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Mikey wrote:Then who gets to kill the winner?

They get dropped in the Rangers half of Glasgow wearing a Celtic shirt.

Well done.

Personally I am not a fan of the death penalty in any form, for any reason. I don't really want my government to be killing it's own citizens unless it pretty much absolutely has to.

Revenge fantasies are nice and all, but read through a few of the posts in this thread and ask yourself if you'd REALLY want to be part of a society that did such things?

GrahamKennedy wrote:Personally I am not a fan of the death penalty in any form, for any reason. I don't really want my government to be killing it's own citizens unless it pretty much absolutely has to.

Revenge fantasies are nice and all, but read through a few of the posts in this thread and ask yourself if you'd REALLY want to be part of a society that did such things?

Personnally, if I had to state an choose whether to reinstate the death penalty in the UK, as a practical issue I'd have to oppose it. That however, is only due to the fact that the police and the CPS have a track record of getting things wrong - if there were irrefutable proof of guilt (such as solid DNA evidence coupled with eyewitness accounts) and no mitigating circumstances, then I'd be in favour of it.

quite frankly, whats there to keep chavs and idiots from doing stuff like this?

I say. Bring back the death penalty. Not only will tax payers end up having less money go into funding prisoners and keeping scum alive, but they wont get a chance to screw up again, and it solves probolems of overcrowding in prisons. Pre-meditated violent crime + a tracksuit? Death, by public hanging or so on. Would certianly make people think twice, thats for sure. Seems crude, etc, but I don't care. Crude and effective is what I think.

MetalHead wrote:quite frankly, whats there to keep chavs and idiots from doing stuff like this?

I say. Bring back the death penalty. Not only will tax payers end up having less money go into funding prisoners and keeping scum alive,

Actually if the US is anything to go by this is not true. It costs more to execute a prisoner in the US that it does to lock him or her up for life.

but they wont get a chance to screw up again,

Also true of a lifelong sentence, so why not do that instead?

and it solves probolems of overcrowding in prisons.

It wouldn't actually, since murderers make up a tiny percentage of the prison population.

Pre-meditated violent crime + a tracksuit? Death, by public hanging or so on. Would certianly make people think twice, thats for sure.

Little evidence of that either actually. We had hanging here, it didn't do squat as a deterrent.

Captain Seafort wrote:if there were irrefutable proof of guilt (such as solid DNA evidence coupled with eyewitness accounts) and no mitigating circumstances, then I'd be in favour of it.

The whole "only for when there's absolute proof" always makes me wince. I mean, think about it seriously for a moment. Are we really going to say to people "Well you're guilty of murder... but we're not quite sure that you really did it, so you go to jail for life. But you over there, we're really, REALLY sure that you did it, so you hang!"

I mean, we have "not guilty" and "guilty" now... are we actually gonna change that to "Not guilty", "Probably guilty" and "really certainly guilty"?

Graham, can you seriously state that this man deserves to be breathing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTK_killer

You can ask "What makes you qualified to decide whether he lives or dies?", to which, I'd reply: " Because I didn't torture ten innocent people to death."

That's the argument. As Graham pointed out, capital punishment does NOT prevent prison overcrowding or expenses. As a deterrent... meh. There have been studies saying both yes and no.

The true use is satisfying the vindictive npart of human nature. I'm not above saying that I have that bit of human nature in myself, as well.

Well there is capitol punishment and then there is capitol punishment.

For example the Chinese use the bodies of their many "criminals" for useful purposes such as organs. Additionally have you ever been to an exibit called "Bodyworks." A number of those bodies are executed Chinese.

On the balance I wouldn't be surprised if they cut a profit (costs of arresting, shooting and selling someone vs not arresting them). I'm sure they come out way ahead compared to life imprisonment though.

I think the move to have not guilty, guilty, and 100% guilty is a move to try to get some of that efficiancy elsewhere. Since the appeals process and time spent on death row is a large part of the cost.

Well there is capitol punishment and then there is capitol punishment.

For example the Chinese use the bodies of their many "criminals" for useful purposes such as organs. Additionally have you ever been to an exibit called "Bodyworks." A number of those bodies are executed Chinese.

On the balance I wouldn't be surprised if they cut a profit (costs of arresting, shooting and selling someone vs not arresting them). I'm sure they come out way ahead compared to life imprisonment though.

I think the move to have not guilty, guilty, and 100% guilty is a move to try to get some of that efficiancy elsewhere. Since the appeals process and time spent on death row is a large part of the cost.

Mikey wrote:...The true use is satisfying the vindictive part of human nature. I'm not above saying that I have that bit of human nature in myself, as well.

I truly don't believe that this part of the human psyche, the desire for justice or retribution, is something that needs to be necessarily surpressed in order to have an enlightened society.

Capitol punishment is really one of the only issues that I just don't have an opinion on; I understand both sides of the issue, but I don't feel that strongly one way or the other; I'm frankly open to convincing...

What I am sure of is that, if it is used at all, it should be used in only the most extreme cases. Frankly, the fact that we have such a controversy about it's use is one of the few good signs in the modern world, in my opinion. The moment the death penalty becomes an "easy topic" is a very bad moment for the world.

I completely agree with that statement, Peabody. I certainly do not believe execution should ever be an easy decision, though it it is most definately a valid option.

Tsukiyumi wrote:Graham, can you seriously state that this man deserves to be breathing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTK_killer

I don't make any judgement about whether that man deserves to be breathing or not. My argument is that I don't want my government to have the power to make that decision for its own citizens.

Once we cede the principle that the government gets to decide which of its citizens has a right to live and which do not, we are in a society that I do not feel comfortable with.