The death penalty should be reinstated for police killers?

[Lucio]

Actually I am reminded of a good arguement against the death penalty a friend once told me.

"If you believe in the death penalty, would you be willing to be the one in a million miscarriage of justice?"

[JPreston]

Bazzlad have a word with yourself, and maybe read the T&C's. I won't count how many times you've called me stupid in this thread, among other personal attacks, but it would be a shame to end a thread where many people have been making good points. So try and keep your posts within appropriate boundaries for everyone's sake, OK? OK.

I would say your biggest problem here is not a lack of manners, or a fondness for insults or VERY BIG WRITING - it's that you don't think things through beyond a very superficial level. Subsequent appeals to logic just bounce right off you, like ping-pong balls off a concrete wall. So I'll make clear exactly which statements of yours are rubbish in a nice numbered list at the end of this post. But first some housekeeping...

I am a Christian and I am Pro-Death Penalty. And I'm not alone.

No I know you are not alone, and I see you've dragged the maggoty bloated corpse of the hateful bigot Jerry "Lesbians are to blame for 9/11" Falwell along for company. I may seem like a "self-proclaimed messianic nail-bomber" to you, but rest assured I have exactly the same amount of respect for your religion as you have for mine.

Shall we just agree now keep this on-topic - and I realise it was me who first mentioned your professed religiosity. Rather to get into big Old Testament quoting session, my intention was just to illustrate where the ground on which you base your opinions has fault lines; is not consistent philosophically. But it's another topic. Pro-life and pro-war? Another topic. And so on

Police who do it voluntarily are Specials, who when on duty have the same rights and powers as standard Police. Community Support Officers are not only paid, but paid well:

Starting salaries for PCSOs are around £16,000 a year.
With experience, PCSOs can earn between £16,000 and £19,000 a year plus a shift allowance.

Ah OK, although £16k is not really being paid 'well' to do anything, is it? Although it doesn't negate my point; in order of ascending cost you respect Specials, you despise PCSOs, you respect PCs. More on this at the end.

Yes crazy thinking here - Harsh minimum sentences for gun and knife crime, extra protection for Police/NHS and Fire workers and for any sentence longer than 3 life sentences that can be PROVEN WITHOUT DOUBT the death penalty, by injection.

(sizing is my own)

You've taken my quote entirely out of context, something you're very quick to accuse others of.

The buffoonery in specific question was your assertion that american police dogs have greater legal protection than human beings, which is ridiculous. Nothing to do with what you are pretending it applied to.

the Police Dog (who is on duty - let's get that right)

Nothing particular to say about that. I just love the way you don't see anything hilarious about the idea of police dogs being on-duty, off-duty, coming up for retirement, planning to buy a boat in florida, breaking in a rookie handler, when BAM! 15 minutes into his final shift some junkie blows him away and the corrupt D.A. won't prosecute...leaving his partner to get revenge on the Mendoza cartel...by operating outside the law...

Yes because in the fantasy world needed for your argument to try and ridicule my perfectly logical ideas Traffic Wardens are a part of the Police/NHS or Fire service. Good job brainiac!

Oh OK - I assumed that you naturally would include all public services in your elite inner circle. I choose traffic warden as an example of someone who may or not be directly employed by the state. It's to be literally Police/Nhs or Fire service then is it? In that case just replace 'traffic warden' with 'hospital cleaner'. How's your perfect logic now, brainiac?




OK then making it very easy for you and completely non-confrontationally, I will draw up a list of statements that you have either made above, or which follow directly from your statements. As before, I've taken nothing out of context at all but obviously the wording is mine, for conciseness.

My assertion is that the following statements are all incorrect. If you do not agree with every one of them, then you will need to retract at least one of the statements you have made so far. I'm sure you're a very bright lightbulb but if you want me to explain which of your posts any of the statements come from, then just ask. My aim is just to show that your opinions don't actually make as much sense as you probably imagine they do at the time you write them. Are you ready? Then let's begin:


1. The severity of a murder depends upon the employment status of the victim.

2. A hospital cleaner who is employed through an agency should have less legal protection than one who is employed by the hospital directly. Murdering a contracted-out cleaner is a less serious crime than murdering an NHS cleaner.

