Friday, June 19, 2015

Sympathy for the Culpable?

While listening to the news today, I heard something which infuriated me to no end, a nasty little tidbit which made it to The Daily Beast. In the bond hearing for the Charleston church mass murderer, the judge dropped this offensive statement:

“There are victims on this young man’s side of the family."

Let that sink in... there are victims on the murderer's side of the family? The shooter's father gave him the gun he used to kill nine innocent people. Knowing that his son had a drug problem and run-ins with the law, he bought his son a gun.

That's not a victim, that should be a co-defendant. This damn judge should be removed from the bench, or at the very least, from this case.

5 comments:

mikey said...

I dunno. I thought it was an interesting recognition that the current state of the world is going to make his family respond to questions they don't have any responsibility for. Setting aside who gave him the gun - he still is the one who chose to use it - all the brothers and sisters and cousins that woke up to their phones ringing from CNN and Newsmax and all the rest, they ARE victims, and they did NOTHING to earn the questions and opprobrium that they're going to have to wear for the next couple years.

I'm unequivocally opposed to the death penalty - the dood should never breath free again. He has abandoned any claim he has to any right to walk among us - but the judge is right. His actions changed a LOT of lives, and some of them are just as innocent even if they aren't dead...

OBS said...

Wow. With that logic, where the fuck do you draw the line?

"Well, see, he just needed a ride to church, and yeah, he had the new gun I gave him and all the ammo we'd stockpiled and the body armor and the grenades and racist rage we'd carefully nurtured. But who could've predicted? He was just an excitable boy! Our family are victims too -- who will cut the grass now, huh!?"

Fuck that noise.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

The judge is a wingnut who has made racist comments before.

The GOP has spent decades packing the judiciary with this sort of assclown.

Meanwhile, 'Our' side mostly waits for their chance to get into power, sits around scratching their asses and doing favors for big corporations, then goes off to get rich from same.
~

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Alrighty, then.
~

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

I'm unequivocally opposed to the death penalty - the dood should never breath free again. He has abandoned any claim he has to any right to walk among us - but the judge is right. His actions changed a LOT of lives, and some of them are just as innocent even if they aren't dead...

I think the judge articulated it in order to push a "both sides are equally bad" narrative. I don't think he sincerely cares for Roof's family.

Fuck that noise.

Yeah, I think the judge should be booted from the bench.

The GOP has spent decades packing the judiciary with this sort of assclown.

Yeah, it'll take decades to undo the damage that was done by hiring all those Liberty University trolls.

Alrighty, then.

It's a start!