MovieChat Forums > The Seventh Sign (1988) Discussion > Why was everyone so upset about Jimmy's ...

Why was everyone so upset about Jimmy's situation??


I mean, he killed his parents. He burned them alive with gasoline!!!

Everyone knows why Abby was worried....but that aside....why was Russell so surprised that people wouldn't hear his appeal? Jimmy did a horrible thing.

Jimmy clearly knew what he was doing...and if he was doing it for a "religious" reason: that it isn't a sin to punish the gulity...isn't that REALLY taking the Lord's name in vain?? He wasn't justified in committing murder.


"That's bearing false witness, my friend."
-The Darkling

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[deleted]

[deleted]

If I remember correctly, he was mentally handicapped, and a civilised country doesn't execute people who don't have all their mental capacities.

(Well, that is..... a REAL civilised country doesn't have the death penalty at all.)

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Well, that is..... a REAL civilised country doesn't have the death penalty at all.


Oh please! Just because that's what you believe doesn't make people who are for the death penalty uncivilized. Get off your high horse.

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Umm..Jimmy's parents were brother and sister and the reason he was mentally retarded is because he was the product of an incestuous coupling between brother and sister.

His lawyer wanted him to go and be declared unfit for trial, as in he didn't know what he was doing because he wasn't capable of understanding.

Jimmy, on the other hand, was all about knowing EXACTLY what he was doing and that it was wrong in the eyes of God because of the whole brother/sister thing.

And on a side note.."real" civilized countries do so have the dealth penality.

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Umm..Jimmy's parents were brother and sister and the reason he was mentally retarded is because he was the product of an incestuous coupling between brother and sister.

His lawyer wanted him to go and be declared unfit for trial, as in he didn't know what he was doing because he wasn't capable of understanding.

Jimmy, on the other hand, was all about knowing EXACTLY what he was doing and that it was wrong in the eyes of God because of the whole brother/sister thing.


This.

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There's no proof that Down's Syndrome is caused by inbreeding.
I thought this was lazy writing.

And the fact that Jimmy DID know exactly what he was doing is my point.

If he knew what he was doing, he deserved to be punished.
Ironically, he was sinning in one of the worst ways.

He was 'playing God'.

He just randomly quoted about punishing the guilty.
That's God's job, not his. I thought the writers making him the Last Martyr was lazy writing too.



I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.

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In the film however, it is heavily implied that his condition is due to incest.

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[deleted]

You are correct on your answers about Jimmy and how this country is and would not condemn a person who is mentally handicapped.

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I can't blame Jimmy for wanting to kill his parents. There are very good reasons we don't allow family members to get married. One of which is the higher probability of birth defects. It's more complicated than that though, but I don't want to go into the social/economic reasons here. Because, the biggest reason is that it's gross. We have been conditioned well, thankfully.

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That is very sick to see happen is where family members marry each other and then have kids that turn out not totally normal at all. It still occurs right now in todays society but we may not know anything about it though. I believe it may be kept secret though.

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"Oh please! Just because that's what you believe doesn't make people who are for the death penalty uncivilized."

He didn't say people he said country.



And on a side note.."real" civilized countries do so have the dealth penality.

Can you name two?



- A point in every direction is the same as no point at all.

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[deleted]

Just some information:

There are the only 18 countries that executed people through capital punishment in 2009: Bangladesh (3), Botswana (1), China (?), Egypt (at least 5), Iran (at least 388), Iraq (at least 120), Japan (7), Libya (at least 4), Malaysia (?), North Korea (?), Saudi Arabia (at least 69), Singapore (1), Sudan (at least 9), Syria (at least 8), Thailand (2), USA (52), Viet Nam (at least 9), Yemen (at least 30).

If we're talking "civilized" as in developed countries, the only countries on this list that are NOT considered to be developing countries according to the International Monetary Fund are Japan, Singapore and the USA.

Also, the United States remains one of only three industrialized democracies still practicing this form of punishment, and along with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, accounts for 93% of all executions reported worldwide

It seems pretty safe to say that the death penalty is practiced in uncivilized countries. Anyway, the international legal trend is towards abolition, with over 2/3 of all countries having abolished capital punishment, including the all 47 member states of the Council of Europe. It's undeniable that the States are behind the times.

