Best Of

If the police were universally honest, then opposition to the death penalty would simply be on moral grounds. One either believed or did not believe the State has the right to take a life.

But the police lie. Occasionally it is because they are criminals themselves. More often they do it to protect the good name of the police. Or because they are convinced they have the right person. And sometimes they do it because they believe they are good people and the lie serves the greater good.

Bear in mind too, that reimposing the death penalty would result in more police lying, not less. The pressure to cover up the (bound to happen) fact that the wrong person had been executed would be enormous.

So, no, we can't have the death penalty.

To my mind it's also a bit pointless. Even advocates for bringing it back only say for the most heinous, full life term crimes - i.e. those committed by monsters or the irretrievably damaged for whom the death penalty isn't a deterrent - and in some cases might be an incentive.

So really we're talking about punishment - and unless you're convinced of a religious disposition and want to parcel someone off to hell as soon as possible - is being locked away for life with the scum of the Earth really a lesser punishment?

You could say it saves on cost but it's a tiny number of people compared to the prison estate as a whole and savings might be largely swallowed up by the additional hoops you'd have to jump through to get a death sentence confirmed, even in fairly clear cut cases of guilt.

Is it really worth abolishing the moral high ground can use to try and persuade states who use the death penalty in appalling ways to give it up?

The argument that we must abolish the death penalty because it gives us something we can hector other states about doesn't strike me as morally serious.

"A majority of the public think that the UK should bring back the death penalty, with the strongest support among millennials, a poll has found." (£)

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/majority-britons-support-death-penalty-poll-scw7glncg

If you go back to the second world war, public support for the death penalty has been pretty consistently above 50%, with dips below whenever there are obvious miscarriages of justice. Imagine if we'd hanged the Guilford Four, for example.

Just imagine if we'd hanged the people who commited these murders:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/25/one-murder-a-week-committed-by-offenders-probation-service/

More than 750 killings since 2010 carried out by criminals on probation

Unless I am misunderstanding you mean we should have hanged them for the initial offence so they wouldn't have committed the murders on probation? Nearly all were on probation for offenses other than murder when they committed the murders - only 20 were out on licence having served the minimum custodial element for life sentences. So I think you're suggesting we apply the death penalty pre-emptively for less serious offences, unless you meant something else, which is quite the step.

The point is that the ledger has two sides when considering the risks to innocent people, but it's true that there's no reason why murder should be the only capital offence, unless you believe in a strict 'eye for an eye' policy.

Take Singapore's policy of executing people for drug trafficking for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtVUYtMBPFw

"This is not a matter discussed between the chancellor and me. Its a Singapore issue. We have stated our position clearly. We take a very serious view of drug trafficking - the penalty is death. In this case it was an enormous amount of drugs being trafficked. Its nearly 400 grammes of pure heroin, which is equivalent to 26,000 doses of heroin if you do it shot by shot. Which means untold misery and suffering to hundreds if not thousands of addicts and their families. The man was charged, convicted, appealed, dismissed. He put up a clemency petition. The clemency petition was considered all factors were taken into account including petitions and letters from Australian leaders. Finally the government decided the law had to take its course. And the law will have to take its course."

Christ almighty that set you off on one.

Home Secretary, shit Defence Barrister and hanger and flogger David Waddington would have been happy to see his innocent client Stefan Kizsko swing. That case alone is enough for me. Perhaps when you rid the nation of dodgy cops and shit Defence Lawyers perhaps you can revisit.*

* There will always be bent coppers.

Ok not saying I support the death penalty as I don't

However NICE hands hand death penalties all the time because its not cost effective to keep you alive on QALY terms....I think from memory its about 20k per each year of life....I can understand why people get upset when convicted people on a full life term...ie the worst cost 50k plus a year.

If I am 30 for example and kill 7 or 8 people I probably get a full life term....even if let out in 40 years and live 10 years after that is 2 million cost whereas I won't get treatment that costs more that 500k a year to live to 80

Are you answering someone elses question? I didn't mention cost savings. My point was an innocent man would have been recommended for hanging by his incompetent defence barrister who later became a pro hanging Home Secretary.

