Salt Lake Telegram | 1945-05-26 | Page 4 | No Mercy for Brutal Killers

No o Mercy for or Brutal Killers The state board of pardons is to be congratulated on its rejection of the plea pIca of James Joseph for commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment Three alienists who examined declared that although he e is afflicted with epilepsy there is no reason to believe he was not sane and fully responsible for his acts and aware of the thc consequences at the time of the murder In view of that finding there is no justification for special treatment of f t this i brutal killer after all showed no mercy to the woman he slew with a hammer continuing to strike the blows which crushed her skull while she pled that her life be spared This was a particularly vicious sort of crime The woman had given and his companion a ride in her car They plotted to murder her and steal the car and her valuables valuables then then they deliberately beat her to death and fled They almost got away with it Only because of arrest on a speeding charge in the state of Washington were the killers caught There simply supply are no extenuating circumstances in that crime where There is only one proper punishment for such a deliberate deliberate deliberate ate brutal murder murder death It is a pity that the extreme penalty was not meted out to both of these vicious killers And certainly the fact that the wheels of justice did not grind as fine as they hey should have in one case is no excuse for the pardons board to interfere with the proper functioning of the machine in the other Two wrongs dont don't make a right We want vicious criminals or potential vicious criminals to know that Utah deals harshly with brutal killers We Ve want wanta a reputation for severity in that respect which will discourage murderers and armed robbers and impel them to give Utah Utahn a n wide berth