3. Concepts such as 'employment status' and 'working shifts' can be applied meaningfully to dogs.

4. In america, dogs which are employed by police departments have greater protection under the law than most citizens do. We should introduce identical legislation in the UK.

5. Murder of a judge, member of parliament, social worker, parole officer, or traffic warden is a less heinous offence than murder of a hospital records clerk.

6. Attacks on nurses should be punished by a more severe sentence than is standard, as standard practice (the "DFS sofa sale" argument).

7. Even though it is already a criminal offense to carry offensive weapons in public, we should outlaw 'ownership of knives'. Owning a knife should carry a minimum sentence of 10 years. But, this law should only be enforced selectively - again depending at least in part on a person's employment status.

8. It is not only possible, but desirable to decide on an individual basis which laws apply to whom in this way.

9. The fact that no other country in the world has made ownership of knives a criminal offense is no indication that is a bad idea.

10. The current burden of proving 'beyond reasonable doubt' resulting in a legal status of either 'guilty' or 'not guilty' is flawed. There are further statuses that the law should recognise, such as that of being 'guilty enough to lock up forever but not quite enough to execute'. (Schrodinger's cat was simultaneously both guilty and not guilty of crapping on the carpet).

11. It's possible to prove something 100%, i.e. doubt is 'beyond the realms of even the most fantastic imagination'. In the context of a trial, the unfalsifiable defence argument that in fact the crime was committed by a clone of the accused who travelled back in time from the future in order to frame the defendant needs to be actively disproved (as does every one of the uncountably infinite similar arguments), rather than dismissed on the grounds of improbability.

12. The death penalty should be applied to cases that have been proved to this idealised standard of absolute certainty (as a result of what could only have been an infinitely long trial).

13. Juries are qualified to decide sentences and should be empowered to do so, or else judges should have individual say as to whether or not a defendant is guilty irrespective of the jury's verdict (otherwise how could a sentence of death be arrived at under the burden of 100% proof?). Furthermore this is not an unacceptable erosion of our rights.

14. PCSO's do not face any danger at all in the course of their duties, or otherwise for an unspecified reason they should be specifically excluded from the respect afforded to all other employees of the police service, including the voluntary ones. (You didn't actually say whether or not murdering a PCSO was a more serious, or less serious offense).

There's more, but 14 is enough and it's time for my tea. Nice to have a sensible discussion for a change, isn't it?

[Sinizter]

Actually I am reminded of a good arguement against the death penalty a friend once told me.

"If you believe in the death penalty, would you be willing to be the one in a million miscarriage of justice?"

Yes.

[JPreston]

Actually I am reminded of a good arguement against the death penalty a friend once told me.

"If you believe in the death penalty, would you be willing to be the one in a million miscarriage of justice?"

I don't think that really is a good argument against the death penalty, the question of guilt is independent from the severity of the sentence.

Even in the absence of the death penalty, would you be willing to be the one in a million miscarriage of justice and so spend the rest of your life in prison? I'd be pretty hacked off in either situation.

[Saracen]

Saracen, I appreciate that you are doing a duty and obviously police do require respect for that, however a harsher penalty for killing a police officer isn't protection for the officer. Its retrospective punishment, it won't in 99% of the cases result in the criminal thinking oh wait i won't shoot a police officer because i might go to jail. Its the situation of i'm trying to get away, i'm screwed anyway i don't care.

Well, it worked for a long time, pretty well, in relation to the "assaulting a police officer ..." bit. I say that as the son of a police officer who's father was assaulted in the execution of his duty more than once. The result, typically, was about 18 months.

Its not pre-mediated in the sense of i'm going out to murder a police officer, like some murders might be, and hence i don't see why this offence should exist.

Then we'll have to disagree about that. I think it should, for the reasons given earlier, and because today's society is far more violent than it was 50 years ago, though such violence against police did occur 50 years ago ..... on VERY rare occasions.

You can't just say because you murder a police officer its death sentence.

I didn't say that. In fact, I said the exact opposite. I said that whilst I think it ought to be an option for CERTAIN offences, I'm against it being automatic for any, police officer or not. Apart from anything else, "murder" covers far too wide a range of events. That's why, whilst 'life' may be mandatory, the tariff is left to the discretion of the sentencing judge (though the Sentencing Council issue guidelines).

