42 Comments

1. PJ:

He was living in that trailer illegally, so monitoring is just not a viable option, especially when the failure results in another child’s death. And what if it’s not mental illness, but some intrinsic sexual identity?

Life in prison, or until you are too told to be a threat? Complicated questions.

Mar 20, 2005 - 8:39 am 2. Roger:

While I agree, PJ, that these are complicated questions, I don’t quite understand your other comments. Wouldn’t monitoring (electronic bracelets, etc.) have shown Couey was living illegally in the trailer? I’m not certain that would have saved the girl, but someone could have acted upon the information. Also, I’m not sure what the difference between mental illness and “intrinsic sexual identity” is in this instance? Is society supposed to countenance a sexual need to murder nine-year old girls? Sounds pretty crazy to me.

Mar 20, 2005 - 8:53 am 3. richard mcenroe:

The issue is complicated, as always, both by witch hunting prosecutors like the buffoon who led the McMartin stampede and by idiot apologists like the “therapist” who made the rounds of the talk shows when they first started making the sex-offender databases available to the public. She said that in her experience, with enough therapy and support, 52% of her patients had not molested another child (she left off the qualifier “yet”). So what she was basically saying was, “lighten up, parents, there’s barely a one in two chance these people will sodomize your baby.”

But if you’re not going to kill them, don’t EVER let them out…

Mar 20, 2005 - 8:59 am 4. ahem:

I think at this point you have entered the land of imponderables; no practical solution (incarceration, death, lobotomy, monitoring, sterilization, trying to prevent the birth of a child fetishist in the first place–if such a thing might be possible) is compatible with our tradition of law and civil rights. Any solution must be impractical and, therefore, not really effective.

To solve or ameliorate the problem, we’d have to become so much less than we are. Do we really want such a world?

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:01 am 5. acassa:

Roger: Also, I’m not sure what the difference between mental illness and “intrinsic sexual identity” is in this instance? Is society supposed to countenance a sexual need to murder nine-year old girls?

If pedophilia becomes an “intrinsic sexual identity”, then yes, society is supposed to countenance his sexual desire for little girls. But you see, the murder of this girl really is just an unfortunate side effect. Just a reaction to society brutally inflicting their morality on him and making him feel shame and guilt for natural, healthy sexual feelings which are “hardwired” into who he is therefore completely out of his control. Society has judged him wrongly and in doing so has forced him to murder. If society had not forced their morality on this man, this poor girl would still be alive.

If it is “intrinsic sexual identity”, it absolves them of a multitude of sins and makes them the victim.

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:15 am 6. alcibiades:

I think chemical castration is the way to go in these situations until sometime in the future when we develop the medical know-how to regulate them by drugs or other treatments. Or much stricter surveillance.

As for ahem’s position, new understandings create new avenues in the law. I don’t understand why you think regulating people who are manifest dangers to society will make us lesser than we are.

In Britain, frex, they just jailed a 12 year old repeat rapist offender for life. I don’t see how this makes them lesser, judicially speaking.

Isn’t it more irresponsible, morally speaking, to release these criminals to strike again?

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:20 am 7. Walker:

I would choose to frame the problem differently. Rather than a mental illness which we should seek to cure, I see it as more likely a sequence of poor choices that the guy made–the result being death to a little girl and terror for others. Thus in looking to improve the situation I would look at measures (e.g. longer incarceration for early offenses) that would lead to fewer bad choices, by fewer people. The problem of molestation cannot be completely solved, we should just seek to reduce the amount of it.

Peering into men’s souls is beyond our capability…

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:21 am 8. Joan of Argghh!:

Is society supposed to countenance a sexual need to murder nine-year old girls? No. Go with that….go with that visceral revulsion and then compound it with the horrible nightmares that will plague her family. Then imagine her last moments. Don’t skip over it. Write it out, line by line and digest it every night of the rest of your life. If we can’t bring ourselves to end the life of such a monster, then at least let’s dedicate our empathetic energies to the pitiable survivors. Let’s suffer with them, and never let the horror out of our waking life. Let’s never laugh and enjoy our children, their impish smiles or sheer ability to believe. Let’s endure the same suffering we place upon the parents …to never have an ending, to never feel safe…to always fear his release back into society. Only then, will I go along with incarceration or monitoring by government employees with cushy jobs and guaranteed lifetime benefits who are all-caring and diligent in their duties. Yep.

