On Eugene Volokh, Crime and Punishment

March 18, 2005

This One's For You, Rilkefan (Special Volokh Edition)

by hilzoy

Last night, Eugene Volokh wrote the following about the slow and public throttling of an Iranian serial murderer:

"I particularly like the involvement of the victims' relatives in the killing of the monster; I think that if he'd killed one of my relatives, I would have wanted to play a role in killing him. Also, though for many instances I would prefer less painful forms of execution, I am especially pleased that the killing — and, yes, I am happy to call it a killing, a perfectly proper term for a perfectly proper act — was a slow throttling, and was preceded by a flogging. The one thing that troubles me (besides the fact that the murderer could only be killed once) is that the accomplice was sentenced to only 15 years in prison, but perhaps there's a good explanation.