Either view is completely each person's own opinion and nothing more. I am a firm believer that to take another man's life knowingly is grounds for losing your own. Due process and investigation are one thing, but when a theater full of witnesses are present and the man is caught afterwards with large-scale recognition and a paper-trail, he doesn't deserve the air he continually breathes from those he stole it from. I'm sure the families of the victims are much more forward in this direction.

If a man walked into a theater you and your child were seeing a film in and murdered your child, then was caught, would you ask the police to give him a trial and full investigation? Some people would, in this day and age. I wouldn't. If it was my child, I would want to return the favor myself. I will agree that there is a fine line between necessary punishment and mob-fed verdict.

If anything, the killer is lucky to still be alive. The police could have easily just shot him and this would be over. Of course, known child-killers are generally handled in prison, as mentioned previously.

The process it shortens is the one that is meant to determine whether or not they truly deserve it. Simply stating that they do deserve it would be a violation of due process if you had any meaningful influence on that process.


I like to think that I would demand it vociferously.
Thankfully, I've never been in a position to find out.

Now, if you're quite done with your appeal to emotion, might we move on?

Perhaps to who should execute the executioner, judge, and jury under your model of 'knowingly and intentionally taking a life forfeits one's own'?

Our system of justice is not perfect. While I will freely admit that it is a great foundation created by brilliant minds dedicated to noble ideals, I certainly have the right to point out that it is not flawless without being characterized as evil, no?

Most assuredly, you do.

You absolutely have that right. I think it was the generalisation of 'who needs an investigation, just kill'em already' that was hurtful to your overall argument. Though I still wouldn't condone it in this case, I understand the sentiment: They were innocents that were slaughtered with a clear line between the victims and the perpetrator.

I'd like to point out, however, that 'due process' and 'innocent until proven guilty' is as much a staple of American culture as the Statue of Liberty or the Constitution. It is therefore sometimes surprising (I'm not talking about this particular case, mind you) how quickly the American people will come out with the pitchforks, given that background of justice & due process.

Fair enough, as long as you realize that my wording it that way was as much figurative as it was literal, and that I wasn't suggesting, "this is how the judicial system should handle this," but rather "this is how much this pisses me off."

That is very true, and fortunately there are better men than I working this case out in Colorado, and they seem to be on top of building the case in an indisputable way. It still bugs me that this guy gets to revel in the attention he's garnered throughout the judicial process, which in my opinion, takes far too long. I have a hard time believing that during the era in which the Constitution was written, a guy who committed this sort of crime would have been around for a drawn out appeal process.

So, it pisses you off enough to prompt you to express an evil sentiment. Just so long as you recognize it for what it is. And then next time, maybe, hold off on expressing it.

One would hope.
One would also hope that the case they are building, in addition to being indisputable, also happens to focus more on truth than it does on a conviction.

I suspect that they would have formed what is colloquially referred to as a 'lynch mob', and then swiftly committed evil acts which they would later label 'justice' but would more accurately be termed 'vengeance', and 'murder'.
But then, I'm not under some delusion that individuals living in that era exhibitted any strange tendency toward saintly (or even otherwise superior-to-current-norm) behaviour.

I thought we covered this already, but perhaps I wasn't direct enough so here goes: I reject your premise that my sentiment was in any way evil. Furthermore, your trying to characterize me that way when the same term was being used in this thread to describe the actions of a mass murderer would be offensive, if I were the type to allow myself to be offended by strangers who don't know a lick about me. Fortunately for me, I am not that type.

Conclusion: have a nice day.

I'm not interested in some great philosophical debate here. I'm evil.(According to some here.) I do not think this man deserves to breath a second longer for what he did. I'm evil. Innocent until proven guilty does not apply to this situation. He did it, nothing to argue there. I'm evil. One of two things need to happen. 1) If it turns out that he is psychotic he needs to be put in a room. His only human contact would be someone sliding a plate of food through the door three times a day. Solitary for the rest of his natural life. 2) If he isn't crazy and all of this was intentional and precalculated, death sentence. First in Colorado since 1979 I think.

But this is my opinion. A man that is apparently as evil as a mass murder....

Advocating the killing of an individual without even bothering with due process is advocating murder, plain and simple, so yes, I do think that the term applies to the sentiment, as well as to any who would genuinely espouse it, in the exact same sense that it would apply to a mass murderer, if likely to a lesser degree.


The concept of 'innocent until proven guilty' ABSOLUTELY applies here. It applies in ALL cases.
I would certainly be thoroughly surprised should this case eventually result in something other than a guilty verdict, but until that verdict is delivered, this man is 'the accused'.

That isn't the sentiment I labelled as 'evil'.
It's one I disagree with, because I do not support state sponsored 'killing in cold blood', but that's another issue entirely.