John Couey

In regards to the man responsible for kidnapping and murder of Jessica Lunsford, from The Boston Herald:
"Couey has an extensive criminal record that includes 24 arrests for burglary, carrying a concealed weapon and indecent exposure. In 1991, he was arrested in Kissimmee on a charge of fondling a child under age 16. Records don't show how the case was resolved.

During a house burglary in 1978, Couey was accused of grabbing a girl in her bedroom, placing his hand over her mouth and kissing her, Dawsy said. Couey was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was paroled in 1980."

The system failed.
The system failed everyone in Homosassa, it failed a 9 year old little girl and left her to pay the tab on everyone elses sin.
In twenty four arrests, two of those directly for criminal sexual behaviour and one for burglary involving the same behavior, no one ever thought to lock this man up for the rest of his natural life.
After a certain period of time, any hope of rehabilitation should go out the window like a chamberpot being emptied. Twenty four arrests says "I can never be rehabilitated, I am a skel". The system has a lot of problems, not the least of which is the management of offenders. The politically correct attitudes that "everyone needs to be treated like delicate flowers", "anyone can be rehabilitated" and "everyone wants to be a good person, and just needs love and compassion from others to get past the emotional issues that make them 'act out' like this" need to go. These attitudes and concepts should have been put away by now - how many dead children need to serve as coffin nails?
Some, a very small number of, offenders can be rehabilitated, and I wont begin to say any differently, but the rest never will be, never can be. Yes, I am giving up on some people, because some people are only worth giving up on. They make a choice to do the things they do, and they find out that they wont get any sort of meaningful sentances if caught, and even if they do time will only get to hang out with all their friends and practice their tradecrafts of violence and deception in the "gladiator school" that is prison. They make the choice to accept that pattern of behavior, and to continue commiting the crimes they want to commit. And they can safely make it because they know the punishment will be a joke. They know that nothing exists that can truly stop them. They can safely make that choice to be criminals over and over again for decades without fear, until they finally decide to act out their biggest fantasy, and the blood of some little girl goes to pay the tab on all our sins.
Jail is not a rehabilitation, and it is sure as hell not a punishment for these people. Leniency and slaps on the wrist dont do anyone any favors, they just reinforce to the criminal mind that its okay to keep taking and hurting, and that nothing that bad will actually happen to them. Leniency and slaps on the wrist, unreasonable kindness to our fellow man, lead us to this point - 9 year old little girls having to suffer horrible abuses, and being brutally murdered.
Some people make the choice to be evil, they can never be rehabilitated and they deserve no kindness. Awarding them such only gets others hurt. John Couey is one of these people.

He needs to be taken care of the way they should have long ago - Get a confession, get DNA confirmation, and then take him out behind the court-house and put a bullet through the middle of his forehead. Throw the body in an un-marked hole in Potters field, and leave it there to rot back into the earth. He deserves no spectacle, and certainly no memorial, simply to be loosed of this mortal coil and sent forth to make up for his sins in his next lives. He'll have a lot of really awful ones to go through before he's anywhere near "made up" - and he wont be wasting our oxygen anymore.
And if you dont think that is compassionate, I ask you to look very hard at what you personally define as compassion. John Couey showed no compassion, of any form, to Jessica Lunsford when he kidnapped her, raped her and murdered her. He did it all for his own pleasure, and nothing more. He enjoyed it, beggining to end. If he wasnt caught, he would have continued his life-long pattern and done it again. Killing him, quickly and without spectacle, takes away any spectacle or "romance" that may be applied to his actions and his eventual fate; it saves the tax-payers money (DNA testing + bullet will cost thousands less than DNA testing + court costs + keeping him in jail for another 15 years or more + the cost of the death-juice); and it is merciful and compassionate to everyone on the planet, including Couey. It would get him out of all our hair, set an example for others like him (there is a consequence, and a goddamn dire one), and it would free him of this existence to pay for his crimes in whatever manner the universe chooses. There are much, much worse fates - and they are all probably deserved, I would shed no tears to see Couey broken on the wheel while his intenstines were spooled out - so dont you dare accuse me of lacking compassion.
If you think Couey doesnt deserve a quick execution without glamour or show, then it is you who lack compassion.

If the state wont do it, I honestly hope someone else will. All it takes is commitment to the action and one bullet. I fail to see why this is an unacceptable option.