In many ways, it would be wrong if the District Attorney for Los Angeles decides to seek the death penalty in the case of Juan Alvarez, the man who killed 11 people by trying to commit suicide by train. Unfortunately for him (and of course, the passengers on the train), he decided at the last moment to abort the attempt, leaving his car wedged between the railroad tracks.
Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said in an interview that he would not decide whether to seek the death penalty until the case was thoroughly reviewed by his office.His voice firm with anger, Mr. Cooley called Mr. Alvarez a self-centered man whose aborted suicide attempt on the Glendale railroad crossing led to 11 deaths in the early morning darkness Wednesday. Two hundred people were injured. The body of one man was burned so badly that it had yet to be identified.
This is not to say that Alvarez deserves to be coddled, but a state-sponsored killing of a suicidal criminal seems contrary to the values of our society. Here in America, suicide is almost never seen as strength (for example, a way to preserve your honor), but as weakness. In general, we want people to live, whether they want to or not.
With Alvarez, being sent to death row would mean that the justice system would want him to live, but only long enough so that he could be killed. This seems ironic.
At 6:25 on January 28, 2005, renzomatic wrote:
found your site because of our shared interest in KCNA. Usually check it once/twice a week.
As for our Trainwrecker, it would be too bad if they did sentence him to death. I'd much rather have a guy, so obviously distraught, one would think, over something that led him to desire to kill himself, to have to live knowing what he did. let him suffer some more. In fact, I say, get him addicted to heroin, then put him into solitary until he goes through crazy withdrawals, and then get him hooked again and repeat process.
I mean, our society is so crapped out that you can't even kill yourself without having to drag other people down. Our citizenry is so dependant on trying to gain that 15 minutes in some way, that we can't even take out our own lives with any privacy or decency. It's really sad. No one is responsible for themselves anymore.
At 3:03 on January 29, 2005, Martey wrote:
While I think the heroin thing is a bit over the top (and borders on the "cruel and unusual"), I hope that the court will take into account Alvarez' history of mental instability (which, incidentally, seems related to his history of substance abuse). This San Francisco Chronicle article contains more information about the specific statute that allows Alvarez to receive the death penalty for derailing a train. It ends with this quote by Rory Little, a law school professor:
Of course, due to the possibility of hitting a boat below, one might want to check that the river was clear of traffic before jumping. If Alvarez's vehicle had not become wedged in the tracks, the train would simply have run right through it (instead of running over it and off the tracks). While this would have presented the passengers on the train with a mild inconvenience, it would not have killed them. That is the problem with this case. None of the public facts suggest that Alvarez meant to kill anybody except himself, making this seem like a horrible ironic accident - man decides not to kill self, only to end up killing others.