Abigail Glover Dr. Craton HONS March 5, 2023, In Cold Blood Justice was served to Dick and Perry after their killing of the Clutters, as the saying goes “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” The Clutter’s had been murdered by Dick and Perry so Dick and Perry received the death penalty. Dick had a normal childhood with loving parents. He had no motive to murder the Clutter family once he knew there was no safe with money. Dick knew how to manipulate and get what he wanted. He was who Perry saw as a masculine man, someone to not be crossed, but who Perry looked up to. Perry noted that Dick was not a good role model, but still sought his approval causing him to lie about committing murder which got him roped into going with Dick to murder …show more content…
Consequently, that does not mean that everyone will react or repent the same way. People say punishment needs to fit the crime, while I say that it needs to fit the person for maximum effect on behavior to cause a change. Someone given the death sentence such as Perry already had family members who committed suicide, meaning he very well could have wanted to die to not have to live with the guilt. Then there are others who, if given a life instead of death sentence, would go right back to killing and breaking the law as soon as they were out of jail or even while still in jail. However, I still believe that justice was served as in the American justice system, we must not give different sentences for the same crime and same level of …show more content…
Watson. This is why they were not seen as sick because psychological illnesses were not as big as they are now. Sadly, I do not think Dick and Perry could have received an insanity plea due to what they did and the fact that they can still make cognizant decisions. They still would have been diagnosed with mental illnesses instead of being seen as healthy which at the very least would have brought awareness of the mental illnesses they had alerting people to get help before they become like Dick and
Dick never wanted to discuss the murders. He always wanted to change the subject. Floyd Wells, his former cellmate, mentioned to Dick that he was a former employee of the Clutters, and they had a safe on the property, unaware that they never had any cash on them. When he did not find the safe or any money, Dick resorted to killing the whole Clutter family. Dick became a little too confident and thought he could get away with murder.
Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are wanted for murder, robbery, and fraud. These two murdered the Clutter family in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas at the families providence. They had thought it would be a adequate family to steal money from. When they were unable to find the money they were looking for the decided to kill them in anger and left most of the family dead. They were motivated to do so because they wanted revenge on everybody who had treated them poorly in their young and adult lives.
Even though Dick said that he planned to kill the Clutters himself, he only wanted to rob them because he had heard of the safe that Floyd Wells had told him about and was thinking that killing the Clutters would only be an option if they were too stubborn to tell him the location of the safe. Dick may have watched Perry kill the Clutters but Dick never stopped him from doing so, making it seem like it was all Perry’s doing. The reason for Perry putting in the effort to kill the Clutters could be because he felt pressured due to the lie that Perry told him about killing a black man,
The adults in Perry’s childhood turning a blind eye to the abuse he faced, and Dick’s pedophilia, which is swept under the rug, atop many more aspects of these men indicate one thing. It can be said that Dick and Perry were simply products of their
Dick and Perry come from completely different backgrounds and Capote leaves the reader wondering if their childhood experiences had an effect on their decisions as adults. Dick and Perry had no intentions of killing in the beginning however, they are left running from the police with no plan
After most people hear what Perry has gone through you immediately give him a get out of jail free card right? You think that since he had a difficult upbringing he should be exempt from receiving the death penalty? Although you may think this, this is certainly not an excuse for such a violent act. Throughout In Cold Blood, Capote attempts to portray to the reader that Smith in a way should be exempt from the crime he commited and how one should not blame it on Smith himself, but his psychological background. Specifically when Al Dewey, the head of the Clutter murder investigation, states how the crime was not in fact Smiths fault.
Dick and his accomplice both had very polarizing backgrounds. Perry grew up in a derelict home, from a poor upbringing to even fleeing with his mother and his siblings to San Francisco. After his mother proved unfit for custody after her heavy inebriation, Perry and his siblings were forced to travel around to a multitude of orphanages, facing physical and mental torture from the nuns, describing one of the events as a nun “hit me (Perry) with it. Hit me and hit me. And when the flashlight broke, she went on hitting me in the dark” (Capote 140).
