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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

The death penalty?

237 replies

WaywardOn3 · 29/04/2014 08:48

Ok so I was reading this article about a man sentenced to death taking half an hour to die. The state have upped the dose to try to prevent it happening again.

While I'm against having a death penalty his lawyers comments bugged me as him potentially suffering for up to half an hour before death breached his human rights. What about the young pregnant woman's human rights to not be raped and murdered? She must surely have suffered far longer than half an hour and in actual pain/fear for herself and her child not assumed and unconfirmed pain.

AIBU to not care that he may have suffered ever so slightly in his last unconscious half hour?

OP posts:
SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 19:31

Your feelings are completely normal and understandable, tequila. I would feel exactly the same way if it happened to anyone I loved.

But the reason we have a legal system and not lynch mobs is so that the desire for revenge, while understandable, is not allowed to determine the outcome of a criminal case.

TequilaMockingbirdy · 30/04/2014 19:34

Ah I agree suburbhan. I do think though if there's no shadow of a doubt, if they were caught in the act, if there's no remorse shown... Then death is better than them living on borrowed money in a state jail. I fully understand why people have a different opinion though, and it does worry me that someone would have the power to put someone to death.

DisappointedHorse · 30/04/2014 19:36

14 Days in May changed the way I feel about the Death Penalty forever. Everyone should watch it before forming an opinion if only to see just how devastating a miscarriage of justice can be.

There are so many reasons why I think capital punishment is wrong.

Firstly, It's not a deterrent - countries with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those without. US states without the death penalty have consistently lower.

It's about retribution rather than rehabilitation - murder is wrong or it isn't.

Racial disparity, speaks for itself. It is not administered equitably or fairly.

And no, even if someone murders my loved ones, I will still not believe in the Death Penalty.

MaidOfStars · 30/04/2014 19:43

if anyone hurt my child like this man hurt this pregnant woman, I'd want to kill them myself

Perfectly normal. Perfectly understandable.

Perfectly murder.

Thurlow · 30/04/2014 19:47

I'd want to kill them too.

But I would want to kill them. I imagine I would to do equally awful things to them.

But I would never, never want to live in a society where the state did that.

And quite frankly it's patronising to claim that someone who is against the death penalty would change their mind if it happened to one of their family, as if they haven't bothered to think the issue through.

MaidOfStars · 30/04/2014 19:52

In our lazy c

MaidOfStars · 30/04/2014 19:53

In our lazy conversations about moving abroad, my husband and I agree that the reinstitution of capital punishment in the UK would be a no brainer.

TessOfTheFurbyvilles · 30/04/2014 20:05

Then death is better than them living on borrowed money in a state jail.

In many cases, the death penalty actually costs more than life in prison, because of the nature of the legal processes.

Fizzybangfanny · 30/04/2014 20:15

I simply hope that for these most heinous of individuals their days are filled with nothing but misery and shame whilst they reflect on the hideousness of their actions

You assuming that these people have a conscience - some don't.

Sadly I agree it's not a deterrent.

In certain extreme cases I agree with it. Not a popular view, I know .

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 20:30

You assuming that these people have a conscience - some don't.

Speculation, of course.

What is fact is that some are also innocent, some are too poor to have been properly represented in court, some were children when they committed the crime, some are mentally ill and some are set up by their co-accused.

Fizzybangfanny · 30/04/2014 20:33

I agree, but some are also multiple rapists, murderers and Pedophiles. Some haven't got a bleeding heart story, they just did it because they wanted to.

dawndonnaagain · 30/04/2014 20:43

Are you sure of that Fizzy? How many do you think wanted to? Do you think they woke up one morning and thought, oh, I'll rape a woman today? Or do you think they planned it, carefully for a long time?
There are some who really did do that, they are remarkably few and far between. My brother is a barrister, there are an awful lot of miscarriages of justice. Oh, and just because someone has a bleeding heart story and didn't do one of those things, only makes them better able to access help and process what happened to them.

Fizzybangfanny · 30/04/2014 20:57

There are some who really did do that, they are remarkably few and far between

Those are the ones I'm talking about.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:08

Some haven't got a bleeding heart story, they just did it because they wanted to.

Again, speculation, probably because it helps you to justify your support of the death penalty.

Fizzybangfanny · 30/04/2014 21:23

Yes all multiple murders, rapists and Pedophiles are just misunderstood Confused

There isn't always a reason why people do terrible terrible crimes against each other.

I could say it's just speculation there is a reason why they did it, it probably justifies your reason for not supporting it.

TessOfTheFurbyvilles · 30/04/2014 21:26

There are criminals who, without doubt, have no remorse and have killed simply because they wanted to.

