Accidental support for death penalty...

[billc]

Here is an article about a criminals journey from supporting the death penalty, for the killer who murdered his brother, and then deciding against it. The problem, at the end of the article, he accidentally reveals why the death penalty should have been given to his brothers killer...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/wanting-to-kill.html

From against to for the death penalty...

My brother had been stabbed numerous times, his throat slashed. The crime occurred in a park in South Phoenix. An ex-con from Oklahoma was later found guilty of first-degree murder.
Overnight, I became a believer in the death penalty. Before John’s murder, I thought that killing a person in any form was wrong. “I want closure,” I would rant to anyone who’d listen. “I want justice.” But what I really wanted was blood and vengeance.

To being housed in the same prison as the killer after comitting 3 felonies...

In the summer of 1991 I was being held in a Maricopa County jail on three felonies: third-degree burglary, possession of narcotics and possession of drug paraphernalia. The judge sentenced me to two years in an Arizona state prison, the same state prison system that housed my brother’s murderer. After being transferred to the Arizona Department of Corrections I was taken to an office for classification.

To against the death penalty again...

Now I was forced to contemplate actual murder, and decided that it just wasn’t in me to attack another human being with intent to kill or, a distinct possibility, be killed. It took that D.N.H., that rote product of penal bureaucracy, to teach me that I didn’t want to kill anybody, and from there it wasn’t much of a mental leap to conclude that I didn’t want the state do it for me, either.

And then why the death penalty needs to be applied to murderers...

He is out now, that murderer, paroled after 25 years. But I don’t much care. Those 25 years in prison could not have been pleasant for him. It’s not life, but for me it’s close enough. I’ve been to prison and I know what it’s like.

I wonder, did this killer victimize any one else when he was released? Did he kill again? It would be nice if this author could tell us these little bits of information.