(no subject)
Dec. 7th, 2004 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingLawrence Trant sees himself as a righteous crusader who put muscle behind his boiling outrage against pedophiles.
The state of New Hampshire sees Trant differently. He is serving a 10- to 30-year sentence in New Hampshire State Prison after pleading guilty to attempting to murder two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he found on an Internet registry posted by the state.
"I don't want people to steal the souls of little kids," Trant, 57, said in an interview in prison last week.
But prosecutor John Weld says Trant is one of the most cold-blooded criminals he has encountered. If Trant had not been arrested, Weld said, the native of Cambridge, Mass., probably would have killed someone.
The case has become more complicated than a simple question of right and wrong. The sordid histories of Trant's victims, his impassioned testimony on the witness stand, and his use of an Internet list to track down his targets have infused the case with controversy and conflicting senses of justice.
He is not considered the hero he thought he would become in April 2003, when he stabbed one man and lit fires at two buildings where at least seven convicted sex offenders lived. But he was able to persuade a Superior Court jury not to convict him of attempted murder in his trial on the stabbing charge, even after he took the witness stand and admitted he used a kitchen knife to assault Lawrence Sheridan, who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 1999.
Three of the 12 Superior Court jurors refused to convict him of attempted murder. The judge declared a mistrial on that charge; the same panel of jurors eventually agreed that Trant had committed first-degree assault.
Prosecutors realized they would face a problem trying to convict Trant of attempted murder in the other cases: He had targeted a class of victims for whom a jury of his peers had no sympathy.
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So, let's get this straight. A guy who can be best described as a sociopath, who attacks people because he likes to hurt them, has been acquitted on attempted murder charges a couple of times because he's chosen victims who Bob Q Public doesn't like?
The state of New Hampshire sees Trant differently. He is serving a 10- to 30-year sentence in New Hampshire State Prison after pleading guilty to attempting to murder two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he found on an Internet registry posted by the state.
"I don't want people to steal the souls of little kids," Trant, 57, said in an interview in prison last week.
But prosecutor John Weld says Trant is one of the most cold-blooded criminals he has encountered. If Trant had not been arrested, Weld said, the native of Cambridge, Mass., probably would have killed someone.
The case has become more complicated than a simple question of right and wrong. The sordid histories of Trant's victims, his impassioned testimony on the witness stand, and his use of an Internet list to track down his targets have infused the case with controversy and conflicting senses of justice.
He is not considered the hero he thought he would become in April 2003, when he stabbed one man and lit fires at two buildings where at least seven convicted sex offenders lived. But he was able to persuade a Superior Court jury not to convict him of attempted murder in his trial on the stabbing charge, even after he took the witness stand and admitted he used a kitchen knife to assault Lawrence Sheridan, who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 1999.
Three of the 12 Superior Court jurors refused to convict him of attempted murder. The judge declared a mistrial on that charge; the same panel of jurors eventually agreed that Trant had committed first-degree assault.
Prosecutors realized they would face a problem trying to convict Trant of attempted murder in the other cases: He had targeted a class of victims for whom a jury of his peers had no sympathy.
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So, let's get this straight. A guy who can be best described as a sociopath, who attacks people because he likes to hurt them, has been acquitted on attempted murder charges a couple of times because he's chosen victims who Bob Q Public doesn't like?
Well, duh.
Date: 2004-12-07 03:44 pm (UTC)(Cynical iconic news: Trant will eventually kill someone and not be charged with murder. Mr. Kent, a metropolitan reporter, will not be covering the story.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-07 05:12 pm (UTC)Haven't you ever seen The Boondock Saints?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-07 05:24 pm (UTC)#1: That is a film.
#2: At least the public opinion is divided, on that one.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-07 06:02 pm (UTC)#2. The stuff you cited above is from an extremely small portion of "the public" and still shows that some people aren't buying it.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-07 11:01 pm (UTC)That poor cat.
More on topic, it's been a while since I've seen the movie, but IIRC the characters weren't actually sentenced; while public opinion was shown to be divided at the end of the movie, this is perhaps a little different from a representative of the law making what seems to be[1] a highly debatable and apparently subjectively influenced call.
(This is not to say that the movie couldn't've depicted a sequence of events akin to the real-life one above, only that it's kind of depressing when actual people as opposed to prompted characters act in this fashion. Not implausible, just depressing.)
(And the brothers didn't really come across as sociopaths, which I think would have made rather a difference.)
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[1] Based on the article, which I realize is not nearly extensive enough to cover all the nuances of the events.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-08 04:41 pm (UTC)Best part of the movie =P
Now, more on topic, the cops in the film (all the way up to an FBI agent) believed in the brothers' cause enough to cover for them. None of the people the brothers killed had been found guilty of any crimes (at least within the scope of the movie), so they were killing people who a jury hadn't even decided on yet.
As far as the brothers not coming off as sociopaths, I sure as hell think they did. They believed they were baptized by God and no longer subject to the rules of the world because of it. Or, to quote Rocco after hearing their new "purpose," "Isn't that a little weird? A little psycho?"
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-08 04:43 pm (UTC)Hell, I know enough people that have expressed sentiments along that nature about such people over the years. (btw, I'd be against what he did, for the same reasons I'm opposed to the death penalty)