To question my long held beliefs against capital punishment after what happened to Alesha MacPhail

[Noteventhebirdsareupyet]

Hi all,

I have recently been really shaken by the Alesha MacPhailcase and possibly because I now have a tiny daughter of my own, I am feeling really affected by what has happened.

I have always had reasonably strong views against capital punishment and have often argued that:

No one has the right to take the life of another.

When capital punishment is lawful, mistakes are made and innocent people get killed.

We are supposedly a civilised society.

Often offenders were victims first and therefore need empathy and have been failed by the system.....

However I am now shocked to find myself thinking that if a person can do the things that Aaron Campbell has done to a tiny, innocent girl and show absolutely no remorse, then perhaps instead of spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money keeping him incarcerated and then putting communities at risk upon his release, maybe we as a society should say that this person is intrinsically evil and has no place among us.

I honestly never imagined myself feeling like this and maybe it is because I am now a mother that I do. Surely people like him don't deserve a second chance and should be killed before they ruin more lives.

Am I being unreasonable to feel like this? Has anyone else had a turning point like me? I feel that my family and friends would be a bit shocked to hear me say "let's kill dangerous criminals" but this incident has had a profound effect on my outlook and I feel like I can't voice my opinions out loud.

I'm sorry I haven't time to read the whole thread. Looking at the op I can't help but agree. I feel he should be put to sleep, like a dog would be if it was attacking children. Someone as inhumane as he is brings nothing to our society. What is the point in people like this? I'm sorry I never used to feel like this but some crimes are beyond comprehension. I'm just being honest.

Marilyn I totally agree, if a dog attacked a child or killed it, would be PTS, but human lives are somehow worth more than an animal's and that won't happen. Instead, he should live out his days in a cell, with the gravity of what he has done constantly haunting him.

Because a dog will be acting in instinct

A dog isn’t going to plan to kidnap, rape and kill a child and then lie about it

It’s a ridiculously stupid argument

There’s no fear of the law today.

And they do bring something to our lives

We learn form them - Ted Bundy has been very influential in our understanding of psychopaths by the information he choose to share

Fear of law would never stop a psychopath

And doesn’t prevent serious violent crime

Not really Enthusiasm , what he has done is even worse than a dog attacking a child, due to instinct. Cold calculated and premeditated.

Why are we talking about dogs?

It’s like comparing apples and pears.

Ted Bundy has been very influential in our understanding of psychopaths by the information he choose to share

That is very debatable. He wasn’t forthcoming with details and blamed everything and everyone but himself. Nothing of worth came from those interviews.

“Everything that can go wrong in telling a crime story is on display in the Ted Bundy Tapes,” she tweeted. “It feels exploitative, superficial, lurid & disrespectful to the victims. Giving Bundy a voice — especially when he had nothing of substance to say — is grotesque. What a disappointment.”

This is former Texas Monthly reporter Pamela Colloff‘s words about the upcoming documentary on this guy. He is rightfully better off dead than growing comfortably old reading love letters from his crazed fans

it provides proper retribution

Jail is proper retribution? I don’t see how? Please explain ....

To me, it's quite simple. If we believe (as I do ) that killing someone is wrong, then it's wrong in every case. It's a moral imperative. You cannot, in my view, pick and choose. And yes, if my daughter were murderer, I wouldn't want the killer to be given a death sentence. If murder is wrong, then it's wrong in each and every case. The only exception I would make is killing in order to save someone's life

@enthusiasm
I know a prosecutor or two and the absence of any real punishment today is not a controversial view

There’s something deeply chilling about the state having the power to take a life.

However unthinkable the crime, state sanctioned killing is not the answer IMO. But I do agree with you that it is a huge waste of money, OP. Imagine the useful things that could be done with what it will cost to keep this horrible human being alive and safe from other inmates.

To me, it's quite simple. If we believe (as I do ) that killing someone is wrong, then it's wrong in every case. It's a moral imperative

It’s not as black and white as that. Is killing in self-defense wrong? Is abortion wrong? Is killing someone about to kill someone else wrong? Is it ok to euthanise someone? Is a soldier wrong to kill an enemy? You might say yes to one or two of these.....

Some interesting language being used in this thread: “evil”, “monster” etc. Is it easier to position people who torture and kill as “other” and to apply supernatural names to them, in the hope that we can pretend they are not human; they are not like us?

I think until we, as a society, can accept that people like this are human too, and that there is no such thing as someone being all black or white, we won’t evwr start to address the problems that create these people in the first place. Some are biologically wired incorrectly and others are raised, by a fucked up society, to commit atrocious acts of cruelty.

Someone mentioned it before and I think they are right: when are we going to start examining why this happens? Why are we not addressing the porn issue? Why are we not wondering why overwhelmingly these people are men?

CP isn’t the answer, but many people like to pretend that once the individual is dead the case is closed. God forbid we examine the role we, as human beings, place in creating these cases.

OP, I agree with your reasoning. Someone like him cannot be changed as his brain is hard-wired to be that way. Surely with the advances in DNA testing, the chances of mistakes are slim.
He just doesn't deserve to live.
Look at the Bulger killers and re-offending.
And the state cannot afford the money to keep the worst offenders alive and I resent my hard-earned taxes paying for his food and accommodation.
It would easier if he did the job himself, though.

Can I just say first of all that this isn't the first place I've seen someone say that the parents were dealing drugs to the killer. No the PARENTS were not, the father was.

Aleisha's mum is blameless, barely an adult herself and from what I've heard was doing a decent job bringing the wee girl up. She only lives a few miles away from me and the poor girl is completely broken by this.

Op I've felt the same way about this case probably because Aleisha lived fairly close and I have a 6 year old girl too. Taking that personal feeling out of it though, the reasons I don't believe in CP haven't changed;

It's impossible to ensure that an innocent person is not wrongly convicted, it's not a deterrent - in fact the states in the US with capital punishment have higher murder rates. It costs more to kill someone than it does to keep them in prison and finally the notion that we teach people that murder is wrong by executing killers is ridiculous.

The other thing about CP is that people need to be trained to do the deed. It also becomes a media circus in the US, and that's how it was here, too.

the states in the US with capital punishment have higher murder rates

Think there might be a third factor there, though. Japan has CP and has extremely low murder rates.

Will say the death penalty is overused in the US and they do use it as a deterrent or as punishment. Both of which I think are ineffective uses. It should be used in extreme circumstances only, because there is simply no point in just letting them grow old and die comfortably in a cell.

Do we really expect that new evidence will come forth to exonerate people like Rose West?

Even if it was still legal doing it to a 16 year old would not be acceptable. No matter what he has done, as we are not depraved and cold blooded.

Do not believe in capital punishment.i do believe a life sentence should be a life sentence though for extreme crimes.

For crimes against children like this, I agree with the death the penalty.

I do think that Life should mean life though, with no possibility of parole. And that it should be a hard life - basic needs met like bed, clothing, calorie controlled food (maybe military ration style?), exercise and basic entertainment like books, paper, pencil

The trouble with that is that it makes it incredibly hard to contain prisoners, because they have no incentive to behave and have literally nothing to lose; there would be no further punishment that anyone could impose if they start killing prison guards for instance. Prison officers would be pretty horrified at the prospect of losing the possibility of TV as an incentive/way to keep prisoners occupied.

He just doesn't deserve to live.
Look at the Bulger killers and re-offending

What do the Bulger killers tell us about reoffending? One has reoffended, one hasn't.

Aleisha's mum is blameless

So was her dad, he was dealing a bit of cannabis, hardly an overlord of organised crime