If you hang 100 men ten of which are innocent, but it saves 110 lives that would have been taken by those men (obviously not the innocent ones) its a gain of 10 innocent lives

Just as a matter of interest, how much lower are murder rates in countries with the death penalty?

you make the mistake as most do that the point of the death penalty would be to reduce the murder rate. It is more to reduce the costs of keeping someone for 50 years....and yes you will go on about appeals....one appeal within a month then get on with it

So you would have strung up Letby then?

I would have let her appeal within a few months

Don't forget however as I pointed out I don't favour the death penalty I am merely pointing out two 30 years olds one kills 7 people, one has a disease but they can keep him alive till 75 at a cost of 40k a year but will otherwise die within 2 years....the governement and tax payers only pay for the one that killed 7 people even though it costs more. I am saying thats the argument people are seeing....the guy who did nothing wrong condemned to an early death because of costs....the guy who destroyed lives kept at a higher cost for a lifetime

Her appeal was refused on insufficient grounds.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/24/lucy-letby-refused-permission-to-appeal-against-attempted-conviction?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

So should she be killed by the state?

It would not bother me, if she were hanged.

I just see no pressing need for capital punishment, outside of wartime.

"A majority of the public think that the UK should bring back the death penalty, with the strongest support among millennials, a poll has found." (£)

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/majority-britons-support-death-penalty-poll-scw7glncg

God, youth of today.

One in 20 members of the public even backed using capital punishment against shoplifters.

That's the didn't read, lobotomised, wind-up artist, or nutter demographic, surely?

I recall one where several percent of African-Americans thought slavery was a good thing.

Slavery gets shit done.

Best feat in engineering are the Pyramids, all thanks to slave labour.

Don't be silly, that was extra-terrestrials!

Pyramids are anyway shit. And hardly feats of engineering at all. There's a reason nobody's bothered building any since the ancient Egyptians - they're pointless, boring and a complete waste of time, space and money.

This is the first polemic against Pyramids I've ever come across. Excellent stuff. Very PB.com.

"A majority of the public think that the UK should bring back the death penalty, with the strongest support among millennials, a poll has found." (£)

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/majority-britons-support-death-penalty-poll-scw7glncg

God, youth of today.

One in 20 members of the public even backed using capital punishment against shoplifters.

That's the didn't read, lobotomised, wind-up artist, or nutter demographic, surely?

I recall one where several percent of African-Americans thought slavery was a good thing.

Slavery gets shit done.

Best feat in engineering are the Pyramids, all thanks to slave labour.

So Pharaoh Tut standing behind a board with "Kickstart economic growth" neatly written in hieroglyphs, declared "let's build a pyramid!"

Apparently the pyramids were overtaken as the world's tallest buildings a mere four thousand years later by the Eiffel Tower.

"A majority of the public think that the UK should bring back the death penalty, with the strongest support among millennials, a poll has found." (£)

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/majority-britons-support-death-penalty-poll-scw7glncg

God, youth of today.

One in 20 members of the public even backed using capital punishment against shoplifters.

That's the didn't read, lobotomised, wind-up artist, or nutter demographic, surely?

I recall one where several percent of African-Americans thought slavery was a good thing.

Slavery gets shit done.

Best feat in engineering are the Pyramids, all thanks to slave labour.

Don't be silly, that was extra-terrestrials!

Pyramids are anyway shit. And hardly feats of engineering at all. There's a reason nobody's bothered building any since the ancient Egyptians - they're pointless, boring and a complete waste of time, space and money.

"A majority of the public think that the UK should bring back the death penalty, with the strongest support among millennials, a poll has found." (£)

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/majority-britons-support-death-penalty-poll-scw7glncg

If you go back to the second world war, public support for the death penalty has been pretty consistently above 50%, with dips below whenever there are obvious miscarriages of justice. Imagine if we'd hanged the Guilford Four, for example.

Just imagine if we'd hanged the people who commited these murders:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/25/one-murder-a-week-committed-by-offenders-probation-service/

More than 750 killings since 2010 carried out by criminals on probation