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:22 am 9. kynna:

Roger, my husband and I have been having the same conversation. We are parents of two small children and it just seems terrifying that you can’t do anything to protect them.

Again and again it appears that convicted sex offenders leave prison and commit these crimes. Only this time they kill the child – perhaps hoping they will not get caught and go back to jail?

I am in favor of the strictest punishments for those who attack children, but how strict can they be?

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:25 am 10. ms anne:

i have an “intrinsic hardwired maternal identity” that needs to see pedophiles punished as grievously as they hurt their young victims. no excuses.

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:27 am 11. Oscar:

“This kind of mental illness is not easily cured”

Wrong Roger, people with this mental illness who have been executed have shown further no tendency towards the deviant behaviour. Cna’t beat a 100% cure rate.

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:41 am 12. David C:

Does castration actually work in these sorts of cases? I vaguely remember reading something about how some sex offenders have voluntarily submitted to castration, but that it didn’t really eliminate their urges.

Mar 20, 2005 - 10:11 am 13. erp:

Poor choices? If the poster above is using sarcasm, I apologize. If he or she is serious, then please listen up: You are out of your mind.

This hideous drifter didn’t make poor choices. He killed and tortured children. Doesn’t that get through to you bleeding heart types. Little kids — he hurt them very badly and then killed them.

Sane people don’t care if this guy is depressed and on a suicide watch. Instead of spending our tax dollars on guarding to prevent his suicide, we should make it easy for him by putting a rope around his neck, throwing it over the nearest tree and inviting him to jump.

While we endlessly debate capital punishment, is it a deterrent, not a deterrent, we could execute the wrong person, etc. this guy is living among us and we allow him access to our most precious possessions, our children.

If sex offenders aren’t summarily executed, then they must be kept in jail to protect the innocent. We can’t continue to sacrifice our innocents on the altar of politically correct psycho-babble, and yes, I’ll gladly accept whatever label the compassionates want to give me, fascist, nazi, gestapo, I’d proudly wear it on my sleeve if it would have saved that smiling little girl’s life.

Mar 20, 2005 - 10:16 am 14. Carol_Herman:

Terri Shiavo’s point also proves the same point. It takes only one judge, (or 1 Janet Reno), to kill people, mercilessly.

How do judges get cured of making mistakes? It turns out the answer is “personal experience.” Without it, they’re not in the business of protecting society. Maybe, like garbage men, they’re in the paper hauling business?

But I did hear of one case that brought a cure to one liberal judge. This is a Brookyn, New York story. So you can trust me the judge was very liberal. Until his own daughter got raped.

Mar 20, 2005 - 10:18 am 15. Rick Ballard:

erp,

When arguing in favor of the death penalty I have found this report helpful. When arguing in favor of three strikes this report makes the effect of the Warren Court’s decisions (’67-’91) and subsequent 3-strikes laws (’92-present) very clear.

There is a principled case to be made for opposition to the death penalty and 3-strikes. I have not run across very many people at all who have ever bothered to quantify the societal cost of their opposition. To my knowledge, no rebuttal to the validity of the Emory report has been presented.

Mar 20, 2005 - 10:38 am 16. rgvdh:

“Life in prison, or until you are too told to be a threat? Complicated questions.”

Somebody does something horrible to a child that will affect them for the rest of their life. They might well do such a thing again. So lock them away for life. If someone can prove that they didn’t really do it, let them go.

Frankly I just don’t see what’s difficult about this.

Mar 20, 2005 - 11:05 am 17. insatty:

Our society continues to do a piss-poor job of protecting nascent life and children. There is only one way to prevent the John Cuoeys of the world: Harm a child, earn the death penalty. Liberal judges and legislatures let this man live around and prey on an innocent child. To hell with the liberal lunacy and kill the bastards!

