View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > December > 18 > Entry
Brian Nichols: Was justice served?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you watched the coverage of the Nichol’s sentencing, and with the help of a calculator, you know how many years this guy is going to get.
They were somewhere in the 6th or 7th life sentence when the stations all broke away for a digital TV test. Couldn’t happen during a lull or commercial and it certainly wasn’t good timing but I’m guessing the stations didn’t have much of a choice on the timing.
Brian Nichols was spared the death penalty. My opinion: too bad. You know, the guy won’t see another free day in his life but the fact remains that he’ll be alive and we’ll be supporting him for the next however many years until he passes away or falls victim to the shank or escapes.
Honestly, I don’t think he will have the opportunity to escape but the quality of his life is going to be a hell of a lot better than his victims who have no life and their families who have to live with the tragic results of what this guy did.
I don’t believe that Nichols will have sit in prison, suffering for the murders he committed. His quality of life won’t be that bad because he is one of them, not us. He’s a thug and a murderer. He’ll be among his own and he’ll adapt to that lifestyle and he’ll be in his element. His adaptation to that environment will make his quality of life, for lack of better words, livable. He shouldn’t have it that good.
Folks, you can boo-hoo all you want about his instabilities and his mental interpretation of what he was doing when he began to murder those people but the fact is he showed complete disregard for human life over and over again. He indicated no remorse and probably would have added to the casualty list if he had been given the chance.
In his little world, in prison, Nichols will probably adapt and his day-to-day life will be bearable for him. That’s too much quality of life for someone who did what he did. He doesn’t deserve it.
Maybe he should have a cell decorated with photos of his victims and their families and let him look at all the people, the sons, daughters, wives, even friends during their good times in life.
Make him look at those photos every day of his life and then maybe he won’t have the luxury of forgetting them.
Comments
By Lily Toad
December 18, 2008 3:52 PM | Link to this
Let’s hope he gets sent to Super Max in Colorado where he’ll live in a 8’ X 12’ cell with only a skylight and one hour outside a day. I wouldn’t call that being in his element.
By Dixie
December 18, 2008 4:18 PM | Link to this
One bullet would be all I’d want for him. Hell, I’d donate five.
Or make him work hard labor to “TRY” to offset some of the financial burden he’s imposed. He’ll never be able to satisfy the emotional cost.
By BigJake
December 19, 2008 6:33 AM | Link to this
In addition to the money spent keeping him alive in the system, be it state or federal, think of the money his “public defenders” drained from the taxpayers. I can appreciate the fact that we are all guaranteed the privilege of representation in court, but I have a hard time understanding how his defenders sleep at night.
You are correct about the quality of life Nichols will enjoy, as compared to his victims. He is a dangerous and maniacal, and extra care should be provided to ensure he never sees the light of day. That the twelve jurors that sat in that courtroom for months could not agree on the death penalty simply highlights the fact that regardless of the volume and weight of evidence, it seems impossible to find a panel of jurists that have the courage of their convictions. Shameful, indeed!
By Stone
December 19, 2008 7:32 AM | Link to this
If this prick doesn’t deserve the death penalty no one does. Those three jurors lied about their true feelings about the death penalty to get on the jury and denied justice to the families of the dead. Shame on them.
By Victor
December 19, 2008 8:23 AM | Link to this
I’m still floored that he avoided the death penalty. My only questions, had I been on that jury during the penalty phase, would have been “Can we apply several methods of execution at once? Pump him full of drugs, strap him into the chair, and shoot him as he fries?” No excuse is good enough to let this walking waste of skin continue to draw breath at our expense.
By PinkoNeoConLibertarian
December 19, 2008 8:41 AM | Link to this
Ah…Lt. Rose. You assume that Nichols would in fact even care about those pictures. I’m certain he, as a true sociopath, would consider them to be no more than wallpaper.
By 1911A1
December 19, 2008 12:12 PM | Link to this
Gwinnett PD should have taken him out when they had the chance.
By DogsRPeople2
December 19, 2008 12:38 PM | Link to this
God is Gangbanger, and Death is a mystery. By sentencing a man to death, we dont know if we’re hurting him or doing him a favor. Isn’t the death penalty just nature’s open-armed welcome to us all?
Truth is eternal, but We just get old. Time passes quicker as we age. It’s torture enough waiting around for it. Everyone’s perception of time acceleration is identical. Haved you ever met any person who didn’t believe life was too short?
This peculiar sense of time (and death) is the only thing common to us all.
