life. The state is pursuing the death penalty which is not a deterrent to people like this and wastes tax money - aside from being inhumane and an abomination.

wasn't committed.

Plus it seems as if he was really good at bullshitting people when he wanted.

Using the Baker Act would have gotten him into a facility with real psychiatrists who would have done that. He still might have been let out, but it sounds as if that meltdown he had in 2016 was the last best chance to control his behavior.

n/t

Regardless of his mental state

pursuing death penalty makes no sense. They couldn't get death penalty for James Holmes and this could very well have the same result, due to whatever mental issues Cruz supposedly has. So there seems to be little reason to waste all the resources and end up in the same place, not getting the death penalty.

Also, the state, every state and the federal government should get out of the practice of killing human beings, regardless of how vile those human beings are.

When I wrote "state", I meant the government claiming to be acting on my behalf as it kills a human being.

foreign policy.

The reason should have nothing to do with his mind, as an individual. It should have to do without beliefs as a society.

Zero death penalty. Our governments ability to authorize exocutions should be limited to acts of war or a known and serious foreign threat to us or our allies.

Mass murder. But I still don't believe in capital punishment. It's also barbaric.

I would agree with you if the incarceration is permanent. with no possibility of release.

I am completely opposed to capital punishment.

die at the hands of the state...murder.

state murder.

made it an easy guess that you would be pro DP.

No matter what, murder is bad.

So murdering someone, no matter if they themselves murdered others, is still bad.

Something about two wrongs not making a right.

as a nice sweet piece of a...... He will wish he was given the death penalty.

I was starting to think DU had progressed to the point that nobody would gleefully mention prison rape. Guess not.

Just walk him out of the jail and let the families who lost children have him.

But in this case, I say let him rot in prison all his days. Preferably in solitary.

That the only proper punishment is death. I think some people are beyond redemption or rehabilitation, and to try to do so is a waste of time and money.

Death Penalty costs more than life imprisonment. So drop that stupid argument.

Many people have released from death row because of bad convictions. You wish they had "saved time" by killing them.

And you must LOVE this top 5 DP countries....

China
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Iraq
Pakistan

Congrats!

It is a barbaric and racist practice. Years-long solitary confinement is almost equally barbaric and needs to go away in all but the most extreme cases. LWOP is only a step or two away from the DP. I don't support walking death penalties either and they will hopefully, some day, be abandoned too.

Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. For even the wise cannot see all ends."

- Tolkien