Surely the assaulting a police officer can occur when trying to "resist" arrest, when someone is drunk etc and hasn't had the police communicate correctly. Hence the lower sentencing in the sense that while they might be guilty there might be mitigating circumstances.

Indeed it can. But being drunk doesn't excuse you from assaulting someone, whether it's a police officer or not, and if you assault a police officer when drunk, you still deserve to incur the consequences. Again, the judge (or more likely, magistrate(s) ) doing the sentencing have a maximum penalty they can impose, and guidance as to the start point, and any factors that will either mitigate or aggravate the situation. What sentence a specific person will get is going to depend on the specifics of the situation, and probably on their actions post arrest/charge.

[Saracen]

Actually I am reminded of a good arguement against the death penalty a friend once told me.

"If you believe in the death penalty, would you be willing to be the one in a million miscarriage of justice?"

Yes, I would.

I'd be very unhappy about it if it happened, but it doesn't change my opinion on the death penalty.

It's actually not an argument against the DP at all, because it's absolutely implicit in believing in it. If I didn't realise that that could happen, it'd be an argument in favour of my stupidity for not realising it, not an argument against the death penalty.

[Bazzlad]

Bazzlad have a word with yourself, and maybe read the T&C's. I won't count how many times you've called me stupid in this thread, among other personal attacks, but it would be a shame to end a thread where many people have been making good points. So try and keep your posts within appropriate boundaries for everyone's sake, OK? OK.

Funnily enough JPreston, if you read back this thread had no animosity before you arrived with your facetious, ridiculing, insulting posting style -

is probably the most extreme marxist communist statement ever posted on here.

without revealing oneself to be, well, retarded.

Speaking of which idiocy brings me on to:

Under "bazzlad's shariah law"

Are you clinically insane?!

So if, for some insane reason, you're beginning to wonder why there are no warm hearted, back slapping response to your apparently "logical" arguments, look no further than your own posting style.

I may seem like a "self-proclaimed messianic nail-bomber" to you, but rest assured I have exactly the same amount of respect for your religion as you have for mine.

The "self-proclaimed messianic nail-bomber" is actually a quote from your own post. Just FYI.

Shall we just agree now keep this on-topic

Agreed. (End of ).

Ah OK, although £16k is not really being paid 'well' to do anything, is it? Although it doesn't negate my point; in order of ascending cost you respect Specials, you despise PCSOs, you respect PCs. More on this at the end.

16k, (more in London) is a decent wage for walking around the streets and to quote directly from the job description:

To build community confidence and improve the quality of life for all residents by reducing crime
and the fear of crime, deterring anti-social behaviour, improving the physical appearance of the
area, promoting social inclusion particularly with young people and older isolated people and
reducing the number of non-service calls to the police.

So, you're a security guard, dressed as a Police officer. Listen, I'm not going to argue the merits of PCSOs, because they do serve a purpose, however, that money IMHO would have been better spent on real Police Officers, with full powers.

The buffoonery in specific question was your assertion that american police dogs have greater legal protection than human beings, which is ridiculous. Nothing to do with what you are pretending it applied to.

The quote I stated was:
IIRC - In the states, Police Dogs have the same legal protection as officers - ie you kill one, you'll be on trial for murder.

And I agree with that. I didn't say that you should have a higher/harsher sentence than a human, I also didn't mention any form of minimum sentence, simply that the power is there, if the judge/jury decides the person is a sufficient threat to the public (and anyone who can murder an animal [for non humane/farm reasons] is capable of doing it to humans. I recall reading about a few murderers who started with Animals first).

Bear in mind MrPreston, that these, like all sentencing powers are there to be used - IF needed, judges will always take things into account such as mental state of the attacker, the scenario itself etc.

Nothing particular to say about that. I just love the way you don't see anything hilarious about the idea of police dogs being on-duty, off-duty, coming up for retirement, planning to buy a boat in florida, breaking in a rookie handler, when BAM! 15 minutes into his final shift some junkie blows him away and the corrupt D.A. won't prosecute...leaving his partner to get revenge on the Mendoza cartel...by operating outside the law..

And this is why you're so endeared.

Oh OK - I assumed that you naturally would include all public services in your elite inner circle. I choose traffic warden as an example of someone who may or not be directly employed by the state. It's to be literally Police/Nhs or Fire service then is it? In that case just replace 'traffic warden' with 'hospital cleaner'. How's your perfect logic now, brainiac?

