Capital Punishment - Time to reconsider?

[Cyberman]

And when it's your daughter who has been raped and murdered by a sicko (and you know EXACTLY what I am talking about, and it's not kids shagging kids)....come back and tell us all how your opinion has changed.

I would ensure that whoever it was suffered a fatal 'accident' soon after release from their average eight year incarceration.

[NotAllThere]

It won't happen. The right to re-introduce it has been given away to the EU.

[Cyberman]

We just need proper application of sentences so that life means life for premeditated murder, and only reduced in exceptional circumstances such as crimes of passion. Then there is no need for the death penalty, although I am actually in favour of lethal injection for these morons.

[TimberWolf]

A death sentence is no deterrent. It's only redeeming advantage is that it's cheaper than incarceration and there is no possibility of a repeated offence. Far crueller is to keep the perps alive; after all, once the they're dead they are out of it and their killing would be humane. Plus, a jury will be more likely to let a killer loose than risk executing an innocent person. Otherwise they would be killers - and string em all up for it I say. Die, die, die.

[Mich the Tester]

I oppose the death penalty for the reasons named by Bogeyman, with one exception; those who have used state power to kill or maim people for the sake of their own power, i.e. dictators and tyrants. So I’d support it for he likes of Milosevic, Karadzic, Saddam and Mugabe.

[expat]

Following on from:

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...me-move-2.html

Without sounding too Daily Mail-ish, does the congregation consider that capital punishment should be reintroduced in the UK?

I used to be very, very against it on the grounds that:

a) it seemed inhumane and cruel

b) the justice system was unreliable, and many who where innocent of actual murder, went to their deaths (Timothy Evans, Derek Bentley and many others) and were acquitted posthumously.

In the days when capital punishment was a judicial option, cold-blooded, causal murder was very unusual and made the popular press front-pages for days on end. Now, it seems to happen once a month, in every UK town on a boozed up Friday night.

You were against it on good grounds. Those grounds still hold.

There do seem to be more and more people who IMO could improve the world greatly by leaving it. But it's still wrong for us to have the force of the law bring that about.

[EternalOptimist]

You were against it on good grounds. Those grounds still hold.

There do seem to be more and more people who IMO could improve the world greatly by leaving it. But it's still wrong for us to have the force of the law bring that about.

Indeed. There was a miscarriage of justice in the states, where they DO have the death penaly, a surgeon, Kemble, Kimble or something , who nearly got fried for something he didn't do.
We must guard our thingies vigilantly

[Old Greg]

Police who kill should be singled out for hanging? Seems a little harsh.

Anyway, I'm against in all cases as a judicial tool. I think it's very occasionally justified as a political tool in emergencies - the execution of the Ceauşescus is an example.

[ace00]

And it's a well known fact that scum who murder or rape kids, where it can be irrefutably proved with DNA evidence, wouldn't cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds per year to keep alive if they were strung up.

WHS

It costs a fortune to lock someone up for life - what's the point?
By commiting a terrible crime (torturing and killing kids for example) they have lost their right to life.

[ThomasSoerensen]

I oppose the death penalty for the reasons named by Bogeyman, with one exception; those who have used state power to kill or maim people for the sake of their own power, i.e. dictators and tyrants. So I’d support it for he likes of Milosevic, Karadzic, Saddam and Mugabe.

Blair and Bush too?