Death penalty

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwdr8grnykrlo

Well this will be interesting to see how long it is before someone takes a pop at him. 

 

15yrs is a long time these days for that sort of offence, so it must be pretty bad. Personally he should hang, as should all child abusers.

[Devon Malcolm]

4 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Personally he should hang

RIPete now resorting to pre-emptive strikes.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

On 10/15/2026 at 6:57 PM, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwdr8grnykrlo

Well this will be interesting to see how long it is before someone takes a pop at him. 

 

15yrs is a long time these days for that sort of offence, so it must be pretty bad. Personally he should hang, as should all child abusers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c94g1pjmxg0ko

 

Seems like Donaldson did even more and may face a rape charge at Parliament alongside other allegations coming out. 

 

Disgraceful and shameful behaviour. Joking aside, abusers like this should face capital punishment

[SuperBacon]

3 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Joking aside, abusers like this should face capital punishment

[RedTwoster]

On 10/20/2026 at 11:16 AM, Browser Brady said:

Are we allowed talk about the Russell Brand case or only when it’s over ?

When a trial is ongoing, it’s considered ‘active’ meaning that speculating about it could be considered contempt of court. It’s never really worth the risk, to be honest. 

15 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Disgraceful and shameful behaviour. Joking aside, abusers like this should face capital punishment

This is the second time you’ve brought up the death penalty, and I’ll do you the courtesy of actually addressing what you’re saying.

Here’s the thing - courts sometimes get things wrong. Innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death, and once that sentence is carried out there’s no reversing that mistake. While he obviously wasn’t sentenced to death, Andrew Malkinson would be a recent example of this - under your reasoning, there’s every chance he’d not have been around to have had his sentence quashed.

To be clear, this isn’t me casting doubt on any conviction - I’m simply saying you should take a step back and think about the implications of that kind of thing. 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

7 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

When a trial is ongoing, it’s considered ‘active’ meaning that speculating about it could be considered contempt of court. It’s never really worth the risk, to be honest. 

This is the second time you’ve brought up the death penalty, and I’ll do you the courtesy of actually addressing what you’re saying.

Here’s the thing - courts sometimes get things wrong. Innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death, and once that sentence is carried out there’s no reversing that mistake. While he obviously wasn’t sentenced to death, Andrew Malkinson would be a recent example of this - under your reasoning, there’s every chance he’d not have been around to have had his sentence quashed.

To be clear, this isn’t me casting doubt on any conviction - I’m simply saying you should take a step back and think about the implications of that kind of thing. 

I agree that proper safeguards need to be in place (and unlike the Americans, make sure you actually are capable of following through on the penalty!) but if all criteria are met then there should be no reason it can't go ahead. 

 

For example I would say that the following would be a reasonable starting point for safeguards (very simplified of course) 

Only certain crimes carry the possibility of the death penalty - child sex abuse, murder, severe national security sabotage/treason, etc

 

Trials are held in secret with no press allowed in and ANY leaks result in contempt of court and charges immediately brought. 

 

All trials are witnessed by a jury who make a decision. The evidence given by both prosecution and defence is then seen by a 2nd jury and if they also find guilty then it goes to the Supreme Court to make the final ruling. If needs be, the evidence could be 'blindly' sent to 3 senior judges to review and if all in agreement then the same verdict of execution is returned it is set up and carried out. 

 

Alternatively, if an admission of guilt is made or there is absolute irrefutable evidence of it being that person (clearly seen on video/DNA/etc) then it immediately goes to the Supreme Court to decide. 

 

The other option is instead of execution is a lifetime in prison in solitary with minimum terms which would take the person's age to say 100 so there is very little chance of them ever being released into the outside world or having contact with humans outside the prison service again. 

 

 

Alternatively of course there is always the option that outsiders can pass judgement and supply their own judgements on what the punishment should be, whether it actually happens or not. 

[The Gaffer]

I know it's a base instinct that floats to the top for a lot of ordinary people, but to me there's always something deeply unsettling and simultaneously medieval and science fiction like about a state executing somebody - anybody - and people also wishing for this to happen. It doesn't strike me as a good thing to have in your society. 

If we're talking about outsiders supplying their own punishments, I'm sure somebody's sitting on an archive of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross's hilarious Radio 2 bits. Get it hooked up to the largest Acme bluetooth speaker you can find, Guantanamo style. 

[LaGoosh]

Do some people deserve to die for the crimes they have committed? Yeah, almost definitely. 

But I think the state having the power to put people to death is one of the most fascist things a state can do. Therefore I could never support it.

[mim731]

1 hour ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Trials are held in secret with no press allowed in and ANY leaks result in contempt of court and charges immediately brought. 

I for one can't think of any famous historical examples of where this approach has been utilised that ended badly. Nope. 

