What Is In Cold Blood By Truman Capote Justice

In his book In Cold Blood, Truman Capote evokes questions about the justice served to Perry Smith and Richard Hickock. The jury sentenced them to death, as they should. The two men were a danger to the public due to their mental instability; although Capote puts a lot of effort into making Smith look like a caring person, Perry still murdered a family of four without motivation. Richard Hickock was the mastermind behind the murders. He deserved the death sentence because he spent so long thinking of how to pull of the perfect murder. Hickock talks early in the book of the Clutter job being an easy one, and he repeatedly states “no witnesses” to Perry. He was more excited to watch people die than he was to find the fabled 10,000 dollars hidden

Dick deserved the death sentence because he wanted to wreak havoc on this family; Perry was simply his means of doing so. Perry’s twisted mind does not conceive death as a motivated. He says, “Soldiers don’t lose much sleep. They murder, and get medals for doing it. The good people of Kansas want to murder me—and some hangman will be glad to get the work” (Smith 291). To Perry, being hanged is not a punishment, but just another murder. There is no motivation to murder in this world that Perry can conceive. He has a lack of appreciation for human life, which can be attributed to his distrust in people since his childhood. After speaking about the unimportance of dying Smith says, “I only knew the Clutters maybe an hour. If I’d really known them, I guess I’d feel different. I don’t think I could live with myself. But the way it was, it was like picking off targets in a shooting gallery” (Smith 291). This statement is relevant to how the jury prosecuted Smith because they only knew him as a killer. If

He hoped to see Perry and his partner hanged—hanged back to back,” writes Capote (246). This is a summarization of Perry’s character and outcome in the book. Perry has redeeming qualities, he sets a pillow under Kenyon’s head, he briefly is remorseful over the killings, and puts down a mattress box for Mr. Clutter. But, even after all this, Perry was still the murderer of four innocent people. At the end of the book Perry and Dick still killed four people without motivation. Dick did not deserve sympathy from anyone; Capote did not remotely try to draw attention to Dick’s redeeming qualities, if any could be found. Dick premeditated the murder for years, he played the scenario out in his head over and over and knew that he wanted no one left alive. Dick had nothing but 10,000 dollars on his mind that night, and was willing to let Perry to anything to find it. Regardless of the portrayal of either character in this book, they both were responsible for the death of four innocent people in their own