Friday, December 18, 2009

Capital Punishment and Pedophiles

One of the criminal justice guiding principles of the Lampstand Foundation, from our website, is:

4) Capital punishment is an appropriate response to the criminal evil of murder, rape, and pedophilia.

Capital punishment is often the only effective social method available to protect the innocent and applied with dispatch after legal review of the crimes charged and determining the fitness of its application, should be considered an appropriate sentence for murderers, rapists, and pedophiles; who, knowing the time of their death, are able, with certainty of their remaining time to do so, seek God's forgiveness.

From the Vatican Catechism (2007):

"2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor."

As of May 2008, five states have approved the use of capital punishment in child rape cases; Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas.

An excerpt from an article in the Buffalo News about a 100 year old pedophile soon to be released from prison.

“Everything that pedophile Theodore Sypnier has to show for his 100 years on Earth is packed in a single duffel bag as he prepares to begin a new chapter in life: freedom.

“It's a chapter that prosecutors, judges and others who know him never wanted - or expected - to see written.

“New York's oldest registered sex offender is scheduled to move by week's end out of a Buffalo halfway house for released inmates and into a place of his own, after completing his latest term in state prison for molesting little girls.

“The judge who sentenced him said at the time that she expected him to die behind bars.

“But 10 years after his last arrest, as Sypnier prepared to shed the closely monitored lifestyle of the halfway house, its director warned that the spry and active Sypnier has not changed from the manipulator who used his grandfatherly charm to snare and rape victims as young as 4.

"Whether he's 100 or 101 or 105, the same person that was committing these crimes 10, 25, 30 years ago still exists today and has an unrepentant heart," said the Rev. Terry King, director of Grace House, which has twice taken Sypnier in from prison. "He is someone that we as parents, as members of the community, any community, really need to fear."

“Six months after marking his 100th birthday in the Groveland Correctional Facility - becoming the first New York inmate to reach the milestone while incarcerated- the retired telephone company worker now says he wants to get to know the youngest members of a family that has disowned him.”