Man who murdered John Lennon up for parole again

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/27/new.york.chapman.parole.hearing/index.html?hpt=Sbin

CNN) -- John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, is up for parole for the sixth time, just months short of the 30th anniversary of the former Beatle's death.

Chapman is scheduled to be interviewed by two members of the parole board during the week of August 9.

Four letters were submitted against Chapman's release this year, according to a representative of the New York State Division of Parole, and there were two letters in support.

Chapman has not had an infraction since 1994, said Erik Kriss, spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

[hobbit709]

1. In his case, the life part of his sentence should be exactly that.

[Moondog]

2. Fuck him. I hope he rots. n/t

[slackmaster]

3. He should walk free as soon as John Lennon can walk free

:nuke:

[uncommon]

10. So are you in favor of life imprisonment without chance of parole for all murderers, or just the

ones who kill rock stars?

[slackmaster]

12. I'd be OK with life imprisonment for any premeditated murder

:hi:

[uncommon]

13. As would I --

but that isn't what the system does right now, so there may be no legal reason to keep a well-behaved prisoner in jail if they qualify for parole.

[slackmaster]

14. I'll abide by the New York state parole board's decision

Not that I have any say in the matter.

[Donnachaidh]

50. he was sentenced to life in prison, he shot him down in cold blood

I really don't *care* if he's well-behaved NOW. That just makes it easier for the prison to handle him. He does NOT deserve a parole. Let him rot.

[Botany]

4. The odds that he will ever get out are slim and Yoko is against his release

BTW that son of a bitch gets conjugal visits :grr:


"For the past 20 years he has been allowed conjugal visits with his wife, Gloria. The visits are part of a state
program called "family reunion" that allows inmates to spend up to 44 hours at a time with family members
in a special setting. Inmates must meet certain criteria to receive the privilege."

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

43. Doing some research, I see he married one year before the murder.

And. She. Didn't. Divorce. Him. :crazy:

I don't know you, but I file this along with those crazy ones who marry high-profile criminals AFTER they're in prison.

[Throckmorton]

5. Yes,

He was just so much more valuable than other murder victims, whose killers have long walked the streets.

[uncommon]

8. My thoughts exactly, though...

I am not 100% sure of your sarcasm.

[Ross K]

63. I am

And I agree: Thirty years is more than a LOT of murderers get.

[asdjrocky]

6. WAR IS OVER

If you want it.

[bluestateguy]

7. Now there is somebody who should be sent to Guantanamo for torturing

nt

[The_Commonist]

9. He comes up for parole every few years.

If I'm not mistaken, the parole board told him he would never be released as long as Yoko was alive.

[femrap]

49. And this murderer wouldn't

go after John's 2 sons??? Life is prison is appropriate. The fact that he gets laid while in prison is absolutely :wow: :grr:

And if his wife has a child, he can provide nothing in financial support?

Do the people in prison for using marijuana get conjugal visits as well?

This POS gunned down John Lennon in cold blood and he expects to walk around free? No.

[raccoon]

66. Then I hope she lives a century! nt

[SteveM]

11. Best way to rid ourselves of death penalty: "Life" means "life"...

If the death penalty is to ever be opposed successfully, then "life sentences" should mean Life Sentences. No parole for the carpet-shitting thug who's gone sensitive over the last 22.5 years. If a pro-death penalty person asks an anti-death penalty person: What is your alternative, you better be able to offer up something better than: "Let him get counseling, and later on when he has rehabilitated himself, the poor puppy can go home to a job which the state will provide, so he can go BUCK WILD on someone else."

Otherwise, you want get the time of day. And shouldn't.

[moriah]

64. Agreed I dislike the death penalty....

... for many reasons, but one of the main ones to me is the fact that sometimes our justice system gets it wrong.

If someone gets a life sentence, it should be for life, unless they're determined to be actually innocent. It's too late when they're dead if we've made a mistake. But so many people who are for the death penalty are for it because of exactly this type of thing -- they don't trust the prison system to keep a killer in jail, even one who has been given a life sentence. If "life" truly meant "life", more people would realize that the death penalty is both logistically and morally repugnant.

Besides, and this is where my vindictive cruel human nature comes in, death is too easy for some people.