Exactly the same. Police Officers on Duty, Nurses and Doctors on Duty, and Firemen on Duty, would have the protection their job deserves.

The severity of a murder depends upon the employment status of the victim.

Not usually, but in exceptional circumstance - See above - the judge has the power to, if he feels it necessary, to give a harsher sentence.

Bear in mind, the severity of a murder already is dependant on the circumstance in which a murder is committed. Surely, by your logic thus far, all murder is murder, and killing a baby is the same as killing somebody in a street fight.

Is it so hard for you to accept that some murders are more heinous than others? And the employment status, age, mental ability of the victim, amongst other things are the deciding factors in how severe this murder is, and thus has an effect on the sentencing.

2. A hospital cleaner who is employed through an agency should have less legal protection than one who is employed by the hospital directly. Murdering a contracted-out cleaner is a less serious crime than murdering an NHS cleaner.

Already answered.

3. Concepts such as 'employment status' and 'working shifts' can be applied meaningfully to dogs.

Having a blind Aunty, yes they can. I'd expect the full force of the law to be applied if somebody killed my Aunt's guide dog. Police Dogs are representative of the Police Force, and the Police Force should not be attacked in any circumstances, and the law should be able to scare people off doing so.

4. In america, dogs which are employed by police departments have greater protection under the law than most citizens do. We should introduce identical legislation in the UK.

Equal.

5. Murder of a judge, member of parliament, social worker, parole officer, or traffic warden is a less heinous offence than murder of a hospital records clerk.

A silly example explained earlier.

6. Attacks on nurses should be punished by a more severe sentence than is standard, as standard practice (the "DFS sofa sale" argument).

Yes. 200%. Attacking a working nurse is the lowest of the low, and people, of that mentality should be harshly punished.

7. Even though it is already a criminal offense to carry offensive weapons in public, we should outlaw 'ownership of knives'. Owning a knife should carry a minimum sentence of 10 years. But, this law should only be enforced selectively - again depending at least in part on a person's employment status.

Now you're being stupid. It was, and is perfectly obvious what I was getting at how it would be done, unless you are as stupid as I earlier pointed to. But instead you decide to take the p*ss. Shock.

Let me make this nice and simple for you (in a nice number list perhaps?)

1) Carrying a knife in public, without good reason (this is law already) is subject to a minimum jail term (this is my idea - madness eh?)

2) Any crime committed with a knife is subject to a minimum jail term - Stabbings, murder and robbery.

Sorted?

9. The fact that no other country in the world has made ownership of knives a criminal offense is no indication that is a bad idea.

Explained above.

10. The current burden of proving 'beyond reasonable doubt' resulting in a legal status of either 'guilty' or 'not guilty' is flawed. There are further statuses that the law should recognise, such as that of being 'guilty enough to lock up forever but not quite enough to execute'. (Schrodinger's cat was simultaneously both guilty and not guilty of crapping on the carpet).

Again, this isn't hard to understand.
People, all over the world, get locked away for crimes they did not commit. This is a fact.
Now, if somebody has committed a crime, for which the punishment is 3 life sentences or more, the death penalty becomes an option. If said person is found guilty, but without irrefutable evidence - as happens - said option is removed from sentencing. If the irrefutable evidence is there, and the judge deems it to be suitable, it can be used.


This isn't hard to understand.

11. It's possible to prove something 100%, i.e. doubt is 'beyond the realms of even the most fantastic imagination'. In the context of a trial, the unfalsifiable defence argument that in fact the crime was committed by a clone of the accused who travelled back in time from the future in order to frame the defendant needs to be actively disproved (as does every one of the uncountably infinite similar arguments), rather than dismissed on the grounds of improbability.

Yawn.

12. The death penalty should be applied to cases that have been proved to this idealised standard of absolute certainty (as a result of what could only have been an infinitely long trial).

If an eye witness watches somebody commit the crime. CCTV also, the Police then arrest him/her at the scene, with the murder weapon, and DNA confirms this - I'd say this is a certainty - wouldn't you?

13. Juries are qualified to decide sentences and should be empowered to do so, or else judges should have individual say as to whether or not a defendant is guilty irrespective of the jury's verdict (otherwise how could a sentence of death be arrived at under the burden of 100% proof?). Furthermore this is not an unacceptable erosion of our rights.

