Greene gets life sentence (rapist and murderer of Iraqi teenager and her family)

[cali]

Ex-GI spared death in Iraqi girl's rape, killing
The 24-year-old from Texas will instead be sentenced to life in prison
Former 101st Airborne Division Pfc. Steven Dale Green, being escorted to court in Paducah, Ky., in April, killed an Iraqi man, his wife and young daughter, then the teen-age daughter.

updated 8 minutes ago
PADUCAH, Ky. - An ex-soldier convicted of rape and murder in Iraq was spared the death penalty on Thursday and will get a life sentence after jurors couldn't agree unanimously on a punishment.


Former Pfc. Steven Dale Green raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in March 2006 and murdered her and her family in their home south of Baghdad.

Jurors had deliberated the penalty for the former 101st Airborne Division member since Wednesday afternoon before deciding on a life sentence. A judge will formally sentence him Sept. 4.

The 24-year-old from Midland, Texas, was convicted May 7. He and three other soldiers went to the family's home, where Green and two others raped the teen. Green killed her parents and sister, then the teenager.

<snip>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30874700/

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Good.......

That was an horrendous crime.

I hope it's life without parole, though. None of them should ever see daylight again...................

[bluestateguy]

2. I'm not satisfied

I fear that when he's an old man, there will be some whiners saying "Oh, but, but, he's just a sweet old man now. It was all a long time ago. We should just let him go...", or that we'll have to listen to him in some future bullshit TV interview.

Now of course he gets free health care, which is not available to tens of millions of Americans.

Sentencing him to death would have solved all of those problems.

Maybe he'll die of an "accident" in prison someday.

[csziggy]

4. Let's just house him with the Gitmo detainees.... n/t

[JI7]

5. prison is worse, imagine being 24 years old and knowing your only future

will be in that prison. you can't hang out with friends, no girlfriends , family etc.

even if he would be released when old he would have missed out on those adult years when people are most free to make their choices with their lives.

and of course being there will be a constant reminder of what he did and why he is there.

[The River]

6. Life in Prison

is worse than a death sentence, IMO.
Killing him does not solve anything.

[Elidor]

11. Letting him out when he's an old, old man is the cruelest thing you could do to him

No longer able to adjust to the world, but able to see all the things he missed out on. Oh, yeah. Remember Brooks in Shawshank? It would be a fitting end if he was released a few months before his death and left to rot by himself. All his time in prison would just be preparation for that moment of absolute misery.

[aikoaiko]

15. me neither.

There is a reason why convicted murderes fight like hell for life in prison instead of the death penalty.

[customerserviceguy]

16. He's likely to get his sentence commuted by the next Repuke administration

after Iraq is a distant memory. He will likely be out of prison by the time he is forty.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

22. Sad but likely true. The POS should get a bullet in the head now! n/t

[Arctic Dave]

3. If only their family was armed they could have killed these F'ers

One reason to have firearms, to kill douchenozzle soldiers.

[JI7]

7. many in Iraq are armed, and even if they did try to defend themselves

the soldiers would have just come back with some bigger weapons and done worse because they would have been angry at being stood up by them.

and this was a 14 year old girl .

[lapfog_1]

8. This was sarcasm, correct?

Or are you serious in your belief that a man, his wife, and two children at home, possibly with a handgun within reach, could have reacted swiftly enough to kill a team of soldiers (4 or 5) that kick open the door to his house, enter with fully automatic weapons already pointed at him and his family, shouting orders to "get down, spread your arms, let me see your hands". Had any such father reached for a weapon, he knows that he is dead, and possibly his entire family is dead (as they react to him getting shot). What he knows about "American soldiers"... he has seen in the movies or heard from others who have had the same thing done (door to door search)... and he "knows" is that if he isn't part of a terrorist group or a Sunni fighter, the soldiers will search and then leave... traumatic, but not violent. Do you REALLY believe that he should reach for his pistol and try to kill the well armed, well trained soldiers?

[Arctic Dave]

9. Shhhhh. I'm fishing.

[Arctic Dave]

10. I think you scared them off. Damn.

No, I do not believe he would be anymore successful then what happened to them already (Raped and killed). Plus, why use a gun when IED are far more effective.

[blogslut]

12. Good

Let him spend the rest of his life trying to figure out where he went wrong.

[aikoaiko]

13. too bad he didn't get the dp.

Here's to hoping the rest of his days are miserable and filled with remorse and despair.

[aikoaiko]

14. oops wrong place.

self-deleted.

[uppityperson]

17. k&r for Abeer. I was just checking to see if they'd returned yet. Took them 3 days

to come up with this. k&r for Abeer, Hadeel, Fahkriya and Qassim

[uppityperson]

18. Local article from where trial was...

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090521/NEWS01/90521036/Ex-solder+to+be+sentenced+to+life

A federal jury today was unable to decide whether former Pvt. Steven Dale Green should live or die for killing an Iraqi family in March 2006, meaning that by law he will receive the lesser sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The verdict of nine women and three men came after a four-week trial and nearly 11 hours of deliberations. Chief Judge Thomas Russell will sentence Green on Sept. 4.

Green broke into a slight smile when the verdict was announced.

His father, John Green, said: “It is the best of two bad choices but the better one by far.” Green’s brother, Doug Green, 26, said he had mixed emotions, given that his brother will spend the rest of his life in prison. But he said “this gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life and we are very grateful for that.”

Green, 24, originally of Midland, Texas, was convicted of 12 counts of capital murder in the deaths of Abeer Al-Janabi, 14, her 6-year-old sister, Hadeel, and their parents, Kassem and Fakhriya.

[uppityperson]

19. Life without parole per courier-journal article

link in another of my posts here.

sad sad sad for Abeer, her little sister, her parents, her brothers.

[zbdent]

20. put it this way ... he got off easy ...

just think if he had to face justice Middle-Eastern style ...

[NNN0LHI]

21. Life without parole sounds just to me

I have read that being a child rapist in prison can be very difficult. And he isn't ever getting out.

I hope the family gets some peace of mind from this conviction.

Don