Harold Shipman has killed himself!

[Howard]

I've never heard of Ian Brady.. What did he do?

And that's a good point you made about him having the right... :|

[lynni]

I've never heard of Ian Brady.. What did he do?

And that's a good point you made about him having the right... :|

He was one of the Moors murdurers, him and Myra Hindley? They killed 8 or 9 children and then buried their bodies on the moors.... some of these children have never been found, cos Ian wont release any further information and Myra died last year (brain hemaorrhage i think )

[Howard]

Ahh yes... I couldn't familiarise with the name.. I know what you mean now

[lynni]

I'm against suicide but I think it should be up to your own free will and someone shouldn't be able to stop you from taking your own life, there's no point in forcing him to be alive just so we can punish him more.

Whilst you are entitled to your own opinion and iam to mine.... i believe that anyone who commits a crime so severe to retain them in prison for a very long time, loses all their rights as a person and why shouldnt he be forced to stay alive? he punished all those people, what he did to them doesnt even come close to what his experiences in prison must have been.....

[Anders]

On the news I heard this, in my opinion, valid point as to why the prison service cannot be blamed for not putting him on suicide watch. Harold Shipman was a trained G.P. and an intelligent, calculating person. He would have been well aware of all the signs that prison officers are trained to look for in potentially suicidal prisoners. Since he wanted to kill himself he would have been well able to conceal these signs from prison officers. I also think that if someone one really wants to kill themselves, I mean really as opposed to a cry for help, then you will be hard pushed to stop.

[floppybootstomp]

'Harold Shipman has killed himself!'

Good.

[Saracen]

Whilst I feel for the families of Shipman's victims who had hoped that he might relent and give them details of who actually were victims (beyond those he's been convicted for), or WHY and HOW he selected his victims, I'm inclined to think it was actually a folorn hope. I doubt that, had he lived to 100, he'd ever have done that.

As for whether he should have lived to serve his sentence or not - I can't say I miss him very much.

I can't go along with the argument that says he'd suffer more that way. That, to me, smacks of revenge or retribution and that, in my view, is not what prison is for. Prison, to me, serves several functions but revenge isn't one of them. Protecting the public from offenders, rehabilitation, even punishment and, just maybe, deterence, but not revenge.

Given that, and given that due to the nature and extent of his crimes, and to his apparent total lack of any signs of remorse, I don't see any way he'd ever be released - so the rehabilitation aspects go out the window. With him dead, the public are certainly protected from him committing further crimes. And this way, he is not a drain on society's resources, which he would have been had he been kept behind bars 'til he died a natural death.

I'm a believer in, in some circumstances, the death penalty. Shipman is one of those cases where, were it my decision, he'd have been executed. And accordingly, I can't summon much sympathy for him. I can find sympathy for his victims, for their relatives, and even for his relatives, but none for him.

So far as I'm concerned, being part of a society carries not just rights but responsibilities and, when you breach those responsibilities, you lose some or all of those rights. Breach the duty not to steal from others and you lose the right to freedom. Take lives, in such a cold and callous manner, and you lose the right to your own life. I know many people won't agree with that, but it's how I feel. If ever there was a case deserving of the death penalty, it was Shipman.

[Anders]

I have no sympathy for Harold Shipman. However as someone who does not believe in the death penalty I cannot say that him committing suicide is a good thing. I cannot imagine being certain enough of someone’s guilt that I could justify having them killed or that their committing suicide is a satisfactory end.

As a side note: Even if I saw a person kill someone else with my own eyes, I doubt that I could be certain enough that there were not some other mitigating circumstances, e.g. self-defence. That point is a totally hypothetical extreme situation, and I have not idea how seeing an event like that might affect me.

While I have faith in or justice system, I do not have that much faith. I have not seen any of the evidence in the case. I do not know about the rest of you though? Do they release evidence to the public in cases?

I also do not believe that an eye for and eye is a reasonable form of justice. Look at the mess is causes with tit for tat attacks in conflicts around the world.

I agree with Saracen that it is unlikely Shipman would have ever revealed the truth behind his crimes. I can only hope that his suicide can have a positive effect for the families. Maybe it can give them some form of closure, rather than clinging onto the, in my opinion, in vane hope that he would explain his crimes. Although the media would have us believe the total opposite.

[floppybootstomp]

Anders, your post kinda belies the fact that you believe he did commit those crimes.

In Shipman's case, the evidence would appear to be overwhelming.

Although, like yourself, I'm always sceptical, there have been too many cases of people fitted up for the crime, particularly with the Irish and the IRA, as depicted in several films now.

Not to mention if you're a black geezer and you get hauled into Stoke Newington nick, God help you.

However, as I said, in this instance, from what I can gather from available information, Shipman was guilty, although I admit I can never be sure, personally, as I didn't carry out the investigation.

A pack of wild dogs will put down one that is a threat to the pack, be it rabid or insane or just plain hostile. That is the law of nature.

As Saracen opined, in some instances, I do agree with the death sentence. Generally, I'm against it. But where a case such as Shipmans' is proved beyond doubt, I'd be for it.

[Anders]

Anders, your post kinda belies the fact that you believe he did commit those crimes.

In Shipman's case, the evidence would appear to be overwhelming.

Although, like yourself, I'm always sceptical, there have been too many cases of people fitted up for the crime, particularly with the Irish and the IRA, as depicted in several films now.

Not to mention if you're a black geezer and you get hauled into Stoke Newington nick, God help you.

However, as I said, in this instance, from what I can gather from available information, Shipman was guilty, although I admit I can never be sure, personally, as I didn't carry out the investigation.

A pack of wild dogs will put down one that is a threat to the pack, be it rabid or insane or just plain hostile. That is the law of nature.