Mar 20, 2005 - 11:07 am 18. Stephen_M:

OK. I left behind all organized (and unorganized) religion decades ago. Even so, I view human life as a container or vessel for eternal (or existing beyond time) spirit. I’d say, “But that’s just me.” here except I’m not alone in this view.Another prevalent view is that human life had it’s origin when 1) Lightening stuck methane in a primordial ooze thus producing amino acids.2) Eons of chemical reactions finally brought about Donald Trump’s hair, the Golden Gate Bridge, Mona Lisa’s smile, and the split-window ‘Vette.3) That all talk of spirit is nonsense.For me putting an incurable pedophile to death is no more than expelling him from the game. His spirit goes on. A murdering pedophile has completely run out of excuses to remain alive.For those who reject the notion of eternal spirit, what is human life but incidentally animated mud? Then why all the fuss about terminating the animation of a clearly inconvenient, to us, human life? Isn’t this the logic which informed Roe v Wade? Well, except that no fetus has ever committed a crime.

Mar 20, 2005 - 11:47 am 19. Terrye:

I heard the sheriff say the family the murderer and his family he had been living with are a bunch of druggies.

Look at the man… Does he look 46 years old? That is the drugs. There is no excuse for what he did.

That little girl is gone forever and no sentence will bring her back to her family but I wish that all those folks out there who think that drugs like meth are not a big deal would think about the fact that this bastard was stoned when he did this. He has been stoned most of his life. He is a child molestor with no impulse control. The sister who looked the other way when he buried that poor child under the back steps was stoned as well.

He will get the death penalty and probably some other convict will kill him before he gets the needle.

But Mark Lunsford will have to live with the fact that some child molesting druggie came into his house and stole and killed his baby and there was nothing he could do to protect her.

Society needs to demand better of its citizens than just looking the other way and hoping it happens to someone else’s kid.

Mar 20, 2005 - 11:54 am 20. Walker:

erp,

I agree with your comments; excluding the one where you assert I must be out of my mind. My point, which I apparently did not make well, is simply that framing the problem as mental illness, instead of the chosen behavior of a disgusting piece of trash, tends to lead to “compassionate” thoughts of cure–by bleeding heart types.

I intend to stay focused on punishment–very harsh punishment in this case–that the perp has brought onto himself (by his choices–free will!). I am disgusted and feel little but disdain for that piece of trash and the associated criminal “justice” system that allows this to happen so often, over and over.

Execution is the answer in this case.

Is that clearer?

Mar 20, 2005 - 11:59 am 21. Walker:

Carol_Herman,

Is this the Carol_Herman who I met because your son went to school in Claremont?

Walker

Mar 20, 2005 - 12:00 pm 22. rastajenk:

Am I the only one who thinks there’s more to this story than what’s been told? I always have a problem with the kidnapped-from-the-bedroom-without-a-trace angle; no scream, no struggle, no nothing? There’s some complicity somewhere else there that made this possible.

And I wonder how many of you, either overtly or covertly, made class-conscious observations when you saw the trailer, the people, the whole lowdown scene? I know I did. It makes it difficult to think about lofty ideals like the power of the vote, freedom on the march, and positive vibrations like that, when you realize that there’s still an ignorant subculture out there that allows crime like this to get purchase.

I used to want to be kind of a drifter personality and go places without settling down, but there’s always some nut like this in the news that gives them all a bad name. So out of self-respect, I never took that path.

Mar 20, 2005 - 12:26 pm 23. chuck:

Rastajenk,

There is a whole subculture out there, perhaps several percent of the population, whose members essentially live in the jungle, away from the rule of law and ‘our’ civilization. It is depressing to run into it.

Mar 20, 2005 - 12:49 pm 24. Sonetka:

Over the mental-illness-or-not debate, I don’t know, but it certainly is a strong compulsion. I have a relative – not too close, thank God – who is a pedophile; hasn’t killed anyone, but took early retirement and used to watch the kids and their friends at home during the afternoon, so God knows what happened or didn’t happen there. He’s in the habit to this day of hitting on anything female, legal or illegal, that moves; this would include his daughter-in-law and grandson’s wife. He finally got busted for assaulting two of his underaged granddaughters; he was seventy at the time this happened, so I’m dubious about releasing them when “too old to be a threat.” Old doesn’t necessarily mean weak, and even then you don’t have to be very strong to overpower a scared or small child. Unfortunately the immediately-affected relatives decided to let him plea-bargain his way out because “It would look so bad if it went to trial.”

