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.

There have been a good number of "absolutely certain" cases which were actually nothing of the sort.

The death sentence is archaic and barbaric.

Crimes that would, in your world, merit the death penalty, should be in prison for life (and they generally are). They don't do on to reoffend.

I used to be all for it when I was young and naive. However, even putting aside the vital moral and proof beyond any doubt issues, America clearly demonstrates that it is not an effective deterrent and is an expensive administrative nightmare.

It’s a firm no from me.

Exactly, CCTV can be faked, eye witness evidence is very unreliable, people make false confessions, DNA evidence can be subject to contamination or planting. The point is you can never know for sure.

Exactly. There's no deterrent effect. In fact it seems to be the opposite - in USA capital punishment states, murder rates are higher than in others and when Canada scrapped the death penalty their murder rates dropped. You see similar patterns globally - countries with the death penalty have the highest murder rates. Any country that would introduce it will raise its murder rates. This is exactly why the UK won't. Our murder rate is pretty low relatively speaking and it would be a very foolish politician that does anything to raise it.

Ok - here are my reasons for being against the death penalty:-

1. Miscarriages of justice. If you believe in the death penalty then you have to accept that some innocent people will be killed. There is no way around that. You can say “only if we are really really sure” but do you think we go around sending people to prison for the rest of their lives when we are not “really really sure”? The whole point of our justice system is that we are really really sure. “Innocent until proven guilty” means really really sure. We were really really sure that Seema Misra stole from the post office so we sent her to prison when she was pregnant. We were also really really sure about the other 700 convictions. We were really really sure that Sally Clark and Angela Cannings killed their babies. It is just that sometimes we are really really sure but still wrong.
2. It can be used to coerce false confessions.
3. It disproportionately impacts poor and lower educated people.
4. It disproportionately impacts non white people.
5. It means that convictions are harder to get - not only does the jury unanimously have to be sure the person did it but they have to all be willing to commit murder over it. Some won’t. Which means that people who did commit heinous crimes will be set free to commit more crimes.
6. Are we genuinely saying that a government should be allowed to kill its citizens? That is a thin end of a wedge that I want no part in.
7. It doesn’t work. There is no evidence at all that it is a deterrent.

Yesterday, Larry Roberts became the 200th person exonerated from death row in the United States. It was misconduct by the prosecution that put him there - suppressing evidence, suborning perjury, presenting evidence they knew, or should have known, was false.

This system is so irredeemably broken. We must end it.

Quote from Sister Helen Prejean
Anti death penalty campaigner

I disagree with the death penalty even when there is 100% evidence. I would be more Inclined to allow the loved ones 10 mins alone in a room. With the criminal tied up and some branding sticks. (Not wanting that either but I can see an argument for that)

I do not believe we have the right to take another life. Not even when they have done so.

I'd put them to hard manual labour wearing pink and orange shell suits with some obnoxious tv show on the loop constantly.

(I guess I do believe in torture a bit)

BBC had a good series called "The Capture" which, whilst fiction, was certainly plausible and getting more so as technology improves.

I used to be all for it when I was younger and more naive. After gaining experience in criminal law and having done some lengthy research, I realise miscarriages of justice do happen. Have a look at the history of the death penalty in the UK. If you agree with it, you’re agreeing that innocent people will be killed, even if it is the minority of cases.

I don't support the death penalty, for many of the reasons already mentioned. I do breathe a sigh of relief though, when a murderer dies in prison or kill's themselves because that, to me , is better than them being released. Rehabilitated or not, life should mean life, and families should not have to live with the dread of their child's killer being out of prison.

Yeah state sanctioned murder - outside of war - is a slippery slope.

And a bit off topic but don’t get me started on how most wars a needless waste of life fuelled by ego and greed, and I wish the politicians who started them would have to fight on the frontline more often.

That’s true but you could use that reason for any prosecution.

Well said Mumofteenandtween

@Feelsodrained please stop trying to justify pedophilia. The fact that they were abused does not make it even slightly ok.
Removing them from the planet would stop the cycle of abuse.

I’m not justifying it (obviously). Just saying it’s not as simple as people are suggesting. The OP says she works in child protection and sees horrific stuff that makes her believe in the death penalty. A lot of the prison population were once the victims that the OP deals with because many of them went through the care system.

If you think it’s so successful then why does the US continue to have a high murder rate?

Oh and you wouldn’t get the death penalty for anything other than murder anyway so the pedophilia debate is a bit irrelevant.

I also think most sex offenders and serial killers and indeed most murderers, should be given minimum 40-50 years. It’s scary how a man can rape and murder in the most horrific circumstances at say age 30 and be out in their 50s.

A 50 something year old man is still very capable of harming women or even their fellow man !

Research shows a lot of men in their 70s can overpower a fit woman in her prime. That’s how much stronger they are (generally speaking) and yet so many women killers get out while they’re still young enough to reoffend.

Men like that should be inside until their 80s for the safety of everyone.

I think the system seems very flawed. People spending years on deathrow and millions being spent on their legal fees and imprisonment.
Seems like a waste of life and a resources.
I am undecided tbh but I don't agree with the system as it is.

Take it from people who've lived in countries with capital punishment: its not a power the state should have. Do some people deserve it? Maybe. Would it be the least bad solution in some individual cases? Maybe. I don't know. But it isn't worth it. It's too dangerous.

I also find it a bit weird how it tends to be people on the right who are in favour of capital punishment when they generally oppose government overreach in other areas. I mean if the power to execute citizens isn't government overreach I don't know what is.

Why are government's allowed to wage war on innocent civilians but a man like Wayne Cousins found guilty by a trial of his peers cannot be sentenced to death by will of the elctorate in a democratic country as thats somehow barbaric relative to the crime.

edit: Thanks for the “Thanks” everyone, too kind!

No. There's a reason why most civilised countries don't have the death penalty.

Its not hard to find a suicide risk in prison. So i assume many would see it as a lighter sentence than life.

I think she was the nun who inspired the movie Dead man walking? That film really moved me, we watched it in school as teens. I can’t remember what my views were before then but I remember that I decided for sure right there and then that I was firmly against death penalty and it always stuck with me .

We need to clear prison of non-violent offenders and give longer sentences to the most dangerous.

100% in favour of the death penalty. We’d have no problems with over crowding with prisons and such a waste of tax payer money if it was my decision

Yeah @Normalnot but in all other instances the mistake would be reversible!

What if your son was murdered by the state for something he was utterly innocent of? It happens in America. All. The. Time.