Death penalty

[birthdayboo]

I don't quite understand the logic of people who want to murder people who have committed awful crimes.

I do understand saying you wish you could, verbalising the anger felt and not literally meaning you would actually carry out a killing yourself.

I don't understand when people swear they would actually kill

One horrific crime doesn't go away because you commit another horrific crime such as murder on the guilty?

I don't understand the death penalty either - I totally agree that life seems too good for some people, however it's still legalising murdering a human being to have the state kill them - so I just can't get my head around murdering someone because they murdered someone. Perhaps some form of voluntary self administered euthanasia being available by prescription to individuals who will never leave prison in their lifetime would be a solution to how much money it costs to house prisoners however it's not even like people get death penalty and it happens soon, they spend ages and have money spent on holding them prior to execution

I'd honestly prefer someone who committed horrific crimes to be kept in a bare-minimum prison with no extras, let them have years of boredom etc, then let them get out of suffering by being euthanised.

People might find this interesting.
www.theguardian.com/society/2009/apr/24/erwin-james-journalism

@Honflyr so why is it better to make someone (who may well have done awful things it’s true) suffer for decades than to simply remove them from society with a quick death?

Killing wouldn't be enough for some of the people I think shouldn't be alive anymore. Torture yes, but not a quick get-out by dying. Solitary confinement for years with nothing else to do but think about what they did? More worth it.

It's not "better". If they are in prison for life they are still "removed" from society, they just suffer more than if they are euthanised.

I don’t really see the point in making people suffer unnecessarily even if they’ve done abhorrent things.

So if there is a miscarriage of justice and an innocent person is killed, does that mean the person who pushed the button should also be killed?

We don't allow bereaved family members to sit on juries, carry out sentencing or decide on punishment for good reason.

As a PP said, most of the countries that still have the death penalty general have quite poor human rights.

Im really not saying 'poor murderers' here. I'm not saying that Ian Huntley should be patted on the head and rehabilitated, he should never get out, he should never be in society again. He should live the rest of his days as a miserable pile of shit.

But i don't think the death penalty has a place in civilised society.

Re death penalty as a deterrent, Albert Pierrepoint, who was official excecutioner until 1956, said in his autobiography

“... is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree. There have been murders since the beginning of time, and we shall go on looking for deterrents until the end of time. If death were a deterrent, I might be expected to know. It is I who have faced them last, young lads and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed to see the courage with which they take that walk into the unknown. It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder.”

I can't reconcile myself to the possibility of an innocent person dying or someone with doubts as to their conviction or mitigating circumstances. The Derek Bentley case, Edith Thompson of the Bywater-Thompson case, Ruth Ellis and her tragic life all spring to mind.

That said, I think I'd like to see it brought back for terrorism and treason. There are also some people who will always kill, to whom a death penalty is no deterrent... they are the people who possibly should face it, if they are mentally fit. I struggle with the application of it in the US. I think they take too long- some people spend 20 years on death row. Keep their appeals, but quicker, the process needs reforming, and many of the methods are barbaric. If they are going to do it; time limits on appeals process, long drop hanging or firing squad. Also, all states should have it or none, with Federal Law retaining it for terrorism/treason/some circumstances. The stats by state for murder also show death penalty retention doesn't necessarily affect the murder rate, though. There are far more factors at play.

The people on here baying for blood are also the reason the state is in charge of punishments, to stop you doing something stupid. You need a calm, private, compassionate (to a degree) executioner. They in themselves need to be mentally robust, too. There's quite a few who killed themselves/had issues afterwards.

I have read up a fair bit on the US & UK death penalty.

I don’t really see the point in making people suffer unnecessarily even if they’ve done abhorrent things

Then we are very different people.

I am not saying I think this should be implemented, I'm just saying it's what I think in my mind.

Torture yes

No, not torture. Civilised people do not torture other people, no matter what the circumstances.

But by definition he would only see the ones not deterred by it...

I recall the reactions to the suicides of Fred West and Harold Shipman.

Many people, especially their victims' families, felt cheated that these men had escaped justice and their punishment, and had taken the cowardly route out.

Timothy Evans is dead and posthumously pardoned.

The Birminghan 6, Guildford 4 and many others would be dead.

Justice does not exist for revenge.