[Carbomb]

Numerous reasons why we shouldn't have the death penalty.

1. It cannot be undone if someone is wrongly convicted and executed.

2. Statistically, it's not a deterrent.

3. For me the most important: it dimishes us as a society. Killing people is wrong. How can we demonstrate what good and lawful behaviour is by perpetrating what we consider to be one of the worst crimes anyone can commit, morally or legally?

[ReturnOfTheMack]

1 hour ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

 

Alternatively, if an admission of guilt is made or there is absolute irrefutable evidence of it being that person (clearly seen on video/DNA/etc) then it immediately goes to the Supreme Court to decide. 

So you've removed the incentive to plead guilty, which often spares victims and their families from having to re-live the experiences, or be cross examined by the defence.

 

[deathrey]

I don't mean to ridicule you @Tim Healys Chutney Spoon so I'll keep a lid on this but people barely get 5 years in prison for some of the most heinous sex crimes, you think anyone thinks it's worth the death penalty? Hell, people are found guilty of some horrific things and spared jail because 'we don't want to ruin his career'. The average prison sentence for child sexual abuse is 4 years, that's it. It's not a crime that's taken seriously enough by the legal system.

The arguments against the death sentence have been laid out by others but so I won't bother adding to points that are already here.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by deathrey

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

I agree that proper safeguards need to be in place (and unlike the Americans, make sure you actually are capable of following through on the penalty!) but if all criteria are met then there should be no reason it can't go ahead. 

I'm assuming you're referring to the execution of Christa Pike, but 32 people have been put to death in the States this year, 47 in 2025. 

But here's another stat for you. Since 1973, at least 203 people have been put to death in the US who were wrongly convicted (link to Death Penalty Information Centre). One would be too many. 

And there's your reason for why it should never go ahead. Sorry - there are your 203 reasons. Sorry, I'll correct myself again there are the 203 reasons we actually know about. 

2 hours ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

For example I would say that the following would be a reasonable starting point for safeguards (very simplified of course) 

Only certain crimes carry the possibility of the death penalty - child sex abuse, murder, severe national security sabotage/treason, etc

What someone is accused of is not a safeguard. 

2 hours ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Trials are held in secret with no press allowed in and ANY leaks result in contempt of court and charges immediately brought. 

As people have pointed out, this is an insane idea. The whole point of courts being open to media and the public is that it allows us to see that justice has been done - or not. Your previous suggestion doesn't create a safeguard, but this would remove one. 

2 hours ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Alternatively, if an admission of guilt is made or there is absolute irrefutable evidence of it being that person (clearly seen on video/DNA/etc) then it immediately goes to the Supreme Court to decide. 

This is incredibly rare and even in situations like this, DNA evidence isn't always the smoking gun people believe it to be. In fact, the perception that it actually is a smoking gun has led to many wrongful convictions. As has been stated, you've removed the incentive to plead guilty - you might as well put someone through the trauma of a trial if the alternative is your own death. Unless you actually want to die, in which case this isn't a punishment, it's an assist. 

2 hours ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

The other option is instead of execution is a lifetime in prison in solitary with minimum terms which would take the person's age to say 100 so there is very little chance of them ever being released into the outside world or having contact with humans outside the prison service again. 

Also stupid. That's literally torture. And again - let's point to the scenario in which someone is wrongfully convicted and they are left in isolation for decades as a punishment for a crime they didn't commit in the first place. 

I'll make one final point - if you're an advocate for the death penalty, you're an advocate for turning another human being into a killer. You're asking one person to kill another. If that's a job that appeals to you, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If it isn't something you'd like to do, the mental health toll on the person/people in question would potentially be horrific. 

Would you be willing to be the executioner? Would you be willing to kill another human being who has been convicted of a crime? Could you look them in the eye knowing what you are about to do, then watch them take their last breath knowing your actions were the cause?

[BomberPat]

In terms of wrongful convictions, in the US the vast majority of exonerated criminals are black, and we don't really need to hand more of the machinery of the state over to enforcing institutional racism.

There is also a concerted right-wing effort to paint any acknowledgement of LGBTQIA+ identity or issues, any support given to queer kids, any education on queer topics, as tantamount to grooming. I don't think you can have a conversation about the death penalty for sex offenders without acknowledging that there are significant forces at play who are trying to paint being trans or queer in public as a sex crime in itself.

[Mr_Danger]

I can’t believe I’m reading on here in the year 2026 that someone on here thinks the state should be able to execute people on the basis of a secret trial and that one of the crimes for this punishment should be a state determined ‘extreme national security risk.’ Both ridiculously stupid and fascist. Would I shed a tear if all child murderers and sex offenders died tomorrow? Well to Garth my own question of course I wouldn’t. Should someone like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson or Rupert Lowe ever be in a position to use this or have influence over this?