He went through therapy, for what it’s worth, and his outward behavior has changed not an iota: he still hits on the younger females, relations or no relations. A nasty piece of work all around. I hope to God he’s really staying away from the kids this time, but I’m not willing to bet a cent on its being so. I do think there’s something in his brain which makes him unable to quite “get” why this sort of behavior is wrong. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, or that he should be hanging around in regular society like a cat among the pigeons. Shut him up someplace safe until he’s dead, I say.

Mar 20, 2005 - 12:57 pm 25. Sonetka:

Oops – rest of comment got cut off.

As for this guy, now that he’s taken the final step, I say execute him; he’s been through enough therapy and rehabilitation and so forth to at least know that OTHER people regard this sort of thing as wrong. But I agree that the real debate is what to do with a child molestor who hasn’t killed anyone…yet.

Mar 20, 2005 - 12:58 pm 26. Manco_Dollars:

Liberals get “moral horror” like Andrew Sullivan about panties on the head at Abu Grahib, but have nothing to say about raped and murdered 9-year old girls in our own nation. Here’s a big f*** you to all liberals today and forver.

Mar 20, 2005 - 12:59 pm 27. PJ:

Hey, hold on there!

What I meant was, what if pedophilia is not just a neurotic illness that can be cured but something a person is born with? That changes the question of whether someone should be be in society at all or whether psychotherapy can change him into a law abiding citizen. I’m not willing to take a chance on releasing somebody just because they go to therapy in prison and say they’ll never do it again.

And people on probation escape monitoring all the time, (because it is not 24/7 by a long shot), just like this guy did. Arresting them later for violating is not good enough.

“Detectives grew interested in Couey while interviewing all registered sex offenders in the area. They tried to contact Couey at his home in Homosassa five days after Jessica disappeared and discovered he no longer lived there.

When investigators followed up with the half-sister, she denied that Couey had lived with her. But another relative confided to a detective that Couey sometimes stayed at the home.

Authorities said Couey left Florida on or about March 4. He was arrested in Augusta, Ga., on a probation violation for failing to notify officials that he was moving, a requirement for sex offenders.”

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11182809.htm

Mar 20, 2005 - 1:24 pm 28. utron:

I don’t want to minimize the horrific nature of this crime, but I have two questions: First, why would the rape and murder of a child merit a harsher punishment than the same crime committed against an adult? Or, to turn it around: should murderers and rapists receive a lighter sentence if their victim is a legal adult?

Second, I’m wondering if anyone has some hard figures on recidivism rates for pedophiles vis-a-vis other violent criminals. Again, I’m not arguing a specific position here, just raising a couple of points that I think are relevant to the discussion.

Mar 20, 2005 - 1:47 pm 29. Terrye:

rasta:

That was a snotty thing to say. I don’t know if there is more to this or not, but making that observation based on some elitist nonsense about the lowdown scene is really nasty.

I guess they should have lived iun a fancy big house like Jon Benet Ramsey then their little girl would not be dead.

BTW I live in a manufactured home. Maybe I should not disgrace the site with my trailer trash views.

Mar 20, 2005 - 3:07 pm 30. Wes:

“…why would the rape and murder of a child merit a harsher punishment than the same crime committed against an adult?”

I’m tempted to say that if you have to ask that question, you don’t have enough of a moral compass to understand the answer.

Let me try anyway:

Human young develop slowly. They are physically weak until mid-teens (in comparision to mature humans). They are uninformed about any number of factual realities. They are morally simplistic. And they are dangerously trusting. In short, they are easy prey for lions, jackals…and pedophiles. Every human culture has therefore made the protection of human young from predators a high priority…a “virtue” if that word is not too old-fashioned for you, for the simple reason that you’d kind of like to see the young grow up. (There’s also an issue of parental love, but I’m not about to try to explain parental love to someone who would ask your question.)

Mature humans, in contrast, are supposed to exhibit some sense about staying away from danger, and some skill in fighting it off if they find themselves in harm’s way.

I could also put this in Darwinian (amoral) terms. A species is “fit” if it reproduces productively and “unfit” if it doesn’t. Failing to protect human young until they reach reproductive age is collectively “unfit”. As a race, we have learned to be “fit”.