[SteveM]

68. Recently, in Texas, a man was executed for gunning down a cop...

in Austin over 2 decades ago. There was a campaign to have his sentence reduced to life because he was a "model" prisoner, and because he was (while at the University of Texas) an honors student. It was the intention, I believe, to then have the prisoner paroled under the life sentence laws (which allow such), thus releasing him in relatively short order. Proponents of the death penalty correctly pointed out that he would not serve out his sentence of life if his sentence was reduced. I'm afraid that there are some prisoner advocates who have unseemly interest in dangerous felons, and seek to romanticize these people. The family of the Austin police officer was not so moved.

[Soylent Brice]

15. it'll never happen.

his chances are the same as Manson.

but then again, they did let Hinckley out...

:scared:

[AtomicKitten]

16. Instant Karma

Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead

What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin' to do
It's up to you, yeah you

* excerpt Instant Karma, John Lennon :cry:

[jah the baptist]

17. hes not going anywhere nt

[jobycom]

18. It's easy to hate him, and very difficult to be rational about him.

Emotionally, I hope he lives a long, long life of suffering in a prison cell or hospital ward.

More rationally, I realize that emotions shouldn't be the driving factor in such decisions. His sanity, his future threat to society, his behavior in prison, his understanding of his crime, and all sorts of other factors need to be weighed objectively.

Also, though, the deterent factor is important. This man murdered a celebrity just to get attention. There was no hot-blooded rage, no personal animosity, not even a good old-fasioned hope of profit. Giving any leniency to that type of crime undermines our reaction to the crime. It's not because celebrities are more valuable, it is that they are more visible and vulnerable that they need greater protection. I can only piss off a handful of people on my best day. A celebrity can piss off millions. The crime was particularly heinous, so the punishment should be equally extreme.

And given that his motive wasn't rational or normal, how can anyone predict that the same motive won't drive him again? This time after Yoko, or Paul, or someone else?

He shouldn't be released, but it isn't just because so many people loved the person he murdered. Our justice system needs to become more mature than that, IMHO.

[immoderate]

23. A mature analysis.

I won't hold that against you. :)

Seriously, I wouldn't hold out much hope for his quality of life or longevity if he were to be released. Somebody would take him out.

--imm

[jobycom]

24. Yeah, probably right. nt

[XOKCowboy]

26. Was there ever any chance he was going to be cured or rehabbed?

This had to come up at some point. He's always been mentally ill and will continue to be. Jail or hospital should be his only options. I wouldn't care either way.

[JuniperLea]

34. Well said...

I do like how my irrational self is in full agreement with my rational self, however. We both want him to rot in a dank, dark cell for the rest of his life. I would feel that way about anyone who committed cold blooded murder.

Anyone sick enough in the head to murder, is too sick to let out... and there's no guarantee that there's a "cure" for that kind of sickness.

[Canuckistanian]

47. I wish him a lifetime

Of hearing Beatle's music from across the exercise yard.

[jobycom]

54. He was a Beatles fan, and that was part of what he blamed Lennon for.

He blamed Lennon for their breakup, as well as other things. So he'd like hearing Beatles music. I'm not sure he's mentally developed enough to really feel any guilt or pain over what he did. He sees it as a mistake, he has said, but he doesn't really have the capacity to see it as a wrong, so hearing their music probably wouldn't cause him any distress. In his mind, John is still the phoney who split them up, and he's still the Catcher who protected all the children from him. Hearing the Beatles might even make him feel more like he did the right thing.

He's the type of person who makes you sing Bohemian Rhapsody. "Nothing really matters..." Nothing can punish him, because he doesn't have the capacity to feel the punishment. He thinks it's all about him, and anything anyone does just makes it more about him.

[Cetacea]

57. "the man murdered a celebrity just to get attention."

That would be the official explanation. I like Sean's version better: " was dangerous to the government. If he had said, 'Bomb the White House tomorrow,' there would have been 10,000 people who would have done it. These pacifist revolutionaries are historically killed by the government."

The official story fingers Mark David Chapman, noted Catcher in the Rye enthusiast, as the lone assassin in the murder outside Lennon's Manhattan apartment.

Sean, who was 5 when his father died, begs to disagree with the official story.

"Anybody who thinks that Mark Chapman was just some crazy guy who killed my dad for his personal interests is insane, I think, or very naive," he says.

Unlike Stone, Sean is not consumed with by conspiracy theories...

Of course he said that years ago and may not feel the same way now (doubtful).
I would add that if Lennon called for a march on Washington on any given day a few million would show up and IT WOULD get wide-scale media coverage...