I don’t understand the logic of those who call for the death penalty. Youve killed someone? Well killing is clearly wrong! Send him to the gallows!

If murder is a crime, ALL murder is a crime. State sanctioned or not.

Many people, especially their victims' families, felt cheated that these men had escaped justice and their punishment, and had taken the cowardly route out.

This is why I think the death penalty is not suffering enough for the perpetrator.

"It costs much more to execute someone than it does to keep them imprisoned".

The sums required to do a proper comparison are very complicated, e.g.

1. whole-life imprisonment is for obvious reasons much cheaper for a 60 year old than a 20 year old;
2. capital prosecutions in the US are far longer & more complicated [hence involving more lawyers, witnesses, experts, etc] than non-capital ones. there's typically a huge time lag between prosecution & execution;
3. the existence of a death penalty may lead to an increase in the number of guilty please on lesser charges, & hence reduced prosecution costs; etc.

All I can say is that the law should be:

If you take someone's human rights away and example being a murderer they should then have their human rights taken away by them being euthanised.

No. Nope, nope, nope.

Human rights are human rights. The whole point is that all humans should have human rights, no matter how disgusting and awful we might think those humans are, and no matter what they might have done.

As soon as you start taking human rights away from some people, it's a slippery slope.

We have to be more civilised than that.

Totally agree Ethel.

Once you start saying that certain groups don't deserve human rights you are denying their humanity, and once you do it for one group, you can do it for another.

Once you start saying that certain groups don't deserve human rights you are denying their humanity, and once you do it for one group, you can do it for another.

But wouldn’t the argument a human has a right to a quick death over a lifetime of imprisomment (however awful their crime) be just as compelling as an argument they have a right not to be killed (however awful their crime) and must simply be imprisoned instead?

I know “right to life” is on the list of human rights, but it’s stiill something that can be discussed, it’s not a document handed down from the gods on high but a human construction born out of a particular cultural context and subject to all the biases that implies.

I know some one that murdered a teenager in cold blood. They went to prison, finished their sentence, came out and started a family. They were also a teenager too at the time. It was unprovoked and premeditated.

They seem a really nice person.

However he snubbed a young persons life out? Why should he be able to continue his nice life now? How fair is that?

I do think paedophiles should be put to death because there is no going back from that. They will always be a danger to society.

Surely surgeons can put someone to sleep as they would for an operation and then stop their heart while they’re unconscious?

I doubt you would find a Dr willing to do that. One of the reasons for botched death penalty incidents are that the people carrying out the execution don't know much about physiology.

For the electric chair a natural sponge is dipped in water and used on the head. It has to be a real natural sponge, there has been at least one incidence of someone just buying any old sponge.

The justice system exists to punish, protect society, and to rehabilitate.

Locking someone up and throwing away the key should only be done in extreme cases.

Allowing people a second chance at life after an appropriate length of time served, and proven rehabilitation, is appropriate.

Surely the correct question to the supporters of the death penalty is "are you prepared to be executed in error or to see one of your loved ones executed in error?"

TRIGGER WARNING

I'm a survivor of childhood SA at the hands of my F and others. None of these men have faced any prison time. That's the real problem, catching these people. And then they all too frequently get pathetic sentences.

Would I want them dead? Well, my F is dead and I'm not free of the trauma, I still suffer from complex PTSD, as does my DSis and probably my DB as well (along with other MH issues). So the fact that he's dead isn't really closure at all. Would it be different if he had faced justice? I don't know.

The others are all dead, too, this all happened in the 1970s and 1980s. Apart from one, whom the police traced and built a case against him. The CPS decided that there wasn't enough evidence to take it to court. He was a stranger to us, though his accomplice had groomed us and my DM knew him and had been suspicious of him at the time. Sadly, because the one we knew was dead, they couldn't do anything about his accomplice. ID evidence wasn't sufficient, because it was from too long ago.

The police were convinced that he was their man, but that was the end of it. At least it will show up on his DBS records.

Would I want him dead? I don't know. I would want him in prison where he won't be able to hurt other children. It's a moot point, because, once again, there was no conviction. So yes, I'm angry, but not because I want them to face the death penalty.

The death penalty will never be right, because of the risk of an innocent person being executed. But quite apart from that, it won't take the pain away.

But the conviction rate is a disgrace, as is the sentencing.