In response to Tuesday's board editorial "A Verdict to Stand By" there are factual inaccuracies in your editorial: Lemons was a hemophiliac, hence is likely to have contracted HIV through his life-sustaining transfusions.
His release to a hospice to die would be "a potential threat to the community"? Would unfairly reduce his sentence? Nature was already doing that!
The role of the death penalty as a deterrent would be undermined? Even if it were such a deterrent (very, very doubtful), you mean that allowing a person to die a natural death before they can be executed does the undermining? Or is it the improved care in a hospice that you object to?
Jim Stasheff
Professor of Mathematics