Life is short enough that we dont needs 2B killin’ no one no how. Existence is a crucible, man. Life is harder than non-life.
So why do we perceive time as accelerating as we age? By executing a man, we accelerate his time on earth too. So, is our own perception of speeding time a symptom of our self censorship, self-hatred, or our self condemnation? Is each of us a jury of one? A hanging jury, a hanging judge, and the self executioner all in one? (we learn this from our mothers of course)
Others think time acceleration is nature’s own doing, that as we age we simply zone more, and thus time appears to have accelerated. It’s simply a trick of perception. Like the moon only looks bigger on the horizon than it does overhead.
Finally, a man rotting in prison is a sorry state of our union. Are we not judged collectively by how we treat our prisoners? If we kill them, we are no better than animals. If we torture them, then we are evil animals. If we let them languish we are the cruelest creature possible.
Any prison time should be accompanied by rehabilitation on every possible level. Education. Career. Emotional therapy. Even training in personal etiquette. Get those in our prisons the data and support they need to understand the true meaninglessness of their acts: that a spectrum of fault exists in any act, from totally justifiable manslaughter in war to the inexusable killings by mercenary citizens. That any crime requires energy that could be put to honest vocation. Every man deserves to know that personal experience is arbitrary: that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Otherwise, we stay on this crime merry-go-round which got us here, where we are, with a cop blogging humorously for years and then suddenly we get to read his unedited, and unsanctioned, and unholy death wishes for a fellow human being.
Now try being funny, sir.
I’m sure God is impressed with Mr. Rose: “I know you din’t ax 4 no i 4 an i”
“Oh no you din’t ax 4 no i 4 an i”
“Tell me U din’t ax 4 no i 4 an i”
By Slem
December 19, 2008 1:33 PM | Link to this
Huh? I would sit here and try and think of existential response to that tirade, but it was jut retarded. Oops, sorry not PC, that was a “mentally challenged” post.
By 1911A1
December 19, 2008 1:42 PM | Link to this
Slem:
Neither retarded nor mentally challenged, just po-fo’d.
By Cubby
December 19, 2008 3:40 PM | Link to this
One of the worst things I’ve ever seen was walking in the mall with my young child when the shootings first occurred and he was on the run.
Some very intelligent individual (place much needed and much emphasized sarcasm on intelligent) had the gall to make a home made shirt that read:
Free Brian Nichols.
Let me tell you this, if I didn’t have my kid with me I would have been arrested for assault because I guarantee you that shirt would have been ripped off his intelligent a$$ in a hockey move worthy of Tie Domi!!!
By catlady
December 20, 2008 6:53 PM | Link to this
Victor, don’t forget shooting him and hanging him while pumping him full of drugs while strapping him to the electric chair. Given his ability to escape, it might be better to take every precaution.
Cubby: one of the ways to free him might be to put him to death.
By bo
December 20, 2008 10:41 PM | Link to this
this despicable swine took everything, literally, from 5 people. they don’t exist anymore because of this maggot. he doesn’t deserve to eat free man’s food, sleep in a free man’s bed, or be able to watch a color tv a hard-working blue collar man works like a dog to get for his family. this sorry, wretched creature gets to obtain food and little knick nacks a lot of poor people, who work hard get to have. nichols is the appitimity of evil, a purely soulless monster who needs to be six feet under, after having been suffocated in the gas chambers. he doesn’t deserve anything any free man who hasn’t murdered can have; food, beverages, a bed, a color tv, a radio, etc i’m basically saying he’s got to be killed.
By J.D.
December 23, 2008 9:21 AM | Link to this
All I hope for is one of his cellmates decides to make a name for themself and stick a shiv where it counts.
Then justice will be served.
By Les duLunch
January 5, 2009 5:09 PM | Link to this
DogsRPeople2, You need to lay off the drugs before you post.
By Tom T
January 9, 2009 6:17 PM | Link to this
DogRPeople2:
Meadow Muffins!!
By NICHOLS IS LIKE APD
January 15, 2009 10:06 PM | Link to this
THE SAME PEOPLE ASKING FOR DEATH FOR BRIAN NICHOLS WOULD NOT ASK FOR DEATH PENALTY OF THE WHITE OFFICERS THAT KILLED THAT UNARMED 92 YEAR OLD WOMAN,DEKALB POLICE KILLED 11 UNARMED MEN,SO IN ESSENCE WHAT BRIAN NICHOLS DID WAS KARMA.