![]() ![]() Sending them directly to heaven, Holton says, saved them a lifetime of suffering. Holton, for his part, maintains that he murdered his children in order to save them from the awful life they were living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with their alcoholic mother, in a bad neighborhood. As they exchange letters and meet occasionally for interviews, the two men express a mix of curiosity respect, and sometimes, dislike for one another, debating the meaning and effect of the death penalty, focusing especially on moral and philosophical issues. ![]() Convicted of killing his four children with an AK-47 in 1997, Holton is awaiting execution when Blecker meets him (his sentence is carried out in 2007, providing an uneasy conclusion - really, more questions - for the film). “The more he goes into this,” Tabak says, “the more you can see that there’s a lot of subjectivity, and the more you see that he thinks he can play God.”īlecker brings this subjectivity to bear on his relationship with Death Row inmate Daryl Holton. The penalty should be applied only to “the worst of the worst,” he says, and the “remote, remote possibility of executing an innocent person is the ‘cost of doing business.'” This worries anti-death penalty attorney Robert Tabak, who submits that Blecker’s “certainty” that he can know and measure the differences between criminals is unfounded. “It’s not that I am certain, I feel certain to the core of my being that the death penalty is an adequate moral response.”īlecker makes his case repeatedly in Ted Schilinger’s documentary, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead. When he speaks to the New Jersey Death Penalty Commission, he explains the emotional basis of his belief. One of the few academics who support capital punishment, he explains that he’s frequently called on to testify before committees and panels investigating the morality and legality of such punishment. For New York Law School professor and well-known retributivist Blecker, the deserving can be felt. ![]() The question is open, at least for a moment, as to who “they” are - the victims seeking solace or “justice,” or vengeance, or the villains, however motivated. Why, asks Robert Blecker, does he support the death penalty? “Three words,” he answers himself. ![]()
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