14. PCSO's do not face any danger at all in the course of their duties, or otherwise for an unspecified reason they should be specifically excluded from the respect afforded to all other employees of the police service, including the voluntary ones. (You didn't actually say whether or not murdering a PCSO was a more serious, or less serious offense).

I never said that, I simply said I wouldn't have even employed them, nor invented the job position. But as Police Officers, the rights are there.



I'd say job done. Again, the majority of your arguments are taking things obviously out of context and ridiculing them - unfortunately for you, my ideas are not akin to "Sharia law" but simple, common sense ideas that the general public would agree to. And you hate that, don't you?

[Horatio]

I've been a life long opponent of the death penalty; that is , a 'reasoning' life long opponent. Perhaps it's hardening of the arteries or that I am increasingly aware of the fact that this little land, rather like the rest of the occupied world, is getting very crowded, whichever... it IS time for the return of the death penalty in this country.
Whether or not it should be occupation specific, I don't know. The example of the U S of A should probably not be used as an argument one way or the other : they're just plain warped. I would judicially kill for premeditation... but then I think of people who have been abused over a long time who finally decide to free themselves of their abuser by killing them.... Terrorists : for the chop. Killers 'for gain': for the chop. Child killers: for the chop ( by the way - child abusers should get life, and it should mean life: their victims get life, afterall ) Psychopathic killers (but aren't they all ?): for the chop. 'Accidental' killers: if you go tooled up it was with the expectation of having to use the weapon, so... for the chop.
The judicial system makes mistakes, and is, on occasion, capable of being downright malicious. There would have to be a system of appeals, as iron clad as is possible, to establish, beyond doubt - not just reasonable doubt - a person's deserving of the death penalty. It would be time consuming and expensive, but who ever claimed that Justice was cheap?
It is hard being a broken hearted liberal.

[mroz]

I've read a fair chunk of this thread & inbetween the expected insults have failed to notice anyone raise the issue of the impact upon society of the death penalty.

I'm not talking about the rights of killing people, of the effectiveness as punishment or deterent. I don't need to go that far to find an objection to the death penalty. For me it is enough that living within a society which sanctions killing of its own citizens will brutalise that society. That cost imo outweighs any benefits.

[JPreston]

Funnily enough JPreston, if you read back this thread had no animosity before you arrived with your facetious, ridiculing, insulting posting style

Son, I will get some sense out you yet.

Describing your idea that any state employee serving the public merits greater legal protection than everyone else as "extreme marxist communist" is neither insulting, nor ridiculing, nor (more to the point) inaccurate. Ditto the description of your call to outlaw knife ownership as 'idiocy' - sorry, but it is!

"Shariah law" in the context of my post describes quite concisely a legal system based entirely on the dictates of a self-appointed and grossly unqualified individual, being designed to express overly-simplistic principles that are held to be set in stone, is characterised by brutal and theatrical punishment, and of which no objective examination will be permitted. I don't know why you interpret that as a personal affront; it's a phrase I often use at work when something has to be done in a particular way "because I say so".

But yes I'll put my hand up to the 'retarded' comment (although note it was only in the abstract third person sense, and not directed to anyone in particular). I should have said 'a hypocrite' instead.

And all the while I've had in return:

a pompous nitwit on a computer forum can go and ####....you're too stupid....idiots like you....Do you risk your life daily for others or scan object's barcodes?......You must feel stupid.....You're not very smart at all, are you?.....the famous JPreston picking apart a logical idea with stupidity.....you're not the brightest of energy saving bulbs.....you're being stupid....you are as stupid as I earlier pointed to.....

The quote I stated was:
IIRC - In the states, Police Dogs have the same legal protection as officers - ie you kill one, you'll be on trial for murder.

And I agree with that.

Does it make any difference to you at all - even a teeny bit - that that simply is not the case? If not, why not? You can't just make something up and say "see, I can invent something and say they do it in america, so it must be a good idea, so I'm right".

But that aside, can you even imagine the implications of that law? How would it go down in urban L.A. were a man to be executed for killing a dog, in a city where every year 100s (1000s?) of murders receive only a cursory investigation? What does that say about how highly society values its poorest members? Does this help, or hinder policing the community in future? Do you see how any of that even matters?

