Death penalty

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

That pesky article 13 of the ECHR, if it wasn't for that we could string em up off the lampposts instead of the flag of St George. That'll learn em. 

I just want to check though, if the police make up or suppress evidence and it leads to a death penalty conviction are you stringing up the police that did it? Let's face it there are plenty of examples. 

For example. The martyrs that would have been created in the case of the Guildford Four would have undoubtedly made the Troubles worse, not that putting them in prison exactly helped, but imagine if they had been wrongly executed. 

You are fighting the woke liberal consensus on this one RIPete and you are on the wrong side of it morally. It would be best if you packed up your gibbet. 

[SuperBacon]

This is the most Alan Partridge thread name we've ever had.

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

You are fighting the woke liberal consensus on this one RIPete and you are on the wrong side of it morally. It would be best if you packed up your gibbet. 

No noose is good noose.

[Accident Prone]

Give the likes of Baldrick the vote and we'll be back to cavorting druids, death by stoning and dung for dinner.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

Its interesting reading the replies and quite a few have merit and have made me think and look further into things. I fully accept I'm in the minority on here based on replies, and always will be, but its a debate that I think will gather momentum in years to come, however I dont think it will ever come back.

 

I'll put an example scenario out there, and I apologise now for anyone that gets upset or brings back bad memories or experiences. It's a difficult thing to navigate and everyone has difficulties in their backgrounds and the last thing I want is to cause any sadness or pain of past experiences, but I'm just putting this forward as a possible scenario.

 

 

'

Spoiler

A  man kidnaps a child and of say 4yrs old and takes her to a new area. He keeps her locked in a shed for weeks with minimal nourishment and little to no hygiene utilities. In the process of this imprisonment he carries out severe sexual abuse of the child, taking pictures and filming it and sharing it online. After a few weeks the man decides enough is enough and bludgeons the poor girl to death after brutally raping and abusing her. He is eventually caught, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to a whole life term. The man admits in court he did it all. The DNA is absolute certain it is him. The images shared online prove it was him. There is simply no room to suggest that there was any possibility of a mistaken conviction'.

Yhe prison service are now tasked with protecting this man for the remainder of his life from the other inmates. Society has to feed and clothe this man, as well as providing stimulation, accommodation, security, payment, etc for potentially 60yrs or so costing however many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of £s. I cannot think of a reason after such a heinous and sadistic scenario where society should allow this man to exist. I also look to the likes of Levi Bellfield, Peter Sutcliffe, Beverly Allitt, Harold Shipman, Roy Whiting, the Wests, Victoria Climbie's killers and others of that ilk who we as a society have/had a duty to now protect, despite the horrid things they did.

I do not feel that we should use all those resources on people who have zero remorse or care for what they did. However I wouldn't leave it simply in the hands of one or two people and it would need the unanimous agreement of multiple judges, not politicians, to confirm the conviction.

 

Apologies for not wording it clearly regarding secret trials. I meant secretly carried out but fully recorded and revealed in full straight afterwards so no possibility of cover ups or redactions, etc. Also secret as in they cannot be reported on in the way that Brand's trial is at the moment with daily podcasts and the like. 

 

Im no rabid right wing 'string em all up' types, far from it, but in a careful considered and correctly safeguarded way I believe capital punishment is a possible deterrent. I'm not convinced its the only way, but how do we know it isnt a deterrent? Yes murders and sexual abuse and the like still goes on, and always will in the society we live in, but we need to root out the repeat offenders and those that get sadistic pleasure out of suffering and torturing others and not just a 'fight that got out of hand scenario'. If that means they are removed from society by the government then so be it. 

 

It won't change and almost certainly will never come back into our society, but there, like others alluded to further up, who wouldn't shed tears over the worst dregs of society dying for their crimes, such as @LaGoosh post. 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Chest Rockwell
Spoiler tag for weird shit

[deathrey]

I think starting with the battle of getting sexual abuse taken and punished seriously by courts would be the first battle.

Also, in the case outlined above, allowing the person to die means they are essentially completely absolved of what they have done. I'd much rather they have to sit in prison for the rest of their life living with the consequences of their actions and hopefully it will mentally tear them apart. I think that's more of a punishment than an injection which they will spend the rest of their time thinking about rather than the crime they committed and then off they go in to the abyss having (in my eyes) never actually had to think/pay for the emotional pain they laid out.

I know that is a much deeper question but if we pass in to nothingness, a big sleep, whatever, the murderer never has to actually face what they did which I think is more of a punishment.

