i've never understood this. why is killing a cop worse than killing, say, the tuba man?

I was just coming to say the same thing Max. It is ridiculous that cops get held to a higher standard of human life.

cops are not a higher form of life

Because cops represent the state, and thus an attack on a cop is an attack on all of us. A cop is a symbolic figure in addition to being a person. In this instance, Monfort wasn't after any particular officer; he just wanted to kill a policeman, because of what he represented.

I think it's ridiculous, though, that Satterberg has decided to inflate his resume with a mega-million-dollar death case when all levels of government are hurting so bad for dollars. Pursuing death for Monfort is going to adversely affect all county services, including policing. Life in a wheelchair in prison seems harsh enough to me.

Bullshit Fnarf. Bull.Shit.

Human life is precious. We only have one go at it. Taking of any human life be it a normal person or an officer of the state holds the same level of evil. Killing of anyone is barbaric and unacceptable.

Killing anyone isso barbaric that they have no problem with killing a well-trained, armed cop is not the kind of guy you ever want seeing the light of day again.

It's not so much that cops are above everyone else; more like these vermin are below everyone else.

Good Morning Dominic,
I agree that a police officer's life is not more or less important than any other human life even Montfort's. The problem I see is Monfort himself. He targeted the police ie. a representative of the State. He used dubious reasoning (Butler's theories), has shown no remorse and still considers himself a victim. I do support Capital Punishment but in this rare high profile case I would support mandatory life imprisonment for him. Monfort is paralyzed. He's not going anywhere and will never kill again.

The real bullshit of the death penalty is that it supposedly requires even more proof to sentence someone to this, yet they are still entitled to appeals, then they sit on death row for 20 years. If there is enough evidence to sentence someone to death (a practice I do not support due to lack of trust in humans to dish this sentence out consistently without prejudice), then it should be strait to the execution.

You know what else I think is bullshit about the death penalty? That it is not a victims family member who pulls the levers. Fuck that clinical, trained professional bullshit, if someone deserves to die for a crime, these are the people who should be taking the criminals life away, not a representative of the state! If noone from the victims family is willing to do it, then life without parole, no appeals.

Let met try to keep up.

A crime against someone because they are black, gay, Muslim or whatever is a hate crime deserving additional punishment, because it is an attack against the entire group that doesn't only harm the victim. It serves to spread terror and intimidate all members of the group that was attacked.

But it just strikes you as completely off the wall to say targeting a cop because they are a cop also merits greater punishment? And extraordinary efforts to deter crimes against those who volunteer to put themselves in extraordinary danger just fucking blows your mind? Perhaps even raises the specter of some kind of fascist police state out to cow the populace?

Is that how it is?

And...

AND if someone murdered a gay man who was a complete stranger, who was targeted for no reason at all except that he was gay, it would be totally fine and dandy if Satterberg said, "Yeah, we could seek the death penalty here but money is tight so we're going to go easy on this one..."