Death penalty

[Movingo]

I don't want to be roasted. I do believe in it. For personal reasons it's definitely valid in my opinion.
I believe if you're so heinous in your behaviour to warrant that sentence then yes.
I'm all for it.
I'm aware it's an unpopular opinion. So I'm really only talking about people who confessed or where there was truly evidence they were guilty.
I'm asking as my mum is dead set against it. No matter what.
Whereas, my dad said he'd be the executioner if he believed their guilt for sex crimes etc.
So. Im just curious really.
I hope my thread is not deleted.... I know lots of people like to complain.

I work in child services and the things I've seen/heard would make your skin crawl. I've always agreed with the death penalty as often times when a heinous crime is committed they had previous convictions and were let go.
It makes no sense. These perpetrators usually go on to commit worse crimes.

Ask the parents of a murdered child what they think

I think it is easy to be sat at home saying I will be the executioner

Put them in front of someone and say kill them, then what?

I've also worked in psychiatrist hospitals, with some of the worst offenders. I agree with the horrible crimes and beliefs.

However I still disagree with the death penalty and think the risk of putting one innocent person to death is too great.

I agree with sentences where there will never be a chance if release - true life sentences.

I think becoming a society where we punish people with death is a slippery slope, and risks too much.

We know people confess when innocent, we know science moves forwards and things change. Even if we are sure of guilt, it can change. Especially with all the deep fake stuff coming out etc.

I would argue for true life sentences, which if we get things wrong we can overturn and try and make amends.

I very much doubt it costs more than what it costs to keep someone in prison. It costs hundreds of thousands to keep them locked up

I think OP is meaning when there’s no shadow of a doubt - when they are seen on CCTV and it’s absolutely them!

If it was my sister or mother etc with unequivocal evidence and I knew it was them with no remorse.. yes. I would.

A lot of perpetrators of heinous crimes are products of the care system and were abused as children. It can change brain chemistry. Things aren’t so simple as being born evil.

I have always been completely and utterly against it.
Then I became a mother.
I would fully support every single pedophile in the world getting marched to the electric chair.

My problem would be with miscarriages of justice too.

Though we seem to be ok with locking someone up for most of their life when they are innocent. Surely this means an urgent need to make major changes to the justice system?

I have no problem with the idea of serious criminals being executed if we had a fool proof way.

And of course sometimes we do. If a man stabs 10 people in a public place in front of CCTV and 100s of witnesses we know that he is guilty. What's the problem there?

Those are very good points.

Death penalty is one of those line in the sand issues that has majority public support but that no party will ever take forward. Thank goodness. Looking at how it plays out in countries that have it, it's always misused including in the USA where it's effectively a state programme of legalised lynching. I don't doubt that you're sincere in your aims OP but there's no point debating it in this country because the political chambers here decided long ago that it's a non-starter.

Right, just look at the US, where they execute the mentally incapacitated and the poor.

It's a real deterrent isn't it.🙄

Yes. Thank you. That's exactly what I mean.

The death sentence isn't something that I would support but neither can I see why someone should be incarcerated for life having the basics provided without working for it. Likewise criminal damage should be paid for by the perpetrators not a ridiculous slap on the wrist fine.
Prison is meant to be a deterrent where the prisoners should serve retributive punishments and pay for the damage inflicted. Much like continual offenders who commit driving offences - I would love it if someone could invent a gadget worn by the offenders that would effectively incapacitate any vehicle they got in so they had to walk absolutely everywhere now that would be a real inconvenience for them.

And every person being executed was once upon a time some other woman’s darling boy/girl. A high proportion of pedophiles were also abused as children.

It's a tough one because although I think pedos, murderers etc should get the death penalty, I don't think the government should have the right to kill any of us.

Then it would stop that vicious cycle in some situations.

No I think it's barbaric, and a hell of an ask for the person carrying it out. That said, life should mean just that for the perpetrator to remain incarcerated for their entire life.

I am not talking about a happy clapping sentence with no reason. I am talking about cases where there is absolutely no doubt.

I agree with @LakeTiticaca that someone who deliberately takes a life should never be released.
And life in prison should not be a cushy number.

I don't believe in a death sentence. I couldn't be an executioner.

‘No doubt’ according to whom, though? Judith Ward was wrongly convicted and given multiple life sentences for the M62 coach bombing in 1974 and the Euston bombing on apparently strong physical evidence (explosives residue) and her own confessions, and served 17/ years before her release.

She was severely mentally ill, homeless, vulnerable and a fantasist, could not have placed the bomb when she claimed, the only evidence she had any IRA sympathies was that she was briefly in a relationship with a man who drank in a pub in Dundalk where IRA members drank, the IRA specifically said in an official statement that she hadn’t done it and wasn’t a member, and the police and prosecution withheld vast amounts of information from the court, including her attempts to retract her original statement.

The Home Office forensic scientist who provided the forensic evidence on explosives residue supposedly on swabs from Judith Ward’s hands and bag, Frank Skuse, was later retired by the HO when it was established that his conclusions were false even by the standards of the forensic science of 1974 — other experts had found differently, but their findings not used by the CPS. His unsound expert evidence also convicted the Birmingham Six. 350 convictions to which his evidence contributed were re-examined.

It was a very convincing ‘open and shut’ case, built on forensic evidence and a confession. Until it wasn’t.

Cost up all the appeals, incarceration during all trials and appeals up until the penalty is carried out, the cost of execution itself and it really does cost more financially.

But we live in the age of deep takes; a motivated state can manifest any evidence^ it wants. Which is why governments shouldn't be in charge of who within their borders gets to live or die.

Well that’s not the criminal standard, it’s beyond reasonable doubt. There will be loads of cases where there’s a lot of evidence but you can never know for sure. So your “absolutely no doubt” wouldn’t work because it would either mean that people aren’t convicted at all because there might be a tiny doubt but not a reasonable one. Or that where you have two people convicted of the same heinous crime, only one of them is executed due to the nature of the evidence.
In lots of cases, eg Lucy Letby, there’s clear evidence that the killer did it but there’s always a tiny doubt that it might not be them.

So best to avoid it altogether.