Was It Torture Or Not?
Aparently, Alaska has a law that makes a “Torture Murder” punishable by 99 years in prison with no possibility of parole.
In the last hours of her life, Kiva Friedman was punched, beaten with a baseball bat and raped with a bottle at her East Anchorage home. She was bound and gagged, her head was shaved and she was forced to look in a mirror at her battered face.
I guess I am failing to see why there is any debate about whether or not it was torture. His lawyer is arguing that cuz of a brain injury, he was operating outside the realm of his own control. So? He had enough presense of mind to call the police and report the murder himself. Not only that, his sanity is clearly not in question. He pleaded no contest and it certainly would appear from the article that he is, in fact, standing trial, so since his mental health is NOT in question, neither is his culpability. That, to me, doesn’t seem to be the question. To me, it seems that the “why” is irrelevant.
The way i am understanding this, I truly don’t see a lot of black or white. The judge asked if it was torture. period. If it is, 99 years. period.
Truthfully tho, as much as that part bothers me about this story, that’s not where my TRUE issue with the situation lies.
Three people stopped by the house and saw Friedman naked and bloody on the floor but still alive — McClain’s brother Jesse McClain, whom the defendant called, and two of the defendant’s friends, Luther Livingston and Brian Sims, according to police. The men did not summon police or an ambulance.
This guy *called* not one, not two, but three different guys who went over to the house while this poor bitch was being murdered. And not one of them did a thing to help her. No police. No ambulance. Not Shit. They sat there while she was dying and…what? watched? shot the shit with the guy who murdered her? Unlike anything I have read in ..perhaps years, I can only think of one thing to say “wow. that sucks.”
What also sucks is according to the laws in Alaska, there was no law broken. As far as i’m concerned, those 3 are accessories to murder. She was still alive when each of them were there, and she might still be alive today, had they not just ignored her laying on the ground bloody and whimpering.
“Here in Alaska there’s no duty to come to anybody’s rescue, to help people,” Novak said.
Novak would be the prosecutor. I guess before i climb down off my soapbox and quit ranting about this, i need to ask WHY NOT? But then again as soon as those keystrokes flew off my fingertips, and i read them on the monitor, my head started clamoring again. I guess I wonder.. SHOULD there be one? How sad is it that there are people in this world, that could just step over a victim of a crime? That 3 different people could have something like this ..just right up in their faces and dismiss it. I worded it like that specifically cuz I’m not talking about someone getting mugged on a busy New York street that one only sees out of their peripheral vision anyway. To me, that is different.
This is a man, 3 different men in fact, walking into a room, seeing a girl that is either being brutalized or has clearly been that way and not able to move and just disregarding her. Is there not an obligation that one should feel as a human being…laws be damned….to *stop* something like this from happening? i guess not with everyone, huh? I seriously can’t even wrap my mind around that or how that makes me feel cold inside when i really try *to* wrap my mind around it.
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