Bring back capital punishment?

[LittleMaroonRidingHood]

This thread was prompted by the news item about a possible discovery of the remains of a victim of the 'Moors Murderers'.

Should Capital Punishment be re-instated for murder ?

YABU - The value of the offender's life should not be negated by the offender's crime.
YANBU - When someone sets out with intent to deprive someone of their life, then they automatically forfeit the right to get any older.

Absolutely. It doesn't matter who the victim is, the torture is a heinous crime either way.

No. But life should 100% mean life. You die in prison. People like Hindley should be kept in minimal comfort - just the basics to keep them alive. And if such a person wants to end their own life, because they can't see the point of going on, we should provide them with the pills to do so.

No, it's abhorrent and has no place in a civilised country.

No. What does that say about the society we live in? Are we that desensitised to violence that we'd be ok with that? I think we have been desensitised due to violence in TV and film..

Absolutely not.

I have never and never will agree with the death penalty.

How the fuck can you punish someone for taking a life by doing the same thing to them?! It's all manners of fucked up. NO human should make that decision for another human.

They should lose their freedom and have to live with that because of what they've done, not have it snuffed out for it all to be over. I'm an atheist so don't subscribe to them paying for it once they die.

I can't say I feel any remorse when you hear about certain criminals being raped in prison

that's some fucking paradox right there - rapists should all die - except the ones who rape people I don;t like - then they are heros!

Are there any uninhabited islands north of Scotland? We would have to secure it and tag prisoners. But we could leave them there with some equipment to attempt self sufficiency and keep it under remote surveillance. I don't think they would need guards or any kind of services, perhaps just a basic supplies delivery every 6 months. It would need to be single sex because obviously you don't want children there. I don't know if any medical care would be needed either, though possibly they could set up their own hospital if they have some doctors amongst them. Leave them to it in exile basically.

How can people opposed to the death penalty be forced to serve on juries where the death penalty was a realistic prospect following conviction? They couldn’t- you’d have murderers released simply because the jury would not convict. I would certainly not convict anyone myself, if I were on the jury.

The alternative would be to allow people to opt out of being on the jury for those trials, and that wouldn’t work either because we would then have juries composed of only those who are pro death penalty who are more right wing and more likely to convict, which means the conviction wouldn’t be safe. Having a self-selecting jury also undermines the point of a jury in the first place. So either unsafe convictions and innocent people executed, or an appeal straight away, with exactly the same problem the second time around.

You could have a panel of judges, but the problem remains - many wouldn’t do it, and the ones who would aren’t infallible.

No! What about when there’s a miscarriage of justice, so an innocent person is convicted then killed?

I understand people’s strength of feeling for bringing back capital punishment, but I absolutely don’t agree with it.

I also think using capital punishment as a punishment makes us (the state) no better morally than the criminal receiving it, because we’re essentially giving them the same treatment as they dealt to their victim.

No, because what if an innocent person was killed. I don’t think we have any right to take someone else’s life, regardless of what they’ve done.

No. We should not stoop to that level. That isn't the sort of people or country we're supposed to be. And it's barbaric.

Systematically killing people is going to make everyone's hearts harder. That isn't a good thing.

It is barbaric. But then so is killing someone who has done nothing more than walk home after a night out. And a crime to me that was horrific and yet wasn’t screamed about countrywide.

Very recently, in a sleepy place not far away from me, a woman chose to walk home. And the only horror that we know for sure (although you can guess the motive) is that to cover up his crime, he set her on fire.

I pray she was already dead but the answer to that is yet to be told.

The accused is young and will no doubt be released while he has still more than half his life ahead of him.

That to me is abhorrent.

If a life sentence is passed then it should absolutely mean life. People who commit crimes like this have no place in society.

I would be fine with reintroducing the death penalty.

No, just give them a "life" sentence and then let them out in a few years for good behaviour so they can commit more crimes

I’m sorry if this has been said and I’ve missed it but…

One possible outcome of the death penalty for rape is that rather than rape someone and let them go, a rapist actually becomes more likely to murder and try to hide the body. Because if you get caught then you are going to die either way, so what’s the best way to avoid this? Don’t get caught - dispose of the evidence. I’m sure I read somewhere (no idea where but I’m sure I haven’t invented this theory) that where you have the death penalty it doesn’t stop a predator raping. What it does do is mean his victim is less likely to escape with her life.

I'm not voting on your 'poll' because just one of the reasons I'm against capital punishment is the proven possibility of false convictions for murder on what would be capital crimes.

Surely we’ve evolved from this idea? Too many innocent people murdered by the state because ‘we got it wrong’, no growth of mindset from the public (an eye for an eye-seriously biblical!). Current sentences seriously need an overhaul but nope we should never go back to capital punishment.

My inkling that you're Liz Truss looking for electorate-distractors is looking stronger.

Taking a life is wrong. And innocent people wrong convicted will end up bring killed. What use is a post humous pardon?

I do think sentences should be much much longer for some crimes and repeated rapes or murders should mean permanent removal from society.

@WrinklesShminkles"My inkling that you're Liz Truss looking for electorate-distractors is looking stronger"

😜

No. Even now, people get wrongly convicted. Even if all the evidence was watertight, murdering someone in the name of justice is nothing but some sort of revenge.

No, you can't do it for all the reasons given on this thread.

I do wish the law hadn't changed before the Moors Murderers though. There are some crimes which are so heinous that you would want the perpetrators to swing and they really should have done. Also Robert Black. And of course Wayne Couzens.

Sentencing law needs a massive overhaul. Non-violent criminals need to be kept out of prison except in a few cases where a short sentence needs to be used to send a message, eg contempt of court. But violent criminals (including arsonists and causing death by dangerous driving) need to stay locked up for longer so they can't endanger people again.

Timothy Evans.

Derek Bentley.

Stefan Kiszko.

The first 2 are examples of people who were executed and by the state’s own admission definitely should not have been. The 3rd is an example, of which there are loads, of someone wrongfully convicted for a murder which was later proved to have been committed by someone else, where they served a very long time before their successful appeal due to new evidence or suchlike. In other words, they would have been wrongfully executed in the meantime.

These are excellent points, and remind us of one of the reasons abolition came about. Juries were reluctant to convict, which of course brings about terrible injustice in itself.