That still doesn't justify the state-endorsed murder of those individuals.

People like that deserve to spend life in prison instead, where 23 hours of their day is spent in solitude, which in my opinion is more of a punishment than the death penalty. The latter gives them the easy way out.

Thurlow · 30/04/2014 21:26

Do you think people need to 'justify' their reasons not to support capital punishment?

I believe that most people who commit terrible acts have something in either their background that has influenced them, or are psychological ill one way or another. In many circumstances this will mean that they won't be rehabilitated back into society in any meaningful way.

But to think anything other is to believe that some people are intrinsically evil in an essentially religious way. I don't believe in evil. Just like I don't believe in retribution.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:33

Yes all multiple murders, rapists and Pedophiles are just misunderstood

Not sure who you're quoting there, fizzy Confused

Ludways · 30/04/2014 23:12

I'm vehemently against the death penalty, it's barbaric and has no place in a modern civilised society. Murder is murder, that's plain and simply the whole thing for me.

Original poster
WaywardOn3 · 30/04/2014 23:46

I don't want the death penalty in the uk or in the world in general. I do however want the uk to have proper prison sentences (life should mean life) instead of 'token' sentences. As prisons are overcrowded I'm not sure how we'd be able to house them without stripping them down to the bare minimum of human rights and even then there still wouldn't be space :-/

By the way has anyone else noticed this -> Dragon

OP posts:
YoureBeingASillyBilly · 01/05/2014 00:13

"There isn't always a reason why people do terrible terrible crimes against each other. "

Yes there is. There is a reason for everything. The reason might be that they just wanted to kill someone- it's still a reason.

"I believe that most people who commit terrible acts have something in either their background that has influenced them, or are psychological ill one way or another."

I believe everyone who commits terrible acts has something in their background that has influenced them. Their background is what makes them who they are and brings them to whatever choices they make. Of course there is something in their background.

"But to think anything other is to believe that some people are intrinsically evil in an essentially religious way. I don't believe in evil. Just like I don't believe in retribution."

Totally agree.

sashh · 01/05/2014 07:12

I believe some people do not deserve to live.

I also believe that I have no right to take someone else's life, even if they don't deserve to live.

I also believe that, certainly in the US, the appeals and years on death row mean the murderer is doing nothing but concentrating on saving his (or her) own life. If you are in prison for life you may just think about your victim(s) and their families. You might even regret what you have done.

Hindley and Brady narrowly missed the death penalty, one result of that is that Pauline Reade's family were able to rebury her body and have a grave. It took more than 20 years, and in all probability was an attempt by a murderer to obtain release.

I am not in the position to have had a relative murdered so I honestly do not know how much it meant to her family. I imagine a lot.

Deathraystare · 01/05/2014 07:29

Yes you would think there would be enough proof and crime programmes 'show' us that forensic science is advanced enough, but we are talking about American justice here. Not trying to enrage Americans on this post but how many times have we seen documentries about that fact that you have to 'buy' justice and if you are poor you don't stand a chance. Many is the time the lawyer has not done his job. Yes I know you can argue that ours sometimes fucks up - but we don't have the death penalty.

I remember watching the documentary about the woman who killed me. Mostly you saw the lawyer strumming a guitar and singing. In quite a few cases I read about, important witnesses were not even interviewed, important evidence was not picked up on.

That is why (despite wanting some people drawn and quartered and fed to dogs, I cannot agree with the death penalty.

It does piss me off though when prisoners (or their lawyers) whinge about a prisoners 'rights'. They did not worry about their victim's rights did they??

SuburbanRhonda · 01/05/2014 07:36

Once we start to justify our own actions by comparing them to those of a someone committing a criminal act, we are on very shaky ground indeed.

Ilovexmastime · 01/05/2014 07:59

I remember watching a documentary about 2 boys in the USA who are/were on death row. They were about 17 I think, under 18 anyway. Boy A had murdered his mother after being sexually abused by her all his life and boy B had called round to see his friend, boy A, minutes after the murder. Boy A let him in the house and soon after the police turned up and arrested both of them. There was some law, I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head, which meant that because boy B hadn't called the police (he hadn't even had time) he was as guilty as boy A, and so they both got convicted and sentenced to death.
I saw this documentary years back but I still think of those boys when anyone mentions the death penalty. Imagine being boy B's mother.

Obviously, I am completely against the death penalty. Apart from the miscarriages of justice, I think the same as others on here... barbaric, state sanctioned murder, uncivilised etc etc.

But OP, I also get what you're saying on an emotional level.