In the wake of the Mark Bridger guilty verdict the death penalty argument is bound to crop up. I for one would welcome it in the most severe cases like Bridger and Huntley. I also think the victims family should have a say. Id like to see a national newspaper do a mock referendum to get an insight into the general opinion. The big argument against was always 'the wrong man' but I think with the advancements in science the argument hardly stands now. Where do people stand on this?
Only when they have been caught in the act, DNA evidence not enough as DNA can be 'moved to a crime scene' quite easily.
Difficult one. I despise paying taxes to keep some of these b*stards but then again if your sentenced to death, is it immediately? Is there a period of time allowing for mistakes/appeals etc? Not totally against it but this should be left to judges and other highly educated individuals etc to decide each individual case. Example, Ian Huntley, Mark Bridger. No problem with any of them being given the death penalty. The people who killed Lee Rigby I would prefer they be aware that every member of their families etc had been shipped back to where they had originated from knowing they may be tortured or killed. Leave them to rot in jail and dwell on them thoughts.
No. The death penalty is barbaric and a step back to the 1300's. how can you trust a justice system that puts itself on a par with the criminal? By all means lock this bastard up for the rest of his life, but do not kill him. I see life imprisonment as a peadophile a worse sentence than death anyway.
100% this. I believe in a civillised society that the state has no more right to kill than these scumbags who do. I do think however that life shopuld mean life and far from a cushy number, prison is not a regime the majority will prosper in, especially child murderers. If it were a bed of roses, then why do the likes of Shipman et al commit hari kari rather than face life inside? If one mistake is made (evidence is not infalible at all and in 20 years time who is to say DNA evidence may be flawed) then the whole moral process is lost and the murdering filth win. No to the death penalty totally but completely in favour of harsher longer penalties for ALL crimes. Build more prisons; put the criminals inside for far longer for all offences and crime will steadily reduce for the law abiding. Footnote: for all those in favour of the death penalty, who argue it is a deterrent.....it isnt. Otherwise why are there so many people on death row in the US and why are so many young men murdered by the state on very flimsy and often contencious evidence too? As a proportion of a growing population in the UK, since the death penalty was abolished in the 50's, murder ratios have NOT increased (per head of population).
I'm against the death penalty. There have been plenty of miscarriages of justice and it reduces the State to the level of a judicial murderer IMO.
I am for the death penalty for child and Police killers but I must say there has to be 100% no doubt they are guilty.
Well, unless you have video footage of the person doing it, all evidence is varying degrees of circumstantial. Once the evidence ahs been presented, it’s then the job then of who has the best paid, most educated and most quick witted barrister to argue your point as to what punishment you then suffer. As proven with OJ Simpson, money can buy you freedom in the face of overwhelming evidence and the opposite is also very true. Also, there have been occasions where the police have planted evidence or collaborated to get someone convicted? Would that be okay? Evidence can be tampered with and witness statements picked holes at. Visual ID's have been proven totally false (years after sometimes) and then there are just witnesses who are happy to lie? How **** would you feel as a juror, after sending an innocent man to the gallows (maybe with young children themselves that would be deprived of a father) after you find out any one of the above had happened? I know I couldn’t live with myself but if they were in prison, miscarriages of justice (and there are dozens of cases) can be rectified and put right by releasing the innocent party. The guilty will still suffer in prison so no change there. The innocent cannot be simply dug up and resuscitated many years after they have been hung (or a second later for that matter) and its that factor that will always make me anti-capital punishment.
Good to see a decent debate over a sensitive topic without insults being thrown around. I was going to say my 2p but RAW and Cest have put it much better than I ever could!
Understand your argument Cest but put yourself in the victims shoes, or the family of the victim. God forbid but what if one of your loved ones was murdered in cold blood and you knew they were 100% guilty? they have a better lawyer than you cos of finances and they get off with a few years in nick, how would you feel then mate? it would destroy me knowing that some **** had taken away one of m ine and the ****er was still living a pretty decent life getting 3 square meals a day.
My sentiments exactly. There have been far to many miscarriages of justice over the years. Wrongly convicted people can be released from prison, but can't be brought back to life if they had previously been sentenced to death.
This is always going to be a very emotive subject & I'm not too sure how I feel about it tbh. If anybody hurt any of my kids I'd want them dead for sure but then there's the other side. Imagine how an innocent man feels who is sentenced to hanging. The lawyers would love it, all those appeals & men on death row for years. Apart from the USA how many western nations still have the death penalty? And more to the point, are their murder rates any lower than hours?
The death penalty obviously isn't a deterrent like many think. The USA proves that. I'd rather see true LIFE sentences for the worst of the worst like Bridger. He'll spend the remainder of his days as a nonce fearing to go near the showers.
Are we talking about justice or vengeance though Welder? Of course if someone harmed my daughter I' hunt the bastards down and reap my revenge on them but thats not how a civilised nation should run its judicial system . Justice must be served cold and based on facts and legal punishment. You cant advocate a system that allows relatives to decide the punishment? Thats the kind of thing that happened in the old west where anyone who upset a particular family in a town would be judged by a jury made up of the wronged persons family? Thats not justice mate.
In no way shape or form am I in favour of the death penalty. Loads of reasons why, as detailed above. Also, the USA where they seem to get a hard on over executing prisoners has a higher prison population that any where in the world both in real numbers and per-capita. It's also cheaper to keep a criminal in prison than it is to execute them when you factor in all the appeal and court costs as well as the money spent on keeping them in the interim period. Finally, I think that in the cases of the really horrendous crimes, execution is the easy way out. Let the bastards live with what they did. If they aren't repentant then there must be a deep seeded mental problem within them.
Probably Vengeance mate as i don't beleive that Justice really exists. I've seen too many ****s get away with their crimes cos of technicalities and that's not justice mate, that a case of best lawyer wins, not Justice. I once saw a doped up smack head threaten a 16 Year old girl working in a local shop, he said he was going to 'slice her up' if she didn't hand over the money from the till, he was clearly out of his skull on something and he frightened the ****e of the poor lass. Long story short, the **** ended up bleeding and being caught, red handed, plenty of witnesses, CCTV back up the whole nine yards and he still got off with it when it went to court. His brief claimed that although he committed the crime, it wasn't really him as he didn't have control of his actions and the ****ing judge agreed and let him off. Diminished Responsibilty i think they said at the time. Now imagine if the poor lass hadn't of handed over the few quid he needed for his next fix and he decided to 'slice her up' he would still have got away with it cos he wasn't himself. Is that Justice?
