criminal justice - really

This won't be a popular topic, but I'd like to point out what a bunch of crybabies Americans have become. Scott Peterson, a man who is clearly a creep and no gentleman in any way, was recently convicted of murder on skimpy and distantly circumstantial evidence. During the current sentencing phase of Peterson's overly-televised murder trial, the family members of his murdered wife got to take turns angrily yelling at him as part of their "victim impact statements."

I realize they have had to deal with a great loss, but these people are utter trailer trash, compounding a tragic event with their own self-pitying rage. Why don't they just stake Peterson down and stone him? Isn't that what they are really interested in, trying to cause him as equivalent a pain as they can in the name of their "closure," a wretched concept if ever there was one? Our justice system is not supposed to be about making the victims feel better, it is about catching offenders and meting out standardized and dispassionate punishment for their crimes.

On a side note, it is appalling how many media people (these clods are not reporters) have stated that Peterson was convicted of killing "his unborn child and his wife." Give it a rest. He likely killed a woman who happened to be pregnant. Let's not let the conservatives in this country use a sad circumstance to promote their "right-to-life" agenda. It is already a crime to murder a woman, we don't need to surreptitiously promote fetuses to citizenship to have justice rendered. Difficult cases make bad law. This case is already bad enough.