Mar 20, 2005 - 3:22 pm 31. RA:

Dear Acassa, I get your comment. It is the victim’s fault. The murder of a 9 year old girl is simply collateral damage that society must endure because the sexual predator that kidnapped, raped, killed, buried her in a field and fled the area is a victim of society – is that it? I’m afraid that you better stay out of the way of the girl’s family and the town sheriff because I don’t think they would appreciate your unexplicable compassion for a predator and murderer.

For that matter, I sure don’t like your comments and the majority of the others that are commenting on this story don’t seem to agree with you either. But, Acassa, please forgive me because I’m a victim too.

You see, I think this guy should be executed once he is found guilty – or at least he should never see one second of freedom. I’m a victim of having to read another story like this and having to tolerate people who justify criminal behavior by blaming the victim for it. That is over the top!

Mar 20, 2005 - 3:22 pm 32. Kevin P:

Roger:

One of my former employee’s, a 14 year old young man,was a cleanup kid at my shop. He was a very good worker and a nice kid but he was an alcoholic. We sent him to St. Jude rehab and he had therapy for the first time. Since we were going to bring him back we met with his therapist before he got out so we could find out how to help him with his recovery. With the young mans permission his therapist told us that he had been molested by his uncle.And his mother.After 1 year of trying and after finding him with bottles of vodka twice we had to let him go. I heard from him years later and he had been sober for three years, was a dept. manger at a big box store, and had a relationship and was going to be married in a year. AA and God saved his life.

He was one of the lucky ones. We had some talks that gave me nightmares. I only knew a small part of his story and I could barely handle that. I know that many child molesters were victims of molestation themselves. Many I know are severly mentally ill. But they are too dangerous to be let out in society. It is like a lepper like sickness that we have no cure for. The crime also creates a climate of fear where every male walking alone in the park becomes a pedophile just because he doesn’t have a women on his arm. This makes no sense. But if I was a father or mother with a young child that it what I would think. The poison spread by this type of crime spreads further then just the victim and their family. The controls that the therapists have just are not good enough to let them out. And everytime a child molester strikes he has possibly just spread the sickness to a future generation.

What I have just written is not fair. I know there are some pedophiles who can recover. But because there is no way to know it is too dangerous to let them out. I have seen this twice, once with the employee described above and once with a good friends wife. It might not sound just, but it is the only sane way to act faced with the horrific results these broken souls can create.

Mar 20, 2005 - 3:49 pm 33. acassa:

RA -

I think you need to fine tune your sarcasm detector. I was being completely sardonic. I thought the last paragraph of my post made that clear given the conclusion.

Apparently I was too accurate in my mimicking of those types of people who are given to excuse the worst, most despicable types of behavior in the name of victimhood.

Apologies for the confusion.

Just for the record, my feelings on this are that any form of punishment that society might give him will never even come close to inflicting the pain and suffering upon him that he deserves.

It reminds me of the torture discussion Volokh had on his site. Frankly, and I’m a little ashamed to say, I think I might actually get quite a bit of pleasure out of watching this guy be beaten and brutalized before he is slowly strangled from a rope hanging from a crane.

Yet somehow, I still don’t think that would be enough for him to endure.

What kind of punishment to you give to a person, who makes the last hours of a young girls life full of fear, anguish, pain, humiliation, etc. What to you do to a person responsible for burning that image into her parents head, never being able to forget the thought of your daughters last moments on earth?

Is anything too much? Or is everything not enough?

Mar 20, 2005 - 4:47 pm 34. RA:

Dear Acassa,

My profound apologies. I read your original comments many times and could not see the sarcasm. My bust and thanks for correcting me. I appreciated your ‘for the record’ comments. RA

Mar 20, 2005 - 5:20 pm 35. acassa:

No apologies necessary, RA. Misunderstandings are inevitable with written communication – especially mine.

I have a bit of a wry sense of humor, and I forget that you can’t see me rolling my eyes through the computer monitor!

