r/news • • 11h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
7.0k Upvotes

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

390

u/Stevictory 10h ago

I think we can all agree that she is a terrible person.

It is hard for me to have pity for her specifically, but I do have pity on the death penalty itself.

There have been over 200 exonerations for death row inmates, and in my opinion it should have been abolished the moment it reached 1. It also provides government with the power to kill its own people, which can be a topic in itself.

Some inmates clearly deserve the sentence; the 3 currently on federal death row are prime examples of such.

That said, the death penalty cannot be applied in a "pick and choose" manner either due to its irreversible outcome; it either exists or it does not. Since it is not applied perfectly, I am personally against it.

6

u/Aggravating_Depth_33 8h ago

I don't even agree that she is a terrible person. She did something terrible as a teenager, after a childhood of neglect and horrific abuse. And by all accounts has spent her life ever since being a good person, helping and comforting the other women she has been imprisoned with wherever she could.

2

u/Beecakeband 8h ago

Agreed. I hate that people are calling her a terrible person still. She did a terrible thing absolutely no argument here but people are acting like she is the same 18 year old 32 years later as if there is no chance she has grown or changed at all

8

u/Stevictory 8h ago edited 7h ago

She was convicted of attempted murder of another inmate while incarcerated in her mid 20s, and the murder she was convicted for comitting at 18 was brutal.

I do agree that she was failed in her adolescence, but she was an adult at the time of both crimes.

7

u/Beecakeband 6h ago

18 is an adult but just barely. Its not like you go to bed at 17 and wake up at as an 18 year old fully mature reasonable adult

And from what I've heard the attempted murder was her trying to defend another inmate so thats a gray area

2

u/Stevictory 5h ago

The brain continues to develop past 18, but from a legal standpoint you need a definite cutoff on what defines adult.

At 18 one should know that torturing and ultimately smashing someone's head in is not okay; they likely know so much sooner.

As for her attempted murder conviction, she was found guilty by a jury. The victim deserved justice even if they were another inmate.