Judge questions Ashcroft's decision on death penalty for mob boss

NEW YORK -- A federal judge on Friday challenged U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision to seek the death penalty for mob boss Joseph Massino, calling the move "deeply troubling."

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis made the comments after prosecutors told him that Ashcroft, who announced his resignation Tuesday, had authorized them to pursue the death penalty for the 1999 killing of Gerlando Sciascia, a captain in Massino's crime family.

Reading from a prepared statement, Garaufis noted that Massino already faces life in prison without parole for an earlier conviction. He also questioned the timing of Ashcroft's decision to make Massino the first Mafia kingpin in decades to face execution.

"Mr. Ashcroft's choice to make such a sobering and potentially life-ending decision now, after several delays, and only after tendering his resignation to the president ... is deeply troubling to this court," he said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--massino-deathpena1112nov12,0,7366729.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

someone who is already serving life w/o parole? this remindes me of the multiple trials against the DC Sniper team "I get to execute him" "No, I do" "c'mon, let me kill him, please?"

life in a federal prison without parole is not exactly a cakewalk, why not spend the millions of dollars on actually dealing with crime, rather than hunting retribution? (plus, the guy killed was a mob officer, hardly a sympathetic character for the jury, this is likely to end in life w/o parole as well)

and I still don't understand. If you kill someone, no matter how guilty of evil they are, after they have repented don't they go to heaven and get rewarded with everlasting life and joy. It seems to me if you where a true believer you would want to force criminals to live as LONG as possible and then kill them just after they commited a sin. Maybe you could starve them for a week and feed them red meat on Friday or maybe you might catch them lusting after their neighbor's wife or maybe you could make them wear cloths of two different threads or something.