Edited 3 hours ago by deathrey

[westlondonmist]

20 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Its interesting reading the replies and quite a few have merit and I fully accept I'm in the minority on here based on replies.

 

I'll put an example scenario out there, and I apologise now for anyone that gets upset or brings back bad memories or experiences. It's a difficult thing to navigate and everyone has difficulties in their backgrounds and the last thing I want is to cause any sadness or pain of past experiences, but I'm just putting this forward as a possible scenario.

 

 

'A man kidnaps a child and of say 4yrs old and takes her to a new area. He keeps her locked in a shed for weeks with minimal nourishment and little to no hygiene utilities. In the process of this imprisonment he carries out severe sexual abuse of the child, taking pictures and filming it and sharing it online. After a few weeks the man decides enough is enough and bludgeons the poor girl to death after brutally raping and abusing her. He is eventually caught, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to a whole life term. The man admits in court he did it all. The DNA is absolute certain it is him. The images shared online prove it was him. There is simply no room to suggest that there was any possibility of a mistaken conviction'.

Yhe prison service are now tasked with protecting this man for the remainder of his life from the other inmates. Society has to feed and clothe this man, as well as providing stimulation, accommodation, security, payment, etc for potentially 60yrs or so costing however many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of £s. I cannot think of a reason after such a heinous and sadistic scenario where society should allow this man to exist. I also look to the likes of Levi Bellfield, Peter Sutcliffe, Beverly Allitt, Harold Shipman, Roy Whiting, the Wests, Victoria Climbie's killers and others of that ilk who we as a society have/had a duty to now protect, despite the horrid things they did.

I do not feel that we should use all those resources on people who have zero remorse or care for what they did. However I wouldn't leave it simply in the hands of one or two people and it would need the unanimous agreement of multiple judges, not politicians, to confirm the conviction.

 

Apologies for not wording it clearly regarding secret trials. I meant secretly carried out but fully recorded and revealed in full straight afterwards so no possibility of cover ups or redactions, etc. Also secret as in they cannot be reported on in the way that Brand's trial is at the moment with daily podcasts and the like. 

 

Im no rabid right wing 'string em all up' types, far from it, but in a careful considered and correctly safeguarded way I believe capital punishment is a possible deterrent. I'm not convinced its the only way, but how do we know it isnt a deterrent? Yes murders and sexual abuse and the like still goes on, and always will in the society we live in, but we need to root out the repeat offenders and those that get sadistic pleasure out of suffering and torturing others and not just a 'fight that got out of hand scenario'. If that means they are removed from society by the government then so be it. 

 

It won't change and almost certainly will never come back into our society, but there, like others alluded to further up, who wouldn't shed tears over the worst dregs of society dying for their crimes, such as @LaGoosh post. 

 

 

The financial case is actually not very good. It costs the USA about $2-3m per execution, about triple the cost of sticking them in prison for 60 years. 

 

You've also come up with the worst crime immaginable in your head, but how would you stop it being given for less? Once you've introduced it, it will become more prevalent for other things. 

 

It's also not a detterant, and it's never  been proven as one. In the USA, states with the death penalty have higher murder rates. 

Edited 3 hours ago by westlondonmist

[RedTwoster]

4 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Society has to feed and clothe this man, as well as providing stimulation, accommodation, security, payment, etc for potentially 60yrs or so costing however many hundreds of thousands of £s.

Except the death penalty costs SIGNIFICANTLY more than life imprisonment (link to Death Penalty Info - but really, look at literally any study on the matter ever - there's no financial argument in favour of this).

7 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

A man kidnaps a child and of say 4yrs old and takes her to a new area. He keeps her locked in a shed for weeks with minimal nourishment and little to no hygiene utilities. In the process of this imprisonment he carries out severe sexual abuse of the child, taking pictures and filming it and sharing it online. After a few weeks the man decides enough is enough and bludgeons the poor girl to death after brutally raping and abusing her. He is eventually caught, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to a whole life term. The man admits in court he did it all. The DNA is absolute certain it is him. The images shared online prove it was him. There is simply no room to suggest that there was any possibility of a mistaken conviction.

Why on earth have you included so much detail in this hypothetical situation?! Regardless "I have this one example here where there's a lot of proof" is not an argument in favour of the death penalty - situations in which evidence is this irrefutable are incredibly rare and there's not a country in the world where the death penalty is only carried out in this very specific set of circumstances.

