Adam Lanza’s Father, in First Public Comments, Says ‘You Can’t Get Any More Evil’

[tblue37]

216. As a general attitude our society seems interested only in revenge.

I remembered wrong about the victim's family. It was the visit right after the stay of execution I was thinking of, the one you mentioned. It didn't occur after the commutation of the sentence.

I have a good memory--which is why I recognized which case you were referring to in the OP. But sometimes I conflate a few details. I do remember that one of the Board of Pardon members who voted *against* the victims' families' appeal to refrain from executing him acknowledged that he was not a danger to society--i.e., that the circumstances of his crime were extraordinary and not likely ever to come together like that again. But that person was simply too committed to the idea of punishment to be willing to not see the execution carried out.

I remember that guy's comment because of what the victim's daughter said after she and her father met with your brother. The father, who found him so likable, said he didn't seem like a murderer, and his daughter, who was about 20 at the time, replied that he was a murderer during just one night of his life. That comment was so wise, so humane, that I have never forgotten it.

I realize that some people who commit serious crimes are broken beyond the possibility of ever being anything but a danger to others, but I also believe that the lock 'em up and throw away the key approach that refuses to consider the possibility of rehabilitation and reintegration in some cases is purely about revenge, and ours is a vengeful society.

Furthermore, even those who are too damaged to ever be rehabilitated to the point where they could be safely released and reintegrated didn't get that damaged on their own. Every one of them started out as an infant, a child, an adolescent, and they became damaged because of the way our society neglects the well-being of young people and of the families they are born into.

Everything I have read indicates that yours was a stable, loving family. I won't mention other details, because I don't want to compromise your privacy by "dropping clues." But it does seem to me that considering his family background and the circumstances of his crime, he is precisely the sort of person who could have been eventually released without putting anyone at risk. The idea that he should never have any *hope* of release bothers me.

I am on my way over to your blog now.

ON EDIT: Your description of your *other* (sociopathic) brother is what I mean about how some people are too "broken" to fix. His damage happened before your parents had a chance to take him in and try to help him. But it is the sort of damage that happens because so many of our society's children are born into such awful circumstances in what is so often hailed as "the wealthiest nation on earth."