Executing Justice: A Murder Trial Reignites Vermont's Death Penalty Debate
It has been almost 50 years since the death penalty was imposed in Vermont, and that 1957 sentence was commuted. Thirty years later, the state Legislature officially abolished capital punishment. After the murder of a Vermont woman in 2000, lawmakers seriously considered reinstating it, and although that effort failed, the crime led to a federal trial in Burlington over the past month that has made the issue difficult to ignore.The victim was Tressa “Terry” King, a 53-year-old grandmother from North Clarendon who was kidnapped on Nov. 27, 2000, as she arrived for an early shift at the Rutland Price Chopper. Several hours later, King was beaten to death over the border in New York. One of her killers, Donald Fell, came from Pennsylvania, where he was subjected to beatings and sexual abuse as a child, saw his parents stab each other at age 5, and started drinking from a basement beer keg before he was 10.
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Posted by beth at 09:57 AM
Comments
i think the death penalty should be in forced in vermont to show we will not tolarat murder or any other crime
Posted by: dillon at October 5, 2006 11:17 AM
I would like to start by saying that I do oppose the death penalty, but not because I feel it is inhumane treatment etc. I oppose the death penalty because it is unfortunately a faulty system. For the most part most inmates on death row are guilty. However, it has been proven that innocent people have been found guilty and given the death penalty. Some of these people have been exonerated and released, but others have unfortunately been put to death and proven to be innocent after the fact. I feel the system goes to far when it mistakenly puts innocent people to death. Although there are people that deserve to die for their actions, we as a country cannot have a federal justice system that puts innocent people to death, regardless of how many or how few that may be. Until the system can be 100% accurate, which I doubt will ever happen, the system is unfair and unjust.
Posted by: J at October 31, 2006 11:01 PM
