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.

Me to! I honestly couldn't care less what happens to them, imo they forfeited any human rights they have when they took away those of another human being 🤷‍♀️

Yes. I imagine that’s why Casey Anthony walked free.

Dna has improved since then.
Everywhere has cameras now.

What happened to Derek Bentley is heartbreaking. He had a mental age of 11. And the murder of a police officer was pinned on him because the one who pulled the trigger was too young for the death penalty. Absolutely sick.

DNA and CCTV don't prove guilt though!

How would it be done? Do you know how expensive capital punishment actually is these days? Just let them rot in confinement.

No for several reasons including it is pure retribution, doesn't allow for rehabilitation, judgements are sometimes wrong........

No, I don't think anyone ever has the 'right' to take a life. I would definitely like to see more 'whole life tariffs' for utterly horrific crimes like this one. I think it's a worse punishment, knowing you'll spend the rest of your days in a prison.

Is DNA and other evidence being used is so useful then surely we wouldn’t even have trials. We also know that it wouldn’t be fairly implemented.

Well I suppose it depends on how much faith you have in the system to find the right people guilty every time.

So that's a hard no from me on that basis

Apart from the unacceptable risk of a miscarriage of justice, the abolition of the death penalty is a statement about the society we want to be.
I don't want to live in a society that has barely moved on from the Code of Hammurabi - you would hope we'd learnt something in the last couple of millennia. State sponsored murder is still murder. It is the intentional killing of another not in self-defence, not in an accident but in a deliberate pre-mediated act. I do not want to live in a society that implements killing as a social tool.

I wonder how many people calling for the death penalty would be prepared to administer it themselves or even watch it being administered. How many people , when faced by the choice as a member of a jury, would come to a verdict that meant someone would die. I don't think I could do any of the above so I wouldn't expect it of anyone else.

They can do.

I am absolutely sympathetic to the emotional reaction where you want those who have committed heinous crimes to be killed or tortured. I sometimes feel it myself.

But, for all the reasons previously given by PPs, capital punishment is unacceptable and has no place in this day and age.

Even DNA is not infallible. Nobody knows how common chimerism is. Some individuals have more than one DNA profile depending which organs are involved. Women can retain small amounts of male DNA from having sons.
DNA Chimera

I don't know if this thread has brought all the sociopaths out, or whether a lot of Mumsnet members are sociopathic. But it's really depressing how many people on here are in favour of torture and murder.

There are some interesting stats here:
innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerations-in-the-united-states/

Oh God. Here comes the 'But DNA!' lot.

It's absolutely not infallible and is of limited utility given that murders are seldom committed by strangers.

There was no DNA testing when Kiszko was convicted of Lesley Molseed's murder. But it was possible at that time to have a fifteen second glance under a microscope and determine that he was sterile and therefore not her rapist and therefore not her murderer. But no fucker bothered to do that.

Absolutely not, it's barbaric. Capital Punishment is not a deterrent, indeed it's likely to bring about more deaths as criminals kill arresting officers and witnesses. Even DNA hasn't given us absolute certainty over guilt, and mistaken prosecutions remain a risk.
Imprisonment without parole is a huge punishment - some with such sentences take their own lives rather than serve that time e.g. Harold Shipman, Fred West.

Nope definitely not, like the saying goes an eye for an eye and the world turns blind.

Look up George Stinney its a really sad case, and why the death sentence never should happen.

I do think some prisoners are given to much of an easy life though and jail as it formally Is isn't really isn't a deterrent

@KrisAkabusi don't be so obtuse and dramatic. The vast majority of individuals on this thread, including myself, are against the death penalty. Going by votes, around 130 people are in favour and 520 aren't. It is a very emotive topic. Some of those people voting in favour may have been subjected to, or loved someone that was subjected to the most heinous of crimes - it doesn't make them a sociopath. It makes them human. Whilst I oppose it, I can understand why people, especially those who have experienced things I can't even begin to understand, may be in favour of it.

Im pretty sure if you torture them enough, people will confess to pretty much anything. Be great for the clear up rate, for sure.

And in 50 years time or so people may look back and say ‘of course things are better now, we don’t make the same mistakes we made in 2022’. The whole point of mistakes is you don’t know you’re making them. You think all convictions are watertight because of DNA and cameras? Good grief, have a think.

Absolutely not.

Murder of any kind is wrong, but state-sanctioned murder is the worst of the lot.

No. It turns all citizens into murderers by proxy; there is too much risk of convicting the innocent; and it does not even act as an effective deterrent, especially not for the terrorists and psychopaths who would most seem to deserve it. Also, it could increase murderers' motivation to kill potential witnesses as well as the original victims.

In theory I don't have a problem with the state taking the life of a murderer in certain circumstances. But where do you draw that line? Of that I'm not sure. It would perhaps help if we had the US system with degrees of murder and manslaughter?

But in practice there are cases where innocent citizens are gaoled and it's no deterrent. So on balance it's a no but I don't see it as barbaric if it is instant and painless. As for a PP thinking that executing the perpetrator would be upsetting for the victims family I simply don't see that at all.

I do wonder how it costs less to keep a Rose West or Ian Huntley incarcerated for decades than execute them. Is it that there can be any number of costly appeals that drag the process out? In the US it does seem cruel to have someone on death row for years and years before executing them. Not to mention in some states they will treat mental illness to a point where they can carry out the death sentence.

More generally I don't go all DM usually but I have no problem with building more gaols - though the spending should to be matched by funding programmes to help prisoners rehabilitate. There's a small percentage of the population who are persistently criminal and I don't have a problem having a cell for each and everyone. You only need to watch a few fly on the wall cop programmes to see when it comes to justice our system isn't working.