I P THE REPORTS ARE CORRECT (and who can doubt them), 25- year-old Richard Speck drove his knife 24 times into the bodies of the eight student nurses which he murdered “ one by one with pack ing-house precision.” This delib erate slaughter was carried out by a man who had been arrested on many occasions since his name was first placed on the police rec ords 12 years earlier. Added to this heinous “ crime of the century” is the alarming fact that the American public cannot have any real assurance that this accused murderer of eight girls will be brought to justice. Of the 402 murder cases tried in Cook County, Illinois, in the last twen ty years, not one o f the con demned has been sent to the elec tric chair. So what hope is there that any murderer today will face justice in the light of the Su preme Court’s deep concern that all criminals should be assured of their “ c on s titu t ion a l rights” ? Who cares about the “ constitu tional rights” of the murdered man or the raped woman as long
as the drunken bum, the dope ad dict and the sex maniac get their “ rights” ? Of course, we have judges, senators, governors, and a host of others who claim that capital punishment doesn’t work anyway. There isn’t a murderer in the U.S.A. who is afraid of the elec tric chair or gas chamber. He knows he will never get there. It is unrealistic, unacademic, unsci entific and unadulterated hypoc risy to say that capital punish ment won’t deter capital crimes. The logical conclusion of such senile reasoning is to claim that no punishment will deter any crime. Then why not let all crimi nals go free? The rest of us can protect ourselves behind barred doors. We spend millions o f dollars to send our boys to kill the “ crimi nals and murderers” in North Viet Nam because we believe capital punishment works. We are ready to kill killers overseas — then why not here? What is the difference between the man who kills your son in Viet Nam and
the criminal who kills you r daughter in the U.S.A. ? It is glaringly inconsistent to claim that the killer in Viet Nam ought to be shot while the killer in America is to be pampered be cause the death penalty doesn’t work. The indisputable fact is that the swift and public execution of the murderer of Chicago’s eight student nurses, along with the swift and public execution o f oth er murderers whom we now pam per as “ sick” people in our jails, definitely would deter capital crime. Of course, it is not the law that deters crime; it is the execution o f it. What driver would fear a 30-mile-an-hour speed law if he knew there was no punishment for breaking it? Where is the judge, the jury, and the governor in the United States today who has the moral courage to enforce capital punishment? Is it not pos sible that every judge, jury, and lawyer who deliberately shares in the sparing of a murderer from his just punishment becomes by
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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