yeah so it's got to be the most controversial thing if you could pick on the list
that's true
oh we don't have capital punishment i believe you do
yes we do
oh
we we have uh the death by lethal uh by injection
yeah the the only thing about capital punishment is the i i remember someone saying i think it was a chief justice in this state
he goes if you make a mistake how do you get the person back that's the whole his whole basis was if you do have that error
you know some people have been in jail for years and years and years and they're finally exonerated and then you know if if there if you killed the person and it's like oops too bad
i mean i think i've heard of cases where someone did they uh the they were uh it was capital punishment they were killed
and they found out years later that the he really didn't kill the person
what
i believe there was one case i don't i don't know where i read it or anything but i think there there has to they have to have put innocent men or women to death before i mean
i'm sure that
that that have to has happened but then there's also the um number of people who have
created or committed murders etcetera that have not been put to death even though they were sentenced to death row like like look at Charles Manson i mean he just happened to have the right timing
yes
and yet he although he may never be free to kill again there are a lot of people like him that are free to kill again
i'm the type of person who sits you know it's the same thing about the war i'm this type person you you know you need it
but you're the one who you can't you can't make the decision and go yes or no i'd be a terrible president because
i would you know i knew we had to go to war and i knew you know it was the best thing but i didn't i would not want to be responsible for people getting hurt if you know if i don't know
but i didn't want to do it
huh-uh
i don't think that i could sit on a jury and be part of sentencing someone to death
well uh like
i i i would find that too difficult
yes but like you say there there's people out there that do such terrible things well i had one of the subjects was uh crime
and it was talked about the the way society has worked out there's some people that economically trapped
um-hum
and they really their parents don't bring them up properly they have absolutely no morals because no one taught them
correct
i mean morals isn't something that's just in your heart and
you're born with it you're
something that's taught
it's something that's taught it's something on the streets that you see so if it's a dog eat dog world
it it's just really too bad that we have to have something like capital punishment
um-hum
but
i i don't know how much of a deterrent it really is
i don't think it's a deterrent at all i don't think that anyone that uh commits a murder actually thinks that they will ever
you don't think it's a deterrent
even uh be punished let alone put to death for it
i mean look at the mentality of your average person who smokes cigarettes they don't think they're ever going to get cancer and yet it's written on every single package
most people who murder someone don't even get caught let alone prosecuted to the to the extent of the law
so even though even though you don't think it's a deterrent which i have a tendency to agree agree i mean it's a deterrent it's it's the ones like carefully thinking it out and stuff
they think about it but a lot of the street crime that goes on and stuff they don't really care and they don't really care what happens to them i can see where it's not a deterrent
right
right i think for probably possibly the premeditated murders i think it's possibly a deterrent but
yes
for the for the gang violence the uh the street murders so to speak i don't think it is
does it matter to you do you have a lot of violence where you live
not where i live uh but i live outside of Dallas
where where you work
so is Dallas a bad city i talked to someone from San Antonio and the Barrio she said it was very bad
the San Antonio has much more gang violence than Dallas Dallas does have um an area of town however the
Dallas
young men i mean sixteen to nineteen year old boys are shot and killed or shot at least shot
frequently the uh the county hospital that handles all the gunshot wounds here
yeah
handles fifteen gunshot wounds a day
oh jeez
i mean a day
and that's relatively calm city
yeah it it obviously is not a DC you know
yes
it it i understand that Vermont's relatively calm
oh it's very calm i mean you can our uh bad district i wouldn't advise going walking in there alone at night but you could
and if anyone was bothering you you could make such a fuss where people would come to your aid even though you're in the worst part of the city
um the only difference is that every street light is lit instead of every other street light so we're we're a really we're uh pampered up here
um-hum
um and when they do have a crime a murder let's we had quite a few years ago a young two young men they were sixteen years old um
raped and beat and beat these two twelve year old girls really bad it just shocked the whole state
goodness
just how can anything happen like this and the guys that did it were so ignorant
they didn't even remorse they didn't they didn't have any remorse for what they were doing but they were just so ignorant
that one of them says well i didn't realize that was because i was beating her in the head that she was really going to die on me you know it's like
although why did you do it she was screaming all i wanted to do was shut her up he he acted like he didn't even think that this was going to kill her i the kids were really quite ignorant about it and it
it was a tragedy on both sides but it just shocked the uh the state that something like this could happen
um-hum
yeah
i mean usually if something if someone robs in the night or something
and uh a home owner confronts him i mean it's not a blaze of guns and stuff you know the guy might hit the guy over the head and people start running
i mean if this happened in the city the i'm sure the youth would be armed and just take the family out
um-hum
i mean we're really fortunate to live here but
doing these conversations it makes me feel really bad that there are kids that
can't can't get out of the situation they're in and they're they'll eventually end up even if they want to be good kids they'll eventually end up uh more or less victims of crimes even though they're doing the crimes they're more or less a victim
um-hum
yeah yes they're the they're the victims of neglect and
and uh many years of
of perpetuated
nonconcern for human life
yes it's it's really sad
yeah it's just it's it's just a lack of concern they don't have you know these kids
the ones that are involved in you know gangs i think are searching for self-esteem and they find som ething like that in uh their gang activities
and they never had this at home and their parents don't have it if they happen to know their parents
yes it's it's it's bad sometimes the kids have no choice because the parents are are worse
i mean it they'll do drugs in front of their kids they bring this boyfriends and girlfriends home in front of kids they they treat them like little slaves they holler at they hit them
the other
and they go they go to the gangs more or l ess for uh family oh this guys nice to me he doesn't hit me
yeah the uh the we were shocked two mornings ago with uh the news that a forty year old man had sold his three year old son
for forty dollars worth of crack
oh jeez
and they found the boy and the boy had been unharmed but they were trying to sell him you know they were trying to sell the baby or the boy and he's three years old they were trying to sell him on the black market
that's stupid
i mean it can you that that just repulsed me and it repulsed everybody that i work with i mean it you know we
we sit up here on our pedestals judging but we're not there but it's just it is totally unheard of that you you you even think it would happen
and it was just you know twenty twenty miles from me
oh jeez
yeah i know
but it's it's it's it's real strange uh it's it's a world that um
is the drugs are the drugs are going to get us all i mean drugs
actually i think we're doing capital punishment to the wrong people i think we ought to have capital punishment for the true importers of drugs
not the kids that are selling it on the street that don't know any better i'm talking about the people you know who are bringing it to our country i think they deserve capital punishment because they kill
oh
yeah well
they kill a lot
well then they wouldn't do this for the drug kingpin that they were going to um institute the death penalty other or was it life in prison or whatever for the drug kingpins i don't
yeah
it's it's so full of bullshit
the the drug war is just terrible you can't trace it because a lot of the authorities are probably tied up into it i mean you know months ago it was the the military
that's true