Perry Smith should not be disciplined with the death penalty. Smith has been through a lot throughout his life and this is not the proper punishment for him. This choice of discipline is not fair and should be overlooked. Smith was not in his right state of mind; he suffered from childhood trauma , and also he is very remorseful. Let's go into depth of why Smith is innocent of the murder of the Clutter family.
While Perry is mortified that he and Dick could commit such a gruesome crime, Dick couldn’t care less. All Dick is worried about is how odd Perry is. Because of how quick Perry’s mood could change, Dick thought he was “spooky as hell.” Now, Perry wasn’t your average run of the mill man. He still wets the bed, cries in his sleep, and “could slide into a fury ‘quicker than ten drunk Indians’”.
I’m going to be talking about three reasons they should get the death penalty, which are: They killed the family to get money, how brutal the murder was, and how they made people feel bad for them after the murder. Perry and Dick went into the Clutter’s house one night to get their money. Someone told them there was $10,000 in the house when there really wasn’t. They started tearing the whole house up, they were taking up the floors, tearing down the walls, asking them where the money was.
Because of the arguments hinted at by Truman Capote in In Cold Blood, there will always be debate on whether capital punishment should be used for certain crimes. One can never be sure if a punishment, whether as mild as jail time or as severe as the death penalty, is justified for the crime
Although Perry is responsible for the murder of four innocent people, Perry’s actions do not reflect on who he is as a person because he is easily influenced, therefore; showing how easily people can be pressured into doing something they would not typically do. Dick, a violent, cold-hearted, manipulator, has molded Perry into the person he is today. As Perry is a follower, Dick has taken advantage of that by turning Perry into the cold-blooded killer he is today. Capote displays Dick’s manipulation of Perry through symbolism to make evident that while Perry did pull the trigger on four innocent people, although the fault does not entirely lay on him, as he was taken advantage of by Dick.
He is portrayed as a mastermind in the cold-blooded killing of the Clutters family, a man with little respect for the lives of others, which can be seen through Dick’s expression before the murder of the Clutters when he converses Perry, “We’re gonna go in there and splatter those walls with hair” (Capote 234). This sudden tone shift enables Capote to depict Dick as a cruel and immoral character. Dick’s lack of empathy and concern for other people beside himself allow him to commit crimes without remorse, which is in contrast to Perry’s moral contemplation after each bad actions they committed. Moreover, Dick is represented as the true criminal with evident motives in murdering the Clutters, while Perry is seen as a vulnerable victim who depends on Dick for validation and acceptance, something in which Dick happily provides in order to manipulate Perry, as Capote writes, “Dick became convinced that Perry was that rarity, ‘a natural born killer,’—absolutely sane but conscienceless, and capable of dealing with or without motive, the coldest-blooded deathblows. It was Dick's theory that such a gift could, under his supervision, be profitably exploited” (Capote 205).
In Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," the murders of the Clutter family shocked the nation. The two culprits, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, were caught and tried for their crimes. While Perry was the one who physically carried out the murders, it can be argued that Dick deserved the same punishment because he planned the crime, intended to rape Nancy Clutter regardless of what happened, and manipulated Perry into becoming a killer. One of the most significant pieces of evidence that suggests Dick deserved the same punishment as Perry is the fact that he was the mastermind behind the crime.
In the village of Holcomb, Kansas a wealthy family, the Clutters, was murdered on November 14, 1959. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were convicted of these murders and received the death penalty. In Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood, the audience receives different viewpoints on why Dick and Perry either deserved the death penalty or not. Though the decision to sentence someone to death should be based on the truth, the truth is not always easy to define; Capote shows this through his depiction of the controversial executions of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Criminal punishment is an immensely ongoing controversial and societal issue in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world.