[jobycom]

62. Hopefully he's outgrown that by now. nt

[lunamagica]

65. No, he's was just a mentally ill man

Those conspiracy theories are absurd. If they had wanted to kill Lennon they would have done it in the early seventies.

Lennon's political activism ended with the Vietnam war. Do you remember any involvment from him after that? Did he say anything about the election? anything about Reagan or Carter? Any effort to influence the outcome?

Double Fantasy was as apolitical as could be. It was about a domestic life. He said everything in my favorite post-Beatle song of his, "watching the wheels".

Spmetimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[jobycom]

67. Good post.

:thumbsup:

[Politicalboi]

19. Why can't someone in jail Jeffrey Dahmers him

Fuck him.

[Vickers]

20. Is he still a religious whacko?

Serious question...if so, it might be one of the few times that *losing* God got you paroled.

[Cetacea]

55. No whacko. Cold blooded murderer.

I think he did take offense to Lennon's remark about the Beatles v Christ.

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. Elton John is doing a benefit concert

Uppps ....... wrong thread sorry.

[thelordofhell]

32. Empty Garden

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZzXEFDznoA

[Ichingcarpenter]

33. Bernie Taupin's Words...... once again, his talent not Elton

Elton is a fascist pig.

[JuniperLea]

35. Now that you mention it...

All of the Elton albums I love, are actually Bernie albums.

Good call on the other bit as well.

[thelordofhell]

37. Bernie actually has a few solo albums

you should check 'em out.

[JuniperLea]

38. I will do that!

Thanks for the tip!

:toast:

[thelordofhell]

40. Don't get his 1st solo album "Taupin", even he admits it kinda stinks

"He Who Rides The Tiger" is a good album, "Tribe" is not so bad. You should also check out The Farm Dogs, he wrote the lyrics for their albums.

[JuniperLea]

51. Excellent!

Thanks for the breakdown! I think I have Taupin on vinyl... now that you mention it. I was rather distressed at the breakup... and now that you've jogged my memory, it was indeed a stinker and a real letdown. I'll have to go dig through the record cabinet... I'm compulsive that way:)

My daughter very recently borrowed my copies of Madman Across the Water and Don't Shoot Me... She bought one of those old timey looking Crosley turntables and is digging the vinyl. We've made several trips to Amoeba Records too... in three cities;) I love it when people get the bug.

Thanks again!

[thelordofhell]

36. Bernie Taupin's lyrics........Elton John's piano........multiple producers' and musicians' talents

A song is a product of many talented people. Oh, and Elton John is just a money-hungry opportunist....not a fascist pig.

[mitchum]

53. Elton John is a materialistic pig who attempts to make up for his own lack of physical beauty...

by paying obscene amounts of money
for beautiful things.

[Heidi]

22. They need to let him go.

Re-distribution of that mugshot every few years is cruel and unusual punishment for both Chapman and the rest of us.

[XOKCowboy]

25. I doubt that John would hate MDC - Dismays me at the hate I'm seeing on this thread

I mean come on John Lennon taught peace and love above all. I'm just saying that reading comments about MDC getting "Dahmered", etc just seem out of place when talking about John Lennon.

[jobycom]

28. .

:thumbsup:

[WinkyDink]

29. John Lennon was not above human emotion.

[XOKCowboy]

30. No he wasn't but....

in all of his later writings and songs he was all about peace and love for his fellow man, turning the other cheek, no war. It's his legacy. MDC is and was mentally ill. I understand people's feelings of hate toward Chapman. In a delusional state he deprived us of one of our greatest musical icons. I'm just saying I don't think John would cheering for his death if he was still here.

[jobycom]

39. His mental state seems really complicated to me.

He wasn't thinking normally, but I doubt most people in prison or who commit such crimes do. I'm not sure that's the same as mental illness. Or maybe I'm not sure that mental illness is always the cause of a mentally ill person's actions. And there are a few reasons I say that.

I grew around mental illness, and saw it close up for a lot of my life. I've also grew up with a sociopath. Some of Chapman's comments and fantasies sound like classic schizophrenia, but not all of them, and sometimes he sounds like he's faking. Some psychologists claimed he was a sociopath or psychopath, and that's believable. He was abused and ignored as a child--perfect recipe for a sociopath--and many of his life's incidents sound like a sociopath. Sociopaths tend to be very charismatic, because they have such strong survival instincts, and since they really don't understand the difference between right and wrong, they are convincing when sounding like they didn't do anything wrong. A lot of Chapman's early statements sound more like that than like schizophrenia, to me. Like, he knew that what he did was bad in that it got him in a lot of trouble, but he didn't really feel it was some horrible wrong. Even later comments he's made about regretting what he did and now understanding that Lennon was a person and not just an album cover sound like he's still missing a point about right and wrong, like he's still trying to rationalize why it was wrong.