16k, (more in London) is a decent wage for walking around the streets

The day you do a job that pays £16k and requires you to wear a stab vest, is the day you can begin to insult and ridicule PCSOs. Typical short-sighted tory attitude right there; police are there to supervise and enforce and certainly not to serve or engage with the community. And you still avoid my question; do they or do they not get this increased protection, same as normal PCs under the legal system that you are so humbly and consistently writing down on the internet equivalent of the back of a fag packet? If they dont, why not? If they do, why do you respect them less even than police dogs?

...the power [to execute] is there, if the judge/jury decides the person is a sufficient threat to the public (and anyone who can murder an animal [for non humane/farm reasons] is capable of doing it to humans. I recall reading about a few murderers who started with Animals first).

So now it's killing Police, NHS, Fire service and any animal at all that is punishable by death? Because yes, anyone who would intentionally kill an animal must be really nasty, very possibly a psychopath and it's only a matter of time before they kill a human. Well, except for fox-hunters, hare-coursers, pheasant-shooters and the like obviously. Can you not see how you're just making your opinions up as you go along, and they aren't making any sense?

[hospital cleaners; NHS vs contracted out]...Exactly the same. Police Officers on Duty, Nurses and Doctors on Duty, and Firemen on Duty, would have the protection their job deserves.

Again, you avoid giving an answer. You have said that previously that NHS staff get the increased protection, so why don't you bite the bullet and say "Yes, killing the contracted-out cleaner is a lesser crime than killing the NHS employed cleaner". All I'm showing that your entire premise depends on being able to draw clear divisions between who is 'worthy' and who is not. But it's impossible, isn't it? So how can you still maintain this completely unworkable position?

....Bear in mind, the severity of a murder already is dependant on the circumstance in which a murder is committed. Surely, by your logic thus far, all murder is murder, and killing a baby is the same as killing somebody in a street fight.

Is it so hard for you to accept that some murders are more heinous than others?

Ah OK here it is my language at fault. More or less heinous certainly, but certainly the victim's job makes no difference at all to the punishment. Otherwise we say, "The Ipswich murders were only of prostitutes, so five years only for each of them...the Soham girls - execution, twice!" and so on. It would be a sick, sick society to have such laws. I think the American South 100 years ago had differing tariffs for rape according to the race of the victim....that is certainly not a step forward.

...[2]Already answered.

No you didn't! But as above, so as not to contradict your earlier statements about NHS employees you would have to say "yes it is a lesser crime". Or you know, you could admit where you are wrong. ..

...[3, canine employment]... I'd expect the full force of the law to be applied if somebody killed my Aunt's guide dog. Police Dogs are representative of the Police Force, and the Police Force should not be attacked in any circumstances, and the law should be able to scare people off doing so.

OK, but dogs aren't employed, are they? A dog is neither on-duty or off-duty, is it? How could your law make a meaningful distinction?

Incidentally, on the BBC site a while ago there was a guy convicted of 'retiring' 1000s of racing greyhounds with a bolt gun and piling them up in his field. He got an insanely lenient sentence, IIRC just a fine and one which amounted to less in value than he had charged for killing the dogs. So, the full force of the law would be shamefully weak for killing aunty's guide dog (who incidentally, is not employed by the NHS). Should it be stricter? Yes...but death? Come on, be serious.

...[4]...Equal.

No. That flatly contradicts your position throughout this thread. According to you, killing cop > killing civilian. Killing police dog = killing cop. Therfore by transitivity, killing police dog > killing civilian. Do you consider your statements should be subject to any standard of logic, at all?

...[5]..A silly example explained earlier.

But again no answer. Yes, no, what? According to you, the hospital clerk (being employed by the NHS) is more highly valued then anyone else in my list. But I would say that murdering a judge is at the very least an equal, if not a greater attack on our society. Or murdering an MP. Isn't it? So why punish their murders less harshly than the clerk? Again, you can't draw the line consistently.

...[6]...Yes. 200%. Attacking a working nurse is the lowest of the low, and people, of that mentality should be harshly punished.

No, because "more severe than is standard, as standard" is an oxymoron. The sofa isn't really any cheaper, if it is on sale every day of the year. And anyway, if she works at a BUPA hospital she doesn't even get your additional protection!

