Why can’t we just hang scum like this?

[NameChangedToProtectTheGuilty101]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2k4qd8q97eo

Worse than being a killer.

The recent probably unsafe conviction of Lucy letby springs to mind..

She'd have been hung in 1950s Britain.... My guess in next few years, her conviction would be ruled unsafe.

I understand the death penalty has flaws in it, but sadly the justice system doesn’t do anything to punish and prevent when a rapist who has ruined a life gets out in a three months.
people like this monster should receive life and die in prison. People would feel less aggrieved if life really meant life not “out in 10 years”

Life does mean life.

Your error is assuming that life means "life in prison".

Sentences are not only custodial. Once out of custody someone serving a life sentence will be under strict conditions and monitoring and can be recalled to prison for any breach, for the rest of their life.

Sally Clark would have faced the death penalty. She was innocent but was initially jailed for murdering her two children, who, it was later discovered, sadly died of natural causes

It's interesting philosophically isn't it...

How many innocent people killed is too many?? ..

One in a hundred, a thousand, a million?? ...

Can we sacrifice these people in order to have death penalty?

(PS I'm firmly against state executing people for this reason)

It's true we sacrifice people on hospital waiting lists from lack of money... And bloody incompetence.... The NHS wastes huge amounts of money which could be spent on clinical activity.. ... We're clearly OK with this as a nation.. Otherwise why aren't we manning the barricades?

Don't be absurd. There was absolutely no doubt with Axel Rudakabana.

If you read the thread, you'll see I've already addressed that point.

If you really think that is what prison is like nowadays, you need to educate yourself. More often prisoners are in their cells 23 hours a day because prisons simply don't have the staff to sort things out like education and library visits.

No. That is why he is going to be in prison for a long time.

Watkins wasn't killed because he was a paedophile.

Anyone that harms a child should lose their life, just like they have taken that child’s, whether that is physically or emotionally.

I suspect you only find the execution of innocent people acceptable if you are not one of those executed.

The Birmingham 6 and the Guildford 4, who would have been executed had it been an option, were arrested and framed purely because they were Irish.

While I want scumbags like him to suffer endless torture, I can’t get my brain to accept the death penalty. Aside from the obvious possibility of wrongful conviction, there’s the hypocrisy. How can it ever be morally acceptable to end another person’s life? Who wants to be that person who lives with having deliberately and calculatedly ending another person’s life, whatever they have done? So many people think they could do it, but I reckon it would be pretty hard. Impossible for most.

Evidence suggests that when a jury knows the defendant could hang (or die by other means) they're less likely to find them guillty. So, if we had the death penalty, he might actually not have been convicted.

All convictions are beyond reasonable doubt. If there is any doubt, they have to be found not guilty. Its the very cornerstone of justice.

Even when we had the death penalty, it wasn't available for crimes like this.

If you're going to extend it beyond homicide, where do you draw the line?

I do wonder about disingenuous posts like this, where the OP makes one brief post, tosses it into the ring and then buggers off and makes no further comment.

I am trying hard not to infringe MN rules of operation, but it's not exactly unknown for people to post in bad faith for political reasons, 'stir the pot'.

Anyway OP, assuming this is a genuine post, we don't have the death penalty: it's barbaric and I think very lowly of countries who still kill people in cold blood like this. We must not stoop to the level of some of the terrible criminals we have to deal with. Mistakes can and have been made.

I'm aware that even in those cases where the evidence appears incontrovertible, there might be a margin of error, but I find it statistically acceptable that a very, very, very small percentage of innocent people might be executed.

@OtterlyAstounding, would you find that statistically acceptable if the person executed is you or someone you love?

Obviously not, on an emotional level.
No one would be happy to be an innocent person executed, just as no one is happy to be told they won't be given a cancer treatment that could extend their life for years, but instead are offered palliative care because it's cheaper to let them die.
No one would be happy to have a family member who is a prison guard killed or maimed by a prisoner who is imprisoned for life for no point other than because the state doesn't want to kill him. No one would be happy to be raped or killed by a prisoner who was given a life sentence, but released on parole.

There is always going to be unnecessary, unfair death and suffering. The question is, what option is least harmful to society as a whole, and what option creates the most harmonious society? I don't know the answer (as I said, I'm conflicted), but I do think worrying that a tiny percentage of innocent people might die is the wrong thing to focus on. Innocent people always die.

As for your last paragraph - I said specifically in cases where the evidence is incontrovertible, such as being apprehended literally red-handed, in the act. Not in cases where framing is possible.

Obviously not.

But a person I love being wrongly imprisoned for life would be hellish too, and that happens now. I also wouldn't find it acceptable if someone I loved was raped or killed by a rapist or murderer released on parole, I wouldn't find it acceptable to be denied cancer treatment on the basis of cost, etc. There are many situations in which innocent people suffer or die that are judged to be acceptable losses by society.

And the justice system should not be run on appeals to emotions, such as your argument.

As I said, I'm conflicted on whether the death penalty would be a net positive or net negative, but I don't think the slim possibility that a tiny number of innocent people might be executed is a good argument against it. There are other, better arguments against it.

There are certain crimes (this being one) that are too heinous to be ‘forgiven’ and I’d be happy to see the death penalty because it would save the tax payer millions.

People talk about civilised societies don’t use death as a punishment and I agree do most crimes, but there is no good in a human who does stuff like this animal. No one made him, he wasn’t coerced or made to, he used his free will so there is no excuse. I would happily see people who commit such atrocities to defenceless children hung drawn and quartered.

I suspect some who are religious vigorously reject the death penalty because only god can take a life, but as an atheist that holds no clout for me.

The argument it might be an innocent person is a fair one in some cases, but when someone admits it and the evidence is overwhelming then that can’t be the deciding factor.

Again I don’t think all crimes should have the death penalty and I include murders and rapists in that, incase there was a miscarriage of justice, but there are certain ones (like above) where I think it’s the best option. I would also bet my house on the fact that if taken to the public vote the majority of the British public would agree in cases like this

I will never understand why people choose to leave their babies in the care of complete strangers. Babies cannot tell you what has happened to them. Every week there is another case of abuse in a nursery somewhere. This one is chilling.

I think he should be fixed

And yet wars have been, and are, fought globally, with entirely ordinary people killing other people en masse, often over nothing more than land and resource rights.

War aside, there are definitely cases where it is considered morally acceptable to end another person's life.

That's not to say that the state should have the right to execute its own citizens, though.

State ordered murder isn’t the solution. There’s no cure for paedophilia though so I think we should adopt the system some states in the US have and castrate them plus lock them up for life in a secure facility. Not like a prison but a residential home of kinds.