Kyle Clifford - does it make you think the death penalty in some cases might be right?

[mids2019]

Read about Kyle Clifford's crimes and although for most of my life objected to the death penalty actually found it difficult to find reasons in this case not to have it. I really just couldn't think of justification for keeping the guy alive as there. Is no hope of redemption, reformation or education leading to a man being able to renenter scoiety. We would be in a position of keeping someone alive for pets face it the ideological reasons we don't believe it is rig h for the state to forcibly take a life.

Maybe my mind might change but reading about that blokes crimes I think sometimes you do forfeit the right to life.

How many people would agree with the death penalty iff it was their child who would be executed? Even if they were convinced of murder?
I’d disown my child if they committed a cold blooded murder, but I don’t believe I’d want them dead.
Emotions should be left out of it.

A look at the crime figures per capita in SA will have you changing your mind.

We literally have CCTV cameras catching murderers red-handed or idiots stabbing people in public in broad daylight, and you want to pull cases like this as a reason we shouldn’t do it?

Timothy Evans is why we don't have the death penalty. But that case was a long time ago, and things have moved on. Given the progress in DNA/forensics, it's unlikely that Evans would have been found guilty today. I used to be totally against the death penalty because someone has to administer it, and I don't think society can ask that of anyone. But it is interesting to ask this question when it looks like assisted dying is on its way. Should someone facing life in prison be able to ask for an assisted death?

It’s for the statement that ‘killing people is wrong so the state shouldn’t do it’.

The state can literally force you to kill people.

I agree regarding him. Vile Thing.

I really struggle to trust the processes enough. I've seen enough miscarriages of justice across my life time to feel mistakes would happen.

When they were caught in the act and its 100% certain they did the crime then yes.

Let's not forget that Clifford's brother is also in prison for murder. Evil family.

A work colleague was spouting one-day about prison being too soft and she thought prisoners should be given the very basics and locked up for a long time regardless.
I pointed out that she had 2 sons , then aged 12 and 10. In a few years one of them could get involved in an altercation and one wrong punch could mean they killed another person, who may have been the original aggressor.
Did she really want a system where her dc could be put in prison and subjected to inhumane treatment in that scenario.
I could see the realisation dawn on her and she replied that she'd never thought of it like that and I am pretty sure she changed her views that day.

We are not ‘dragging ourselves down to their level’ by killing people who are a clear danger to society.

It is called maintaining standards, actually. There should be no tolerance for people like Clifford or Axel.

No. I don't oppose the death penalty because I think the crimes aren't that bad, I oppose it on the principle that no civilised state should be allowed to kill it's citizens. Plus, a number of practical objections too.

I will always oppose the death penalty, for absolutely everyone.

This. Focusing on the death penalty is looking at it from a “one evil person” point of view. It’s violence against women and girls that’s a pandemic of misogyny in our society. It’s time to treat it like terrorism not isolated incidents that other men condemn (but also benefit from in terms of women needing them for protection, being scared to end relationships etc).

It is odd that nobody has published much on their family circumstances.

No. No death penalty in any circumstances.

Are her sons really that awful that they’ll be in jail in a few years? Come ON

This is not like stabbing people
in the street for no reason. Has to be intent to kill.

OP, I'm staunchly against the death penalty and always have been, but when the details of what he'd done came out yesterday, even I wavered.

But no. We absolutely can't start killing those members of society we deem beyond the pale. It's not merely a matter of sometimes getting the verdict wrong. It's because it would be a massive moral shift for the country - there would be some people we deem less than human and therefore we can just dispose of them. It's an insidious attitude that I'm sure would creep into other areas of our society.

We have, unpalatable though it is, a duty of care to EVERYONE in our society. If someone has fallen this far, then we can't just blink him out because of what he's done. In this case, 'duty of care' looks like 'keep him away from everyone else, to stop him harming one more person' and completely curtailing his freedoms. He's very young and he's going to live out his entire life in prison, AND in a wheelchair with paralysis. That's going to be a hell of a lot more of a punishment than a quick death.

I'm not at all opposed to his rehabilitation, through prison-based therapies. Don't you think it would be a good thing, rather than a bad one, for a vicious and twisted man like him to realise what he's done, and the extent of his hatred for women, and start to address that? Doesn't mean I ever want him out of prison - I really hope he stays there.

I am so against the death penalty that I honestly don't think I could live in a country where it operates. I'd seriously consider leaving the UK, my home, if it was brought back here. It's a real line in the sand for me.

Would you still care about them though?

If they did those things.

Far better to let him suffer in his self inflicted wheel chair on the sex offenders wing

Have you spoken to a prisoner recently? It’s horrible. Stuck in a tiny airless cell 23 hours a day often with a cell mate who is unstable or violent. How much more punitive do you want?

I think that's how I feel, tbh. If it can be suggested to someone with early stage dementia, I don't see how it can be refused to someone at high risk of killing again. I don't think people in prison have been discussed during the assisted dying debate yet, but it wouldn't surprised if we end up there in a few years. I remember reading an article about Ian Brady years ago where he was on hunger strike because he'd had enough, but he was being tube fed so in a way he was being punished with life because his living conditions in prison were horrible and he was forced to endure it. Should he have been allowed assisted dying? I think I would probably say yes.

There was an amendment proposed to the assisted dying bill to exclude prisoners from being able to use it. I don’t know the status of the amendment

That makes a mockery of every guilty verdict that doesn't result in the death penalty. It's guilty and not guilty (plus very occasionally not proven in Scotland), there isn't a sliding scale of guilt.

Let's hope no one tries to rehabilitate him. There should be more whole life tariffs, not getting out after 20 years pretending to be rehabilitated.

Well yes, or else I wouldn’t have made the post.