This is why we should bring back the death penalty

Sally Clark
Angela Cannings
Donna Anthony

Just 3 of the many reasons why we should not bring back the death penalty

Dear oh dear oh dear... As soon as somebody starts talking about 'liberal leftie hand wringers' I know I'm going to be reading a load of nonsense. Thank you - you did not disappoint.

Sentencing does not consider how probable it is that a crime was committed. It is carried out on the basis that it did. Sentencing does take into account the category of crime and mitigating and aggravating factors.

Your whole life example is all about the severity of the crime and nothing to do with the accused person being more likely to be factually guilty than someone who gets a shorter sentence.

What some people on here are proposing is that an additional sentence - death - is available for some crimes, but only where we really know the sentenced person is guilty. That can only be logically possible where there are crimes we tacitly admit may not have been committed by the ‘guilty’ person.

I don't think the state should have the power to end people's lives, but I agree cases like this one really test that belief.

Utter, utter waste of space and a vile human being, but I don’t agree with the death penalty.

For lots of reasons, but honestly, he will suffer far more in prison than being executed. People like Fred West knew that.

It’s a horrendous story, but the death penalty is legalised, state-sanctioned murder that will and should never be brought back. We’re better than that.

You'll have to explain?

It would be a sub category of sentence, like a whole life order, it is not casting doubt on the verdict.

So if the judge deemed a whole life order was appropriate, which in the vast majority of murder convictions it is not, he/she would then have the option of the death penalty, subject to appeal as is the case now.

Neither is the death penalty. People who commit crimes like this are not thinking about the consequences.

A terrible tragic case but as you've highlighted there, forensic science has advanced massively. Also, in the case referred to by OP there's absolutely no doubt about his guilt.

I am generally against the death penalty, but for some criminals/crimes it is hard to see what society has to gain by locking people away for the rest of their life, or indeed locking them away for a certain time then releasing them back into society.

Some crimes are just too horrific.

You’re mixing things up. Guilty and not guilty are a binary assessment of whether the accused person committed the crime.

If found guilty, they’ll then go on to be sentenced. A whole life order is one possible sentence.

It’s unconscionable to have a category of ‘guilty’ that casts doubt on the sentenced person’s guilt from the outset. To all intents and purposes, if it’s found that a person ‘did it’ they must be treated accordingly. That would have to include the death penalty if it were reintroduced. Appeals are available to challenge findings and sentences. This is the correct approach, not to introduce doubt about guilt on judgement.

This is why we need to invest heavily in solving the addiction problem, supporting struggling families and early MH interventions.

It's never mentioned by people who think the death penalty would be a deterent, but when the defendant is likely to receive a death penalty, juries are far less likely to find them guilty.

Stefan Kiszko. He wasn’t hanged but might as well have been. He died 22 months after being released from prison after serving 16 years. He was an intellectually disabled man who was convicted because the police suppressed a crucial piece of evidence that would have completely exonerated him.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lesley_Molseed

The real killer was eventually caught through DNA match.

It's part of the Armed Forces role to kill people.

I don’t think it’s good for a society to have people whose job it is to kill people.

There are sentencing guidelines now for murder cases, we already have 3 outcomes - we have Not Guilty, Guilty and Guilty with a whole life order.

It would be the latter who could be considered for execution.

I do not see how anyone can justify Huntley or Bellfield being kept alive.

Incarceration isn't working.
It's not a deterrent.

We are just hearing more and more disgusting things on the news, what is happening to society? Absolutely shocking. The cruelty to children is out of hand, yet nobody is forced to have a baby.

I wouldn't care less if he was put down. Save the tax payers a load of money, send out a strong message too.
Prison is not enough for some people. They arent put off going in there.

If an animal savaged a human they would be put down. What's the difference.
RIP poor baby.

Yeah I get it - I totally understand the desire to inflicted pain. But vengeance is driven by emotion while justice is about delivering punishment and removing harm but also protecting society in broader ethical terms - that we do not become what we condemn.

Of course justice will never feel like it's enough in crimes such as the ones you've mentioned - and most reasonable people will feel anger and a sense of wanting to retaliate. But long-term, fighting violence with violence only exacerbates the issue and erodes moral integrity.

I agree that that is extremely hollow to the families of victims. And there are countries in the world where the death penalty is lawful and therefore would be labelled justice rather than vengeance. But legality doesn't equal morality - justice becomes vengeance when it stops being about society's good and becomes about personal satisfaction, however hard that is to accept.

Do you think the death penalty would have prevented any of those deaths op?

No, there is no reason at all to allow people like these to live.

At least two very good reasons have been spelt out here repeatedly.

I keep wondering this. It’s completely unworkable in practice.

I dont like the death penalty as mistakes are made and I dont get the logic of killing is so bad but the state can kill you.

But I do think some prisoners get released to soon.

Yeah, whoops-de-do, what a hero!

The man who attacked Sharif with a tuna can lid plotted in cold blood to murder a woman. Dismembered her and left her body parts in public parks not far from where I live. Where children could have found them . The complete body has not been found.

Everyone cheering that prisoner on at the time this was reported made me sick. Because there is no moral high ground in it.

Revenge is a reciprocal blood lust.

We have laws and a justice system precisely so that we do not succumb to the (understandable) human reaction to want to kill a perpetrator. Revenge often does not give the victims the satisfaction they hope for. There was a documentary about people who watched executions in the U.S.

I do not want or celebrate prisoners using their own depraved values to attack others on my behalf.

So would you want 3 possible outcomes for a trial. Not guilty, guilty, and obviously guilty death? How would it work in practice?