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Wednesday, December 2, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The Kansas Lottery has been running for only two weeks, and it is already causing headaches in the Kansas Legislature.
Lost gamble
It seems Gov. Mike Hayden has some different ideas about where income from the lottery should go — different than what people were told when they voted for the lottery.
Hayden's budget director has made a recommendation that money from the lottery either be placed in the state's general fund or used to balance financing for existing programs. Hayden is expected to make this proposal in his budget for fiscal 1989.
Voters were told that the money would be used to create new programs and to spur economic growth in the state when they approved the lottery last year.
The legality of Hayden's impending proposal is questionable, as is the hoarding of the tickets. Kansans voted to use the lottery to bolster the economy by creating new programs, and that is exactly what they should get. They also deserve to have a fair shot at all lottery jackpots without having retailers snatch some of the winnings without contributing to the lottery.
Aside from that, lottery players are complaining about retailers hoarding lost tickets and sending them in for a chance at a $100,000 jackpot. The tickets are often dropped in aisles or parking lots and then nabbed by employees or store owners. This essentially rigs the system because the tickets have already been purchased.
Fortunately, legislators are aware of these problems and have said they would defend the original intent of the lottery.
Who wants to play a game where the odds get worse every year?
Change of pace
Beginning soon, Lawrence motorists will need to pay special attention to their speedometers while cruising through the 20 mph school speed zones.
Watch it
It will no longer be a matter of depending on the blinking light or peering at the fine print on the signs to determine the legal speed as you whiz by.
The effective hours of the speed limit will be from 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The change will take place upon publication of the new ordinance. Publication is expected within the next few weeks.
The change will make it easier for motorsist to keep track of the legal speed and that should mean that more will comply.
Schools and their school speed zones surround the University. And KU students walk on the streets more often than simply during the old restricted morning, lunch time and afternoon hours.
So the slower speed limits will make walking home safer for all students — especially KU students.
Slower speed limits will be more predictable for drivers and safer for pedestrians.
So watch for the new signs. And slow down.
Student teachers
Thousands of KU students can repay society for their education. Checks, credit cards and money orders won't be accepted.
No, perhaps some of KU's 25,000 students could take and at the estimated 27 million adults who are functionally illiterate. Six colleges already have a program in which undergraduates tutor children and adults for college credit.
Such a program would be feasible here. Administrators who complain of tight budgets would find that large corporations have financed such tutoring programs at other schools.
It only makes sense, because economic planners estimate that illiteracy in the workplace costs millions in lost production.
To help, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., has sponsored a bill that would allocate $20 million to be divided up into $25,000 grants that would go to 800 colleges that applied for them.
the brain. We argue that Lawrence lacks a substantial number of illiterate children and adults to justify the program.
But the Lawrence, Kansas City and Topeka areas combined provide an untapped opportunity for undergraduates seeking to encourage learning. The programs that exist now send students to tutor in Head Start centers, prisons and inner-city schools.
Tutors-for-credit could also ease congestion in the classroom while simultaneously providing a learning experience.
And it would be a good way for students to put their education to work.
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
News staff
Jennifer Benjamin ... Editor
Juli Warren ... Managing editor
John Benner ... News editor
Beth Copeland ... Editorial editor
Sally Streff ... Campus editor
Brian Kabeline ... Sports editor
Dan Ruffelmann ... Photo editor
Bill Skeet ... Graphics editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Bonnie J. Hardy...Business manager
Robert Hughes...Advertising manager
Kelly Scherer...Retail sales manager
Kurt Messersmith...Campus sales manager
Greg Knipp...Production manager
David Derftel...National sales national sales
Angela Clark...Classified manager
Ron Warno...Director of marketing
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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"AW, HONEY, ARE YOU UP WORRYING ABOUT THE ROYAL COUPLE AGAIN...?"
Mindless ruling tortures two victims
For a couple of minutes, let's pretend that you are part of a jury in a murder case.
Your job is not to determine guilt. That's already been established. The killer confessed and pleaded guilty. There also were witnesses to the crime.
No, what you must decide is whether the murderer should be executed or allowed to live. (If you're against capital punishment, you aren't on the jury. Sorry.)
Under the law of the state in which this crime was committed, the death penalty can be imposed only if the crime falls into certain categories.
I won't go into all of them. The死 two that apply here are as follows: The death penalty can be used if the murder was committed to silence a suspect, or if he was killed by means of torture if the victim was killed by means of torture
Now for the facts of the crime. They aren't pleasant.
The killer, age 18, decided that he and some of his friends would olderly couple for whom he had done some odd jobs.
The old people tried to fight them off but were too weak. The gang tied them to chairs, then ransacked the house.
The elderly couple knew and trusted the young man more into their home. He then himself his accomplices.
First, he arranged their chairs so the two old
The leader of the gang didn't want his victims to tell the police about what he had done. So he decided to kill them.
Actually, he had planned to kill them even before he went to their home. He intended to inject air into their veins, so their deaths would cause heart attacks, but he couldn't find a syringe.
