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Death Penalty could have saved woman's life

Renae

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n court Thursday, DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said Smirnov met Vesel in 2008 through an Internet dating site. After they met, Smirnov moved to the United States.

But the relationship soured, and Smirnov moved back to Canada. Since 2009, Berlin said, he has been harassing Vesel. She filed a complaint that year with the Berwyn Police Department over harassing e-mail and telephone calls, Berlin said.

About two weeks ago, Smirnov decided to leave Canada, returning to the United States, Berlin said. He first stopped in Seattle to buy a .40-caliber handgun and ammunition.
Man accused of stalking woman before killing her in Oak Brook - Chicago Sun-Times

So the stage is set.

Berlin said Smirnov had done research on the Internet to determine if Illinois had the death penalty, deciding to go through with Vesel’s murder when he discovered it does not.
And there.

We can prove one innocent woman is now dead because the killer decided life in prison was better then being executed.
 
Man accused of stalking woman before killing her in Oak Brook - Chicago Sun-Times

So the stage is set. And there. We can prove one innocent woman is now dead because the killer decided life in prison was better then being executed.

We can say for certain that his crazy researched whether or not Illinois had the death penalty. But we can't extrapolate from that research that this woman would be alive if we did. The guy is looney.

Swear to God, if I'm ever stalked by a guy, he's gunna get a verbal invite to my home right after I file a TRO -- and a shot or two to the head just inside my front door. Stalkers are very dangerous human beings. (This happened about 6 miles from my home...second high-profile stalking murder in a year.)
 
We can say for certain that his crazy researched whether or not Illinois had the death penalty. But we can't extrapolate from that research that this woman would be alive if we did. The guy is looney.

Swear to God, if I'm ever stalked by a guy, he's gunna get a verbal invite to my home right after I file a TRO -- and a shot or two to the head just inside my front door. Stalkers are very dangerous human beings. (This happened about 6 miles from my home...second high-profile stalking murder in a year.)

Berlin said Smirnov had done research on the Internet to determine if Illinois had the death penalty, deciding to go through with Vesel’s murder when he discovered it does not.

I'd pretty much say, yes we can on this one.
 
Nothing done by humans is ever perfect.

From an emotional perspective we could say IT'S possible that the death penalty might have saved that womans life...but on the other side, anyone crazy enough to cross the border to kill someone in the end might not care anyway (since he'd also know he'd be spending 15 years on deaths row)

Emotionally you could turn this into an argument about legalizing the death penalty.

But as I said before nothing done by humans is perfect, and coulda woulda arguments are useless at this point.
 
So is this supposed to be proof that we should have the death penalty?
 
coulda woulda shoulda. I'm pro-capital punishment, but one emotional story isn't a good argument in either direction.
 
So one innocent man executed totally cancels this one out, right?
 
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