The last time Chapman was up for parole, in 2008, the New York State Division of Parole issued a release saying his request was denied “due to concern for the public safety and welfare.”

Here they say he was basically the same person as 1980. And in 2010 they said:

“discretionary release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community.”

So, the still consider that he might hurt the welfare of the community. He has in other words not changed enough.

Last time time I looked, spending 30 years in prison equals at least half the adult life span of a human being.

After considering the action he took in 1980…

So again, it sounds like they based the decision on the actions he took 30 years ago. Which may be appropriate depending on how you want to structure your justice system, who knows… but I don’t see that decision as evidence that there has been “zero change” in his personality.

Exaggeration, sure, but Graham screamed up and down about Lennon for, basically, using an idiom, and the only surprise is that it took as long as it did for his fulminations to find a nut willing to go out and do what that religious man seemed to want.

And I’m with the columnist who wrote about the murder without gratifying the asshole who did it. Bury his name. Don’t give him the fame he killed for.

Murderers of the homeless ought to get punished for murder, and get the standard punishment.
Mr. Lennon’s killer deserves MORE time than the usual sentence, since his crime hurt MORE people.
Just as circumstances can sometimes lead to lesser punishments…in Societies that do not bind the Judiciary’s hands with politically-dictated “mandatory minimum sentences”.

Why not release ALL of the marijuana “offenders”, before releasing ANY murderers?

Just as political assassins are different than run-of-the-mill murderers: there is a broader agenda in the mind of the perp, than simply taking a person’s life.
And for me, that makes such killings worse crimes, and deserving of harsher punishment.
Not for “revenge”: but for the general deterrence of those who would use murder as a political instrumentality, which use would serve to demonstrate more cold-blooded hostility to people, and greater indifference to the victim, on the part of the murderer.
Again, worthy of harsher punishment.

It seems that some posting above, those who want this guy released immediately, cannot help but insult the memory of the victim…sometimes explicitly!…in their comments.
Reveals something of their attitude, if ya asks me.

And you choose to omit the part where they 2008 where still concerned for the the public safety and welfare.

But they apparently BASED that concern on what he did 30 years ago. Nowhere is there any indication that anything he’s done in the intervening decades was a cause for concern.

Keeping the “bad fruit” off the streets. There ya go. Sentence for capital murder needs to be “life or death” — no time off for anything.

IMO, the justice system is badly flawed because it is more based on a vague, moralist sense of punishment and retribution rather than just plain public safety. We don’t allow dangerous, maiming pets on the streets but we expect violent, large apes to have a reliable moral sense. Right. Once someone shows they lack such sense, or that their impulses override it to the point of murder, it doesn’t just grow back out of nowhere.

I don’t believe in retribution in the ‘symbolic’ way a criminal sitting in jail for X time to somehow make it up to the victim and society. It means nothing aside the hope to see the criminal regret his actions and feel bad for what he did. It’s just an adult version of ‘time out’. It relies on the notion of remorse and that killers are able to spontaneously regret their actions and change their nature. Again, unless that gets verified and proven as successful, I don’t buy it. Sociopaths or violent delusional people can’t be trusted on account of their emotions or perceived state of mind.

No need to split hairs about it. I don’t want to sit on a bus next to EITHER.

Anyone who says we need to use a tough-on-crime, give-em-the-chair or throw-away-the-key approach to keep law and order clearly hasn’t been paying attention to what the rest of the world has been up to.

Reads like you’re valuing one life above another. The law cannot.

I emphatically disagree with the idea that intent can be taken into account with regards to sentencing.

I fail to see where “detererrance” would have worked in this case.

Political murder come in two flavors: Killing or trying to kill a public figure associated with a movement/event (Lincoln, Gandhi, Hitler). I’d be *very* surprised if the assassins expect not to get killed if they fail, if they do not factor in getting killed on the spot even if they succeed with their assassination.

Seems to me that most political (as in “trying to influence politics and the public optionen) murders aren’t aimed at key figures, but at minor politicians, journalists, teachers and other civilians to create terror.

You repeat that you do not want harsher punishment as a revenge, but I cannot at all your trail of thoughts. The attacks your cite are rare occurrences, they are often committed by mentally ill persons or fanatics – both are not groups known for rational assessment.

Surely that erodes society’s revulsion of the crime? And that revulsion is what matters to help deter it. Places where life is deemed valueless (pockets of Congo, for instance) see high rates of killing.

This one did it for the fame. He would glory in it.

So 30 years in prison, hard, but if you don’t change, and you’re going to live in infamy off the back of your crime, I don’t think in any way or sense that can be beneficial to society.

Which is, ultimately, why we have a penalty for murder. To stop other people doing it.

In torts, the condition and position in society and life of the victim always determines the amount of damages to be paid by the perpetrator.
Just as aggravating circumstances always result in harsher punishment where a range is available.
Aggravating circumstances – like intentionally targeting not “key”, but “public” figures.

My gangbanger example was perhaps ill-chosen in a racially-charged society like the USA: but I was simply seeking an example of “common homicide” – in Canada, urban killings just are simply not “common” – which would not present any aggravating or mitigating circumstances, to set a “baseline”.

I’m also a little confused – can your Judges with justice accept a guilty plea from an accused, where there is a valid question as to the accused’s mental competence? That seems weird to me. Pregnant with mischief and injustice, in fact: are your prisons set up,in any way at all, to handle the actually factually mentally-ill inmates that such a Judicial policy would inevitably generate?

Is, or was, this killer insane? If so, why is he in prison at all, instead of confined to a mental health facility, to be tried once he becomes fit and ready (if ever) to stand trial?
What kind of system of justice punishes the insane?

If US Judges do accept guilty pleas in cases where the accused is crazy, what hope can there be of any parole at all for that convict in the future, in the absence of medical treatment for the accused’s/convict’s mental health?

It seems to me that perhaps the US justice system needs more psychiatrists and psychologists and nurses, rather than prison guards and police and mandatory minimum sentences.

Trial and punishment of the insane is a travesty of justice.

John Lennon made a difference in the lives of many people, and his cultural impact will probably persist after we’re dead. While he died when I was two years old, the impact he has made in my life makes me realize what a horrible theft that has been committed by cutting his life short.