Because of cases like this, where five teenagers allegedly beat a man in Wylie until he died. At least one of them reportedly used a hammer on the victim, 28-year-old Jonathan Bird, whose transgression was asking his assailants to drive slower for the sake of the neighborhood kids. Now, death-penalty opponents who argue capital punishment is useless because it’s not a deterrent may be on to something. However, that’s because these days it’s administered almost quietly–and mainly out of sight. I guarantee if these perpetrators were convicted and strung up by their necks on Wylie’s main street, there’d be a helluva lot fewer “beating deaths” in that town in the future.
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