Mar 20, 2005 - 5:26 pm 36. David Thomson:

ìLook at the man… Does he look 46 years old?î

The murderer looked at least 66. He probably badly damaged his body (and mind) by the heavy use of alcohol and drugs. The very high recidivism rate of pedophiles demands that society treat them differently from other criminals. I have thought about this matter for a very long time and conclude that they should usually remain incarcerated.

Mar 20, 2005 - 6:13 pm 37. john.cunningham:

What is with all the agonizing about how meting out proportional justice to scum like the perp here would shame us? I for one would gladly line up my sights on him as part of a firing squad, squeeze on off, and then have a good cup of coffee. I guarantee you that I would not feel diminished, I would have the same sense of satisfaction I get from unstopping a toilet or policing up dog crap from the back yard.

Sexual molesters of children are repeaters. A second offense should lead to immediate execution. I don’t have a strong preference for whipping, slow hanging, etc., but it does have a certain appeal, maybe while forcing them to listen to speeches by Barbara Boxer, Grand Kleagle Byrd, and Kerry.

Mar 20, 2005 - 7:26 pm 38. lindenen:

I’m against castration as well as life imprisonment and execution for child molesters. I advocate tracking them 24-7, and if they go near a park or a school, the system would go off, and the man would be guilty of violating his parole. If they move out of a certain geographic area, they’d be tracked and then promptly taken back to prison. We can implant a computer chip in their butts if need be. My worry is that innocent people could be convicted of molestation. Imagine you’re innocent and the government castrates you or puts you in jail with no hope of ever getting out. I understand the rage we all feel about this, but I don’t think it’s wise to make actions you can’t take back. If the molester volunteers for life imprisonment or castration, I see no problem. If he’s a repeat offender, toss him in the hole and throw away the key. I just don’t want innocent people to get hurt.

Mar 20, 2005 - 9:59 pm 39. Matt Evans:

My GF and I moved to Tampa last year- we had heard it was the “sex capital of the south” (not why we moved, I swear). She was online last night and because of the tragic killing of Jessia, we looked up sex offenders in Tampa.

700+. 7 in our zip code alone (which is considered the “nice” part of town). One we ran across had a big red PREDATOR tag flashing across his picture.

Sure, some of these people are guilty of minor offenses- for instance, we know of one guy who had sex with a 16 year old girl when he was 19- was arrested and listed as a sex offender- now that 16 year old his wife of 5 years. So not all of the offenders are necessarily dangerous. But the dangerous ones- and make no mistake, most of them are dangerous- you would never know they’re living down the street from you.

Mar 21, 2005 - 4:32 am 40. Keith_Indy:

It should be simple…

Murder a child, get the death penalty.

Commit any kind of assualt on a child, get life in prisonment.

If we do not project the children, we have failed as a society.

Mar 21, 2005 - 5:46 am 41. Steven Mitchell:

St. Augustine has the answer. To treat a crime as less than it is, is to treat the criminal as less than a man. That’s what happens when you start making excuses for people instead of holding them accountable.

It also doesn’t help that we blur the line between justice and mercy. Justice demands death for this guy, and that is what the default sentence should be if found guilty. Mercy says that if there are extenuating circumstances (e.g. mental case), then confinement might be a more appropriate. Unfortunately, our legal system tends to blur the line, so that we often substitute “not guilty” for “guilty as hell but we ain’t gonna fry the bastard for some reason.” Not doubt to be followed quickly by a lawyer on CNN talking about “vindication” and “treatment programs.”

I read last week that the problem of jury nullification started in the English circuit courts as soon as the jury replaced trial by combat. Even then, people knew that you couldn’t base a fair legal system stictly on a question of guilt. No wonder it’s so entrenched.

Mar 21, 2005 - 1:33 pm 42. Naomi:

There was a horrible story in the news here in Australia about a serial rapist who was in jail and raped his psychologist. The one who was treating him and who recommended that he be released. The prison guards could do nothing (???!!!) and told her through the locked door to not resist. Why did the rapist do this? Because he wanted to be moved to a maximum-security prison. They wanted to free him back into society, but he knew better where he belongs.

These stories really piss me off. Why waste time and money trying to rehabilitate these monsters? They have a weapon – their bodies – and they need to be disarmed. They need to be castrated and locked up for the rest of their miserable lives. There is no rehabilitation.

Mar 21, 2005 - 7:49 pm

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