His choice of weapon became a knife, which he brought with him.
people were facing each other
Then he yanked back the woman's head and cut her throat. Her husband cried out and wept. He then did the same to the old man.
He left them there, tied to their chairs, watching each other bleed to death.
Then the gang went to split up their loot, which amounted to about $170 each in cash and used coins.
That's it. You, as a juror, must decide whether it was a torture murder and whether the murder was a murder in public.
Take a few moments to think. Are you done? Okay, if you said it was torture and the silencing of a witness, you agreed with an actual Pennsylvania injury that heard the case.
And the jury gave the death penalty to the young man with a knife.
But now it turns out that the killer won't be executed. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided that the jury was wrong and sent the case back for a life sentencing hearing.
I don't have space to print their entire decision, but here are the key points to this display of legal brilliance.
First, the question of whether the victims were killed because they were witnesses to a felony.
If you are as simple-minded as I am, you'd say:
"Sure, the old folks had witnessed their home
being invaded by thieves, which is a felony. And the husband witnessed his wife being murdered, which is a felony."
Ah, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said: "... Evidence must be introduced to establish that the victim was a prosecution witness who was killed to prevent his testimony in a pending grand jury or criminal proceeding. ... No grand jury or court proceeding may interfere with either of the victims was a prosecution witness was pending at the time the murders were committed."
In other words, they were not really witnesses to a felony, because the invasion of their home or their murders were not yet being investigated. And, of course, once they were dead, they couldn't
As for the torture? These murders didn't qualify because, as the court said:
"In order to establish that the offense was committed by means of torture, the Commonwealth must prove that a defendant had a specific intent to inflict unnecessary pain, suffering, or both pain and suffering in addition to the specific intent to kill.
Although the evidence demonstrates the appellant's specific intent to kill his victims, it is insufficient to establish that the appellant was not satisfied with the killing or was not satisfied with the killings alone.
He then slashes the husband's throat in full view of his helpless and dying wife.
I think that's clear. After positioning his two victims only a few feet apart and facing each other, the killer slashes the wife's throat in full view of her helpless husband.
Despite all that, he did not intend to inflict unnecessary pain or suffering.
Well, I won't quarrel with these judges, who are paid for their legal wisdom.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Crime against KUEA
The letter suggested the Endowment Association should wake up to the world it helped create. My impression is that it is fully awake and functioning. The lights there are on every day. However, it is you, I, other students and faculty at our school, who make the destiny. It is rather far-fetched to believe that the Endowment Association created our world. I was taught differently.
A Kansan Mailbox letter on Nov. 24 attributed legendary feats to the Endowment Association and presented a rather gross distortion of reality. I am writing to present a different perception of reality.
I have no reason to apologize for the Endowment Association, as it has no reason, nor ever has, to apologize for apartheid. It did not create apartheid, nor is it maintaining apartheid, as suggested in the letter. I would also link the writer's imagination to his assertion that student sentiment for divestment remains high. My own observation is that after the scanty demonstration in spring 1986, there has been practically no support or interest on this campus. Apparently, most students do not hullocate about the role of the Endowment Association in
perpetuating apartheid.
The best part of the letter, however, was the hyperbole at the end. The writer claimed that the Endowment Association's "hushed financial manipulations" made us all "a party to the erries against humanity." Give me a break! I applaud the Endowment Association for its role in providing financial assistance and grants to students and professors. But, I just cannot imagine (nor ever believe) that it has secret meetings in which it manipulates someone's finances, which makes all of us guilty of crimes against humanity. This is too much.
Gordon F. Sargent, Lenex graduate student
In a Nov. 19 letter to the editor, Paul Dupuy Jr. tried to defend his right to engage in pornography, citing the 14th Amendment, which gives us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Dupuy seems to think that looking at "a little bare flesh" in his own home affects no one but himself. Wrong.
Whether it be the so-called "artfully done" Playboy or the ones advocating rape, pornography violates every woman's right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These magazines are obsessed with exploiting and dehumanizing women. Women are reduced to nameless slabs of "bare flesh." This debilitating attitude toward women insidiously spreads from pornography
Thwarts equality
phy to mainstream society, through those who support pornography. A quick glance at television shows, commercials and ads will prove that the internet is a powerful tool for to sell products, and perhaps second human.
Half of humanity is burdened and fettered by pornography. How, then, can Dupuy imply that pornography is harmless? He further says that "the fact that it may be offensive to some is beside the point." But it is exactly the point. This abhorrent and derogatory view of women makes the motherless, grandmothers, sisters and daughters. It pervades the workplace, the media and even our personal relationships. Most of all, pornography thwarts true communication between the sexes and only impedes the advancement of the rightful equality that women deserve.
Sheri Kishaba, Pearl City, Hawaii, senior
Corporate Christmas
This is a response to the letter that ran in the Mailbox on Nov. 23.
Yes, Virginia, Santa Claus really is only some guy who works at the FMC Corporation dressed up in some department store costume with a fake beard and fake glasses, but Merry Christmas anyway.
Mark L. Bogner, Penalosa sophomore
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed