Federal Prisoner Faces Execution

* David Paul Hammer is set to be executed for the murder of his cellmate (“Forgotten in Life, Jail and Death,” Jan. 22). But is execution a sufficient punishment for this terrible crime? Shouldn’t Hammer be made to suffer first? Perhaps we could wave a magic wand, go back in time to Hammer’s childhood and persuade his parents to beat him with a belt, a shoe, an extension cord; or hold his hands to the stove’s gas burner until they are singed; or force him to shoot his favorite dog; or put three puppies into a sack and beat them with a shovel until they die; or give him enemas as a punishment; or force him to have sex with his little sister. Surely we can all agree--this is real punishment!

Alas, we can’t wave that magic wand. However, Hammer has already been given these punishments--and more--by his parents. Except, of course, for the execution, which we the people will do next month.

STAN LIEBERSON

Los Angeles

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The story about the first federal execution since 1963 is fascinating, but it gives the government spin, that there will be little outcry against the extermination of an unsavory madman like Hammer, who committed such a brutal crime. Obviously he’s not someone you’d like to have loose in your community.

It’s scandalous that the crime ever took place. Hammer should have been locked up in a mental institution where he couldn’t harm others. And his victim, mentally damaged by lifelong seizures and understood by authorities, apparently, to be childlike and easily led, should have received treatment and some modicum of protection rather than being used as an informant and locked up with a man dangerous to anyone weak--to a snitch, of course, deadly. Whose fault is it that Andrew Hunt Marti is dead?

LESLIE BROOKS

Los Angeles