Editorial for October 2, 2008 edition:

More madness

Daniel Giddings is dead. That’s the good news. It’s also the bad news.
According to police, Giddings savagely executed Officer Patrick McDonald last week during a traffic stop in North Philadelphia before he himself was shot and killed by another police officer, Richard Bowes.
Giddings, a convicted armed robber with a lifelong criminal record and two active arrest warrants against him, was released on parole in August. He was the scum of the earth. Society as a whole would have been better off had he been fatally attacked in prison years ago. Instead, he caused the entire police force to again feel like sitting ducks in the wild West, and he destroyed Officer McDonald’s family — his girlfriend, his parents, his family of police officers, and all law-abiding citizens.
So, while Giddings’ death is good news, the bad news is that he will never again have his day in court. That means he will never face trial for killing Officer McDonald, he will never spend his worthless days rotting on death row and he will never feel the pain of a lethal dose of poison shooting him into hell as punishment for his horrific act.
After Congress and the president finally find a way to avert another Great Depression, they should turn to approving a constitutional amendment that would lift the ban on cruel and unusual punishment and allow states to torture repeat hard-core criminals and vicious, cold-blooded murderers.
The bleeding-heart liberals will complain that repealing the 8th Amendment is no way for a civilized society to behave, but as Daniel Giddings and all of the other cop killers proved, America is no longer a civilized society. ••

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