14 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Im no rabid right wing 'string em all up' types, far from it, but in a careful considered and correctly safeguarded way I believe capital punishment is a possible deterrent. I'm not convinced its the only way, but how do we know it isnt a deterrent?

Good point, how could we possibly know? If only we could look at other countries in the world which do have the death penalty in place and make an evidence-based determination on whether or not it works...

And again I'd ask this question, which you've not responded to - would you be willing to do this yourself, or to put someone in the position in which they'd have to?

Quote

 

 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?

 

 

[Lorne Malvo]

16 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

'A man kidnaps a child and of say 4yrs old and takes her to a new area. He keeps her locked in a shed for weeks with minimal nourishment and little to no hygiene utilities. In the process of this imprisonment he carries out severe sexual abuse of the child, taking pictures and filming it and sharing it online. After a few weeks the man decides enough is enough and bludgeons the poor girl to death after brutally raping and abusing her. He is eventually caught, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to a whole life term. The man admits in court he did it all. The DNA is absolute certain it is him. The images shared online prove it was him. There is simply no room to suggest that there was any possibility of a mistaken conviction'.

 

Keep it light.

[JLM]

The death penalty has not proven to be a deterrent anywhere it’s used and has not been shown to reduce the rate of violent crimes/murders. Offences driven by compulsions, overwhelming lusts and desires, disorders or crimes of passion are not typically committed with the penalty in mind and/or with the expectation of being caught. 
 

If your process still has appeals and safeguard then there are still extensive costs associated with that. People spend decades on death row and you absolutely need to exhaust every possible angle if you’re even remotely trying to claim it’s a just thing to be doing. If we’re fast tracking them to save money then that’s pretty horrifying, if we’re keeping people in prison until it’s 100% nailed on then it takes a lot of time and a lot of money and could still be wrong. Confessions can be unreliable, evidence can be misinterpreted/planted etc. The perfect scenario with zero doubt is pretty much a fantasy, but if you want to claim to be a civilised country and still execute people then you have to jump through all of the hoops to try and get there and that is extremely expensive and time consuming. 

Above all else though, it’s not about the severity of the crime or how despicable the offender is. It’s just not a thing a civilised society should be doing. It’s a grotesque and dehumanising practice. State sanctioned ritual killing of a person is not something I will ever find acceptable in principle. It’s not about what it does to the offender or how much they deserve it, it’s about what it does to humanity as a whole. I agree in some cases it’s hard to know what to do and it boggles the mind to learn what some people are capable of. There is no ideal way to deal with some people who are so outside of what we can imagine living in our society, but for me it has to be anything other than gathering a bunch of people to watch them be put to death by the state. 

Edited 3 hours ago by JLM

[Carbomb]

22 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

Im no rabid right wing 'string em all up' types, far from it, but in a careful considered and correctly safeguarded way I believe capital punishment is a possible deterrent. I'm not convinced its the only way, but how do we know it isnt a deterrent?

Capital punishment has been around for millennia. I think it's fair to say it's had a pretty long trial run.

In terms of actual statistics, I strongly recommend reading Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt. Just using the numbers of it, he pretty much demolishes the argument for capital punishment.

[TheBurningRed]

9 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Keep it light.

Hey now. That’s been my line on here this year. I think we it’s the death penalty for you for stealing my non trademarked phrase used at Ralphy. 

[Lorne Malvo]

Just now, TheBurningRed said:

Hey now. That’s been my line on here this year. I think we it’s the death penalty for you for stealing my non trademarked phrase used at Ralphy. 

You gave it up when 'Hard-Fi!' became your new catchphrase.

[Mr_Danger]

I imagine the people who carry out such heinous acts as those the grim reaper up there described in such thrilling detail aren’t of a mindset that a punishment of any sort is all that separates them from doing it and living a nice normal life.

[neil]

39 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

'A man kidnaps a child and of say 4yrs old and takes her to a new area. He keeps her locked in a shed for weeks with minimal nourishment and little to no hygiene utilities. In the process of this imprisonment he carries out severe sexual abuse of the child, taking pictures and filming it and sharing it online. After a few weeks the man decides enough is enough and bludgeons the poor girl to death after brutally raping and abusing her. He is eventually caught, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to a whole life term. The man admits in court he did it all. The DNA is absolute certain it is him. The images shared online prove it was him. There is simply no room to suggest that there was any possibility of a mistaken conviction'.

Not the first time I've said this about a UKFF'er...but you need your hard drive checked