..[7, knife ownership]...Now you're being stupid. It was, and is perfectly obvious what I was getting at how it would be done, unless you are as stupid as I earlier pointed to. But instead you decide to take the p*ss. Shock.

Well, ROFLCOPTERS. You backtrack to the position that we were in, before your rant about what new laws are needed...as I pointed out, no new laws are needed. So why did you even bring up the subject?

...[10]....Again, this isn't hard to understand....irrefutable evidence....This isn't hard to understand.

There's no such thing as irrefutable evidence. Either by mistake or maliciousness, people are misidentified, memories are distorted, forensic results are mixed up and samples contaminated. So - again - your distinction is impossible to implement. Why don't you think this is a problem? Do you understand that judges don't make any assessment of guilt - only juries do? So how can a judge say when someone is definitely guilty or not? The jury reaches a verdict, the judge takes that as fact and sentences according to the tariff. There is no room in this process for judicial mind-reading or second-guessing.

If an eye witness watches somebody commit the crime. CCTV also, the Police then arrest him/her at the scene, with the murder weapon, and DNA confirms this - I'd say this is a certainty - wouldn't you?

Not a certainty of course (but very likely I'd find guilty). What if you have your list, but no weapon - still a certainty? What if there were another CCTV camera showing the same guy - even more of a certainty? No DNA evidence but one more witness? There's no such thing as a certainty.

...unfortunately for you, my ideas are not akin to "Sharia law" but simple, common sense ideas that the general public would agree to. And you hate that, don't you?

If your ideas were simple, or common sense, or even agreeable, why do you think I would hate that? Surely I would agree with them, no? Cui bono?

Your ideas are unworkable, arbitary, ill-considered and worst of all they aren't even consistent from one post to the next.

[JPreston]

I've read a fair chunk of this thread & inbetween the expected insults have failed to notice anyone raise the issue of the impact upon society of the death penalty.

I'm not talking about the rights of killing people, of the effectiveness as punishment or deterent. I don't need to go that far to find an objection to the death penalty. For me it is enough that living within a society which sanctions killing of its own citizens will brutalise that society. That cost imo outweighs any benefits.

That's a very, very good argument against the death penalty

I think my favourite 'theoretical' argument against the death penalty is similar; it abrogates any responsibility of society to address the cause of criminality. I.e. it reduces the problem of crime to a level of childish simplicity; the idea that if we could eradicate the criminal then we will eradicate crime.

Whereas really, it just diverts attention to the symptom not the disease. The lazy misconception is that if we are already killing criminals, then surely we are doing all we can to prevent crime.....aren't we? This is shown in comments above like "who knows what criminals think anyway" that aim to set aside scapegoats for society, criminals as a race apart - they think just like everyone else, and we are all criminals to varying degrees!

I think the pragmatic arguments against the death penalty are also insurmountable. For example in Iran, homosexuality is a crime punishable by death - often I believe by hanging from construction cranes, just to titilate any Daily Heil readers. That's the law, in Iran. So who do we get to dictate which crimes are capital, and which are not? Not the government of Iran, and certainly not bazzlad. Maybe we have a text vote like Big Brother? I'm pretty sure it's impossible to please everyone. The only person who I could trust to administer the death penalty is me...I'm not squeamish, but I am busy....and even then we cannot avoid the theoretical arguments (brutalisation of those with an impressionable mental disposition, and absolving society of the duty to remedy the causes of criminality).

The other thing that I am surprised no-one has mentioned, is that the severity of punishment is only one factor in deterring crime, and a not very major one at that. IIRC about a year ago, the fixed penalty for speeding doubled from £30 to £60. Did we all stop speeding? Of course not. Even though the punishment doubled, we know we only extremely rarely get caught, so we behave exactly as before. The harsher punishment doesn't have any effect on the level of crime at all, the probability of detection is all that really matters. If I think I'm going to get away with a carefully planned murder, it doesn't make any difference what the punishment is because I don't believe I'll ever face it. Conversely, I'm no more likely to stab someone in public in a violent rage (a very detectable murder) because I'll only face a life sentence, as opposed to death.

[Brucelles]

I've been a life long opponent of the death penalty; that is , a 'reasoning' life long opponent. Perhaps it's hardening of the arteries or that I am increasingly aware of the fact that this little land, rather like the rest of the occupied world, is getting very crowded, whichever... it IