Kellner sentenced to life in wife’s killing

Friday, July 6, 2012

After denying a motion for a new trial, Cole County Presiding Circuit Judge Pat Joyce on Thursday ordered Keith Kellner to serve life in prison without parole for killing his wife at a Jefferson City McDonald’s restaurant in December 2010.

In June, a Cole County jury found Kellner, 49, guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for killing his 44-year-old wife, Pam.

There was no mystery about the sentence Joyce would impose.

By state law, a conviction on a first-degree murder charge requires a life in prison sentence, with no parole possibility.

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herekitty 10 months, 2 weeks ago

They should have gassed him and STOP wasting tax dollars. First degree murder & armed criminal action. Do they need someone to drop the pill? Give me a call!

Sequoia 10 months, 2 weeks ago

Actually, though, capital punishment consumes about six times more tax dollars than life in prison.

If you want to save tax dollars, abolish the death penalty.

JMO 10 months, 2 weeks ago

A vast amount of expense of death penalty cases comes from the appellate process attached to it.

JCLifer 10 months, 2 weeks ago

If we took them from the courtroom to the gallows like they did Saddam Hussien, it would be a whole lot cheaper.

Sequoia 10 months, 2 weeks ago

Sigh. Right... everyone's a zealot except you, Grace.

It's true that the actual costs of both death and life without parole are hard to quantify.

Decide for yourself which case is most persuasive:

deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000

Sequoia 10 months, 2 weeks ago

Grace, you realize, don't you, that the poster you cited actually believes that Procon.org has a CONSERVATIVE bias. He does NOT think Procon.org is a "left wing advocate."

Scroll down a little further, to comment 8. He writes "I think the ProCon people are skewed to the politically conservative side of informed opinion."

Looks like you just outsmarted yourself.

In all seriousness, it is worthwhile to follow your link and look at the discussion in the comments. It is a good discussion about how framing the question influences the debate (Does Sequoia's mother wear combat boots? Discuss!), and how difficult it is to actually debate a question in a way that everyone will agree is "neutral." That is, what one considers to be "neutral" often depends on one's own biases. The guy who wrote the post you cite uses some pretty strong language, so it would be fair to ask whether he brings biases of his own to the analysis.

I poked around at some of the issues on the Procon.org site. I didn't discern anything I thought to be overtly partisan or biased.