If you want more info, I'd be glad to discuss. I did a dissertation for law school on the American death penalty's non-conformity to international law.
----

Sources:

Countries with legalized death penalty
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ACT50/001/2010/en/17348b70-3fc 7-40b2-a258-af92778c73e5/act500012010en.pdf

Developing nations
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/01/weodata/groups.htm#oem

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[deleted]

You know, I actually agree on the point that crimes like murder rather than adultery are definitely more "worthy" of severe punishment, if you can say that. The problem still remains that regardless of the crime being punished, capital punishment is still incredibly backwards in many respects.

Firstly, there's the method of execution. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 157 executions have been carried out by electrocution, 11 by gas chamber, 3 by hanging and 3 by firing squad, which are all still legal in some states. Obviously lots of people agree that those aren't exactly "humane" methods of execution, which led to the creation of the lethal injection as a less cruel and supposedly painless option... which hasn't exactly proven to be the case.

One of the reasons cited for the pain-free nature of the lethal injection is that in the three-drug injection, the first drug is an anesthetic which is meant to render the person unconscious and unable to feel pain. But since the Code of Medical Ethics prevents physicians from participating in lethal injections, there is no medical personnel that verifies whether or not the drug has taken effect an that the person is actually unconscious before the administration of the paralyzing agents. In fact, in most executions the three drugs are administered as fast as the executioner can push the syringes into the intravenous equipment. In fact, the man who created the lethal injection was quoted as saying, "it never occurred to me when we set this up that we’d have complete idiots administering the drugs".

So if the anesthesia isn't properly administered, the person will feel the excruciating pain of the potassium chloride killing him but will simply be paralyzed and unable to feel the pain. In a special hearing for the Louisiana v. Code death penalty case (2003), the warden said that "the only thing that mattered was that the guy ended up dead".

In fact, potassium chloride can cause such excruciating pain that the American Veterinary Medical Association prohibits its use for animal euthanasia, unless it is established that the animal is properly anesthetized. Also, the association even banned the use of paralytic drugs like those used in lethal injections because of its potential to mask experienced pain. Essentially, the death penalty treats human prisoners worse than we treat animals.

Secondly, there's the arbitrary factor and discrimination of the executions. There's the geographical arbitrariness:80% of all executions are carried out in the South, while the Northeast has been responsible for less than 2%, with Texas alone accounting for almost 38% of total executions. Sucks if you live in Texas!
There's also the political influence: governors may grant clemency, and so executions are influenced why the whims and personal beliefs of state government. Executions are more likely to be carried out in election years.

In terms of discrimination, I won't go into it in detail but social class and wealth also affects the application of the death penalty. Almost all criminals sentenced to the death penalty have been unable to afford their own legal representation at trial, meaning they get court-appointed attourneys who often do not have the required experience for such important trials, and are often underpaid, overworked and in rare cases have even fallen asleep in court or been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Minority groups tend to be poorer and therefore have higher probabilities of being convicted and less chance of reversing their conviction through appeals processes. Since 1973, over 130 people have had their convictions overturned and been spared the death penalty due to later evidence showing wrongful conviction.

There is obvious gender and racial disparity as well. Females are more likely to be granted clemency or given preferential treatment during trial. There's racial discrimination not only for the criminal but for the victim as well. Although blacks account for about half of all homicide victims, 77% of executions performed since 1977 involved cases where the murder victim was white. Studies figured out that the defendant is three to four times more likely to be sentenced to the death penalty in cases where the victim is white rather than black. There seems to be more willingness to punish someone to death when they kill someone white.

So it's a bit of a tough question... obviously that's why there's so much debate and controversy surrounding the issue. I'm personally unsure as to whether capital punishment is morally acceptable, but I'm definitely sure that the way it exists right now in the States is definitely not acceptable.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

Same point stuck out like a sore thumb to me as well. Jimmy was mentally competent and knew what he did was legally wrong, although he felt he'd followed rehouse law to the t. Also having Down syndrome does not mean your parents are in a incestous relationship, the replies here are preposterous. Birth defects happen for many reasons, inbreeding only makes it more likely and first generation inbreeding wouldn't make the chance higher than normal for the baby to have a defect.

It was also ludicrous that someone who didn't "value life", her sacrifice, which any mother would make, stopped the apocalypse.

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I don't think the film suggesst that Jimmy was disabled because of his parents' incest. He was morally "disabled" because of his fierce "righteousness" that permitted him to murder his parents (murder of course being a worse crime than incest). That is, Jimmy didn't kill his parents because he mistakenly thought that their incestuous union caused his disability; rather, he killed them out of pure Yahwistic "just" rage - like Yahweh, he wanted to rid the world of his parents simply because according to that standard, they were "an abomination before the Lord".

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