On the other hand, he was depressed, suicidal, may have heard voices (though I don't think they were the kind schizophrenics hear, because he seemed aware that they were his own creations), and was clearly in some type of confused turmoil when he did it. he had talked himself into it and out of it so many times he was in agony over what to do. That sounds like mental illness, but it also sounds like he could still see a choice not to do it. That's hard to explain, but I've heard schizophrenics describe such dilemmas, and to them there is an outside force--either a voice or just some pressure--trying to make them do it. The struggle they have isn't with competing ideas within themselves, but with them competing against this force that they don't identify as themselves. Like Andrea Yates drowning her children--she felt compelled by a certainty clearly not sane that she had to, and that avoiding it was a weakness in her. Chapman always sounds like his struggle was purely within--his conscience against his will.

He has even said that if he had really wanted to, he could have changed his mind.

To me that's very borderline. He clearly needed mental health treatment, but that's not exactly the same as saying he was so insane he couldn't have known the difference or wasn't in control of his mind--as was the case with Andrea Yates. On the other hand, the stress and turmoil he lived under constantly is clear, and clearly put a strain on him, and made a rational decision on his part impossible. And some part of me thinks he really is a full-blown sociopath, just trying to fool everybody.

I think that no matter how many times he was evaluated, there would be no clear concensus on his mental health and its affect on his actions. They were never going to just let him go--someone would have gone Jack Ruby on him--so they let him plead guilty and let the prison system worry about him. And they will probably keep making that decision over and over until he's too old or too sick, and then maybe release him into some less controlled environment for the rest of his days.

Just my thoughts, which aren't firm yet.

[Cetacea]

59. Wow. Mentally ill people seem to be really violent and creepy

I mean more so than the rest of the population...

In reality they are no more violent than the normal people, as I am sure you are well aware.

[jobycom]

61. What odd comments. You sure you were responding to the right post?

Maybe you could elaborate on where you got any of that from what I wrote?

[WinkyDink]

48. Probably you're right. I Googled, and now I'm wondering seriously about MDC and programming.

He said he heard "Do it, do it, do it" before shooting.
Sirhan Sirhan repeatedly wrote, "RFK must die. RFK must die."

And we know the FBI was monitoring Lennon as a counter-culture anti-war activist.

[XOKCowboy]

31. Also I hope MDC doesn't get released out into the general population....

He needs supervision. He isn't healed or rehabbed and probably never will be.

[Cetacea]

56. He wouldn't last a day...

[mitchum]

41. John Lennon would have kucked the living shit out of him (or paid someone to do so)

There was a big difference between his "ideals" and the human reality of John Lennon

[Cetacea]

58. Exactly why Yoko doesn't want him free

She fears for his safety...

[WinkyDink]

27. Gee, he hasn't stalked and murdered anyone for YEARS! Well, then!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

42. I am against the death penalty.

But I am not against life in prison.

Rot.

[petronius]

44. I don't think the identity of the victim should matter - the sentence was "20 years to life"

and I think his release should be based on exactly the same criteria as other inmates. If he's a danger to society then keep him in, but if he's fulfilled the terms of his sentence, behaved in prison, and so on then let him out. Parole/release decisions really should be based on consistent, objective criteria rather than public emotions.

I saw an article recently about a man who, driving drunk, killed a friend of Frank Sinatra. In that case as well it seemed that the identity of the victim was playing an excessive role in the parole decision...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

52. You are being way too rational for this thread

[Timbuk3]

45. I won't even use his name

I call him "the man who murdered John Lennon".

I don't want anyone to remember his name. He tried to use someone else's success and fame to gain his own infamy, and I want to deny him that.

No, murdering John Lennon isn't a "worse murder" than murdering my unknown next-door neighbor.

But, meticulously planning the murder of someone famous to make a point, to gain notoriety, and to stamp out a voice that fundie "christians" hated, IS a heinous crime that doesn't need to ever be "forgiven".

[msanthrope]

60. I call him "the fucker that made my mother cry."

He should rot.

I remember the night John died, and my mother putting flowers on the gate.

[Canuckistanian]

46. I don't want his name mentioned

But I sincerely want this person to burn in Hell.