As Saracen opined, in some instances, I do agree with the death sentence. Generally, I'm against it. But where a case such as Shipmans' is proved beyond doubt, I'd be for it.

Well it is fair enough floppybootstomp if you believe you have seen enough evidence to convince you beyond all doubt that he is guilty. I believe he is guilty, because I have faith in our justice system. However, I have not seen enough proof to be comfortable with him being killed. In fact I have seen no evidence in this case besides what I read in the papers or saw in the TV news. Trail by media is certainly not an effective way for me to determine guilt. As I said though, I cannot ever imagine having enough evidence to be comfortable with killing someone. I think it just lowers us to the level of the murderers. Out of interest, how do you know Shipman is guilty beyond all doubt?

Also, my other argument about an eye for eye, even though he is guilty, still holds up my personal objections to the death penalty.

I would like to think that our civilised society and our justice system is better than a pack of wild dogs. Just because something is natural (or unnatural) does not make it inherently right (or wrong).

[Saracen]

..... As Saracen opined, in some instances, I do agree with the death sentence. Generally, I'm against it. But where a case such as Shipmans' is proved beyond doubt, I'd be for it.

This is one of the things I've raised whenever I've been debating principle of the death sentence.

There are several common arguments against, but they are often mixed in together.

There are people that believe it's wrong - period. A valid opinion but one with which I don't agree. The debate then becomes one of the ethics of a death sentence.

There are people that would support the death sentence IF you could be 100% sure that the convicted party is guilty. That is more emotive, and I'm always careful to cover my support for the death penalty with the caveat that it is not suitable for all cases - and this is ONE reason why I feel that way. But the level of certainty, at least in some cases, is far higher now than it was when we last had the death penalty in this country. It's one of my questions for proponents from the anti camp is to find out WHY they object - because that focuses the debate. Suppose you could be 100% sure that the accused was guilty - maybe the offence was conducted in public, on live television (with a recording made), not only in front of you and 1000 other witnesses but several senior police officers, some judges, three bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope - all of whom testified to that effect. Oh, and the accused not only confessed on the stand in court but boasted about it. Then could you vote for the death penalty? If the answer is "no" then the issue that causes you to take that stance is probably not certainty of guilt.

Then there's the cost argument - that the death penalty is more expensive than lifetime imprisonment. That usually gets lively because the "anti" camp usually quote the figures for death row cases in the US, but that, of course, is based on the US judicial system and if we had the death penalty in this country, that doesn't mean we have to have the US system (and particularly the US appeals system), so US costs are not really relevant and that argument, in my view, is fallacious.

But it's all academic really, because I don't see any practical chance that the death penalty will come back to this country in the foreseeable future - if ever.

[Anders]

Well I do not think you could ever be one hundred percent certain, even with the amazingly extreme scenario laid out by Saracen. There could still be unknown mitigating circumstances to the murder.

In my case Saracen is correct that my objection to the death penalty is not solely based on the uncertainty argument. An eye for an eye is not an acceptable form of justice in my opinion.

I agree with Saracen that cost argument is not valid. A person’s life is worth more than mere money.

I am not so convinced that we could never see the death penalty again in this country. The way some sections of the media are so reactionary and sensationalists it is not entirely impossible. We cannot be one hundred percent certain about this either.

[homerhassall]

Just completed the job that the state should have finished.
I for one won't be loosing a moments sleep.
Sorry to sound blunt but I'm in the pro-capital punishment for
murderers despite all the arguments against. Certain cases deserve
nothing other than the ultimate penalty and this is sure as hell one
of them.

[Saracen]

I agree with Saracen that cost argument is not valid. A person’s life is worth more than mere money.

Well, actually there are two cost arguments, and that isn't the one I was referring to. The argument I was referring to is that given that a person is convicted, you have to deal with a person somehow, and each method available has a cost. I have seen the "fact" that the death penalty is "more expensive" than life imprisonment used as an argument against the death penalty - and it's a fallacious argument as, inherently, the death penalty is MUCH cheaper. It's the system, that surrounds the death penalty that introduces the cost, so using the US system as a guideline to that cost would only be valid if we accepted the same system.

The other argument is whether a life is worth more than a given amount of money. Well, that's a moral judgement and one that is hard to debate. But there's another aspect to that. The resources of the state are not unlimited. Everything the state does has a cost that can be lloked at in two ways : monetary cost and opportunity cost.

The monetary cost of something is obvious - it's how much wonga the state lays out for something. But opportunity cost is soemthing that will perhaps be more familiar to economists. It is simply that is you spend £x on project A, it is not available to be spent on Project B.

So you could measure the cost of keeping a mass murderer in jail as being some percentage of a hospital that doesn't get built, or equipment that schools don't get, or hip replacement operations that don't get done on elderly people, and so on.

It's more than a case of measuring the cost of human life in terms of "mere money" - it's the cost of what else society has to forego to keep a mass murderer in jail.

Personally, I'd rather provide the hospitals, school equipment or hip replacement operations than pay for someone like Shipman to be kept in prison for decades. The cost of doing this is difficult to assess, though. For some reason, average costs of Category A prisoners seem to be excluded from government reporting on the cost of prisoners, but it can cost up to £36,000 per year for non-Category A prisoners, and given the nature of Category A prisons it seems likely that the cost would be higher, and possibly much higher. A total cost of £1 million would not seem at all unlikely, per prisoner, over the duration of a sentence and it could well be £2 million.

So far as I'm concerned, when someone like Shipman does what he does, he sacrifices the right to expect society to place him, or his life, in such regard that they are prepared to spend that kind of amount of taxpayer's money keeping him in jail - if for no other reason that the opportunity cost of doing so.