Lawyers Set to Be Executed

"Lawyers For Mentally Ill Woman Set To Be Executed By U.S. Contract Coronavirus" is the full headline, from the HuffPost.

Prof. Mark Liberman (Language Log) provides the "Lawyers set to be executed" post title, and adds:

"U.S. Contract Coronavirus" would be an innovative method of execution, but not the most unexpected event of the year.

The original headline:

Comments

[DWB]

"Lawyers set to be executed"

A good start??? 😉

[grb]

Shakespeare would approve.

[Cal Cetín]

Not only did the HuffPo headline writer use unfortunate phrasing, the article leaves out information about the crime. So here is an article from the Oxygen network:

"Lisa Montgomery strangled Barbara Jo Stinnett, 23, to death and then sliced the woman open and abducted her child in northwestern Missouri in 2004, according to the Associated Press. She’s scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. 8 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, the Justice Department confirmed last week.

"Montgomery had posed as a buyer interested in purchasing a puppy from Stinnett. After driving from Kansas to the pregnant woman’s home in Skidmore, Missouri, she strangled the woman until she passed out. Montgomery then used a kitchen knife to extract the woman’s newborn.

"“Montgomery then removed the baby from Stinnett’s body, took the baby with her, and attempted to pass it off as her own,” according to a Justice Department press release.

"Officials described the crime as “heinous.” The 23-year-old was eight-months pregnant at the time of her death.

"Authorities, who later concluded the attack was premeditated, eventually secured a confession from Montgomery. She was sentenced to death in 2007. Montgomery has exhausted all possible appeals. "

The article goes on to say that her legal team claims she suffers from hereditary mental illness and suffered major abuse in her life. That's apparently the basis of the clemency appeal.

https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/lisa-montgomery-convicted-in-deadly-fetal-kidnapping-set-to-be-executed

The original execution date is in December. I'm guessing the subtext here is that if Montgomery survives until a Biden administration, Biden would be more likely to pardon her, since many of the Great and the Good have agreed that an execution would be unjust.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

No information on how the baby / child is doing. Apparently survived long enough to be passed off as the killer's baby, but no subsequent news. Presumably adopted or fostered if still alive, but man, I wouldn't want to be the one to tell her who her real mother was.

[Cal Cetín]

Maybe hir parents will drop it on zir when zhe is on the way to an anti-death-penalty march.

[Squire Al]

There were roughly 15-20,000 murders per year in the US and two thirds of them were cleared by arrest. There were 22 executions in 2019 and 34 new death sentences.

This murder was a horrendous crime and maybe one of the worst I have ever read about but you could look at many, many of the other thousands of murders each year and find thousands and thousands of horrendous stories.

Who dies for their crimes and who is imprisoned or who is exonerated would suggest that who gets executed has more to do with luck and circumstance and choices in representation than any consideration of just how terrible their actions may have been.

[Bob from Ohio]

Death penalty opponents have made it so difficult that many jurisdictions, even with the penalty still on the books, do not use it much.

"thousands and thousands of horrendous stories"

A decent society would execute every one.

[Squire Al]

Most executions in US history in any year since 1776 less than 200. https://time.com/82375/every-execution-in-u-s-history-in-a-single-chart/. So, not factually accurate that the lack of executions as a percentage of murders had anything to do with opponents of the death penalty.

[Squirrelloid]

That link does not prove what you say it does.

Note the increasing numbers as population increases up through ~1930s, then the drop off afterwards. There's pretty clear heightened resistance to the death penalty for most of the 20th century, or you'd roughly have an exponential curve that tracks population growth, just like earlier in US history.

(The early US history suggests the death penalty and the types of crimes which warrant it happen at a certain rate, so you'd expect it to constant on a per capita basis - deviation from that later is plausibly explained by resistance to the use of the death penalty).

[Squire Al]

You miss the point completely. The point is that executions never represented more than a tiny percentage of those who were guilty of murder. Yes, executions went down on a per capita basis in recent years, but at the highest, 197 in 1935, was likely less than 1% of all murders, estimated at 20,000. And, I strongly doubt that the decline in executions beginning in 1935 was due to general opposition to the death penalty. Maybe later, but not then.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"A decent society would execute every one."

And the last man standing commits suicide?

Seems a bit extreme.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Biden would be more likely to pardon her"

Probably will figured it was just an abortion attempt out of sequence.

Barr has been a good AG but his revival of the federal death penalty has been his best work.

[SykesFive]

I have never read about a non-heinous murder.

[Bill R]

That headline is what needs executing.

[Michael P]

I realize that a digital media outlet probably has lots of servers that might gum up the works, but while we're at it, could we feed the whole Huffington Post to the woodchipper?

[DaivdBehar]

Although, the lawyer profession qualifies for the death penalty, I oppose it. They are in insurrection against the constitution. They are responsible for millions of deaths. They up there with the worst of the worst mass murderers.

Yet, the death penalty is not persuasive, and the hard work of cultural change is still necessary.

[Sidney r finkel]

Eats, shoots and leaves.

[Beldar]

Given the choice between that and execution by contract murder hornets, I guess I'd choose the virus. #2020conundrums

[Beldar]

This very much reminds me of a Houston Chronicle headline in 2006: "Lawyer says he's mildly retarded."

[Don Nico]

Finally, an honest lawyer !

[anorlunda]

Mildly??? Those lawyers always prevaricate.

[Jerry B.]

Well, that’s the first thing we do, per the Bard.

[Virologist]

I saw an article the day, claiming that journalists were the lowest paid yet most highly educated of all professions. It was written by a journalist.

[Union of Concerned Socks]

You spelled "edumacated" wrong.

[Bored Lawyer]

Which, if true, just proves how stupid and clueless journalists are.

[y81]

The proverbial "two-faced head." The NYT used to have (maybe still does) an internal newsletter which collected these. My favorite (at least when I was an adolescent and had a friend whose father worked at the Times) was "Investigators Explore Virgin Far North."

[Cal Cetín]

Some headlines which are allegedly true:

Man gets cruel punishment: Lawyer

Woman off to prison for sex with boys

Defendant's speech ends with long sentence

[Cal Cetín]

A headline I used to think was hilarious was

British Left Waffles on Falklands

[TwelveInchPianist]

Students get first hand job experience.

[Bored Lawyer]

As I tell my kids, punctuation matters.

It is the difference between

Let's eat, grandma.

and

Let's eat grandma.

[Noscitur a sociis]

How would punctuation have helped this headline?

[Bored Lawyer]

Lawyers (For Mentally Ill Woman Set To Be Executed By U.S.) Contract Coronavirus

A bit awkward, but more accurate.

[Squirrelloid]

Mentally ill woman's lawyers contract corona virus.

(Not only is that unambiguous, but it's also shorter!)

[Longtobefree]

For fun, add only punctuation to make one or more English sentences that are not only syntactically correct, but also true.

that that is is that that is not is not is not that it it is

[apedad]

Possible rape allegation defense.

She said, "No! Don't! Stop!"

He heard, "No, don't stop!"

[Enemy of the State]

First, we execute all the lawyers by coronavirus....

[Advokat]

The title of the text is not entirely appropriate.
In any case, I am in principle against the death penalty in any country in the world. If someone is guilty of a crime there are other types of punishment.
And lawyers are obliged to defend their client both when he is guilty and when he is innocent. Advokat Beograd - https://advokatiubeogradu.rs