March 18, 2006
NOW YOU'RE TALKIN':
Candidate proposes chopping block for 'porn-pimps': Congressional hopeful Zirkle wants to spark debate. (JAMES WENSITS, 3/16/06, South Bend Tribune)
Republican 2nd District congressional candidate Tony Zirkle has proposed a four-stage approach to stopping sex- related crimes such as child pornography, rape, sexual slavery and human trafficking. [...]"If I am elected to Congress, I will introduce a declaration of war against human traffickers, porn-pimps and child rapists," Zirkle said in a campaign release. "We must put fear back into the criminals who are preying on our children."
The first stage of the battle, as proposed by Zirkle, calls for suspension of the constitutional protections of property rights for "porn-pimps.""Every adultery (sic) book store will be immediately seized and the property will be forfeited to the taxpayers without any process of law other than a hearing within 10 days of seizure to give the porn-pimps the opportunity (to) challenge the sufficiency of prostitution evidence."
Stage 2, Zirkle said, would involve "actual arrests" for those who did not learn from Stage 1. Stage 3, if necessary, calls for "super speedy public trials with severe punishment that is swiftly carried out after a rapid appeal."
Which leads to Stage 4. "If this stage is necessary, then I am willing to debate the idea of returning the guillotine and lynch mob for those who prey on children under the age of 12; however, no capital punishment will be extended without at least four witnesses."
Zirkle said he favors the death penalty but believes current law offers insufficient due process protections.
"One witness can send you to death now," he said.According to Zirkle, debate could fuel discussion of his guillotine proposal but, so far, "no one will debate me."
Even the bit about reforms to the death penalty is good.
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 18, 2006 9:54 AM
"Candidate proposes chopping block for 'porn-pimps"
Which head does he suggest be removed? I might be in favor of either, now that I think about it - or both, if they began with the lower one, but I'd be opposed if they started at the top. That would end up only being body desecration.
Posted by: obc at March 18, 2006 2:12 PMWith all the talk about prison overcrowding, perhaps it is time states considered applying the death penalty for crimes other than first degree murder.
Posted by: Vince at March 18, 2006 3:43 PMThe problem with indiscriminate use of capital punishment is that it gives incentive to dispose of inconvenient witnesses to lesser crimes. Never assume that the "Law of Unintended Consequences" only applies to the Left's programs.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at March 18, 2006 4:03 PMTalk about taking precedents from foreign law!
My sand-critter alert meter went off the scale when it scanned that "four witnesses" business.
They count evidence rather than weigh it over in sharia-land. Our principles of credibility and corroboration as weighed by the jury works quite well, thank you.
Cultures have patterns. Legal systems fit into these paterns, as do religions. We have very little to learn from failed barbarisms
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 18, 2006 6:50 PMexecuting someone is the easy way out. work them into the ground, literally.
Posted by: tow at March 18, 2006 7:27 PMZirkle is clearly a loon who knows (or cares) little about American law, and is just the sort of Republican that political opponents can use to paint all Republicans and conservatives as loons, as well. To take just one example: what tiny percentage of capital crimes even have four potential witnesses? So if someone slaughters a family but there's only three witnesses plus fingerprints and DNA and motive and means and opportunity, then no death penalty? What. An. Idiot.
Posted by: PapayaSF at March 18, 2006 7:53 PMa declaration of war against human traffickers, porn-pimps and child rapists...
Hopefully it will be more effective than the War on Drugs.
Posted by: nobrainer at March 18, 2006 8:26 PMWell, the US constitution does mention something about two witnesses needed for a charge of treason to stick...
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at March 18, 2006 8:43 PMTreason is an exceptional charge, far rarer than murder, and it's in the Constitution, so I don't have any problem with it. But adding the four witnesses requirement for capital cases would, in effect, be a 99.9% moratorium on the death penalty. Either this guy is too dim to know that, or he's a Democrat having fun attempting to sabotage the Republican primary.
Posted by: PapayaSF at March 18, 2006 9:23 PMNo more book stores?
What are they going to do about places like Lovers Lane????
Posted by: Sandy P. at March 18, 2006 10:48 PMWhy? The War on Drugs has worked rather well--we have the lowest crime rate since we started keeping the numbers.
Posted by: oj at March 19, 2006 12:22 AMEye witness testimony is useless and should never be the basis of the death penalty.
Posted by: oj at March 19, 2006 12:23 AMCould be a nice source for organ transplants.
Posted by: Genecis at March 19, 2006 11:13 AMInteresting discussion.
Posted by: Tony Zirkle at March 19, 2006 4:04 PM