Why the death penalty is safer than life without parole.

 

The favorite argument of those who oppose the death penalty is that life without the possibility of parole serves the purpose just as well. My rebuttal to that has always been that, practically speaking, there is no such thing as life without the possibility of parole.

 

My point is proven in the case of Joanne Chesimard. Joanne just made history -- she became the first woman on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists.

 

Joanne, a member of the terrorist Black Liberation Army, was pulled over by a New Jersey state trooper for a broken taillight about 40 years ago. As Trooper Werner Foerster approached her car, she opened fire. She then took Foerster's gun and shot him twice in the head as he lay wounded in the arm and abdomen. She was convicted in 1977. Sentenced to life in prison, she served less than two years before accomplices helped her escape. She has been in Cuba for years, railing against the U.S. and inciting violence against it.

 

Incidentally, Chesimard was the step-aunt and godmother of rapper Tupac Shakur. She also "inspired" rapper Common who wrote of her: "Your power and pride is beautiful." I guess Michelle Obama agrees with him -- she invited him to the White House poetry slam a couple of years ago. Doesn't it say something about the moral condition of our country when an FBI Most Wanted fugitive terrorist cop-killer is honored by the First Lady? How far we have fallen!

 

But I digress -- back to the original point. If we had executed Ms. Chesimard in 1978, we wouldn't still be trying to track her down 35 years later. Her life sentence didn't quite turn out to be life, did it?

 

"Reward for fugitive cop killer hits $2M." The Dallas Morning News; May 3, 2013; p. 4A.