The only issue is whats the point.
No matter how you slice it, keeping her locked up is nothing but revenge.
If that's what you want to think of it as, then fine.... Pox a Revenge on her Ass and let her die in jail.
The thing is, I don't see it as revenge, because I was not directly affected by the crime and I have nothing to gain from it one way or another, except to maintain justice as it was originally served. You speak about her as if she has equal rights as any other free human, but she voided herself of many of those rights when she took those rights of freedom and health (Life) from her victims. In my view, she's lucky to still be alive for as long as she has been since she was originally going to be executed in the first place.
Just because she might have been cute when she did these crimes, it's been so long since it occured, she's sobbing that she's dying from Brain Cancer, is a Born again Christian and wants to feel freedom one last time before she dies, doesn't cut it with me, it doesn't excuse what she did, and she's no more special then any other muderous criminal in prison waiting to die who doesn't get to go out and spend their last days in freedom.
we have said it is morally wrong to act on revenge or use it as a basis in our legal system.
Im not saying we shouldn't have revenge based punishments. Im saying if we are going to punish other people for acting on revenge (like beating within an inch of their life someone who killed their child), then we cannot have our legal system act as an agent of revenge.
You keep talking about refusing her freedom as some type of revenge, when all it is, is upholding the law and what the courts decided on her. Nothing has changed that.
If someone killed my child, you bet I'd act on revenge, and I sure as hell wouldn't beat them from an inch of their life.... they'd be dead in one of the most horrible manners my twisted little mind can think of. If I lost a child due to some other person's sick mentality, then I honestly wouldn't care what happened to me after I rip their wind pipe out of their throat with my bare hands and started kicking them in their lungs so they can gradually drown in their own blood.
(One of many thoughts that crossed my mind of how to deal with someone like that)
If I was to spend the rest of my life in jail because of those actions, then so be it. I'll accept the responsibility of my actions like I always have and always will. Just because I always think through the consequences of my actions, doesn't mean I'd avoid doing something the rest of society would deem wrong.... there's a thing for me called principles, and one of those would be to protect my children from scum like that. If I failed in this, then I will qwell my failures in making sure the person who killed my child could never kill someone else's child in the future.
Of course I would tell the police they better find the ass who killed my child before I do.... I'm not completely ruthless. They'd have a small chance. And of course what I tell the police wouldn't be a threat, it'd simply be a promise as my father used to say a lot.
If we are going to say revenge is acceptable and a valid emotion the state sponsors, then fine, lets stop arresting people when they succumb to that emotion.
Fair enough.... I'd personally like to go back to the ol' Eye for an Eye justice myself..... after one was "Proven" to be guilty of the crime of course. There has been plenty of cases in the past where one person was killed out of revenge who was actually innocent
(Which is probably one of the reasons why Eye for an Eye no longer exists in many societies.)
If the victims sister had killed this woman she would be in Jail, why? If we claim its ok to make the woman suffer as form of revenge, why would we then arrest someone (and make them suffer) for doing the same thing?
She is suffering in jail because of her own actions, and if she truly accepted her actions as being wrong, she wouldn't be sobbing and begging to be freed now. She wouldn't be shooting off excuses like she was on drugs at the time, or she was brainwashed, or that she's a born again christian, etc.
She did the deed.... she can live with it until she dies.
I'd like to back track a bit to something you said above:
"we cannot have our legal system act as an agent of revenge."
The thing is, it's an unwritten rule about police, courts and prison..... all those things are a form of revenge
(Or as I call it, Punnishment) but it is a system in which helps control societies mob rule on someone they want to make suffer in a horrible way.... it's a process in which makes sure
(To the best of it's ability) that they have the right person, that they can prove that it was this person who did what they were accused of doing, and to make sure a proper Punnishment is placed on them in which satisfies the public and family of the victim(s).
That is why certain States in the US and elsewhere in the world have death penalties and some don't. Their societies deem them appropreate. If that's what they want, then that's what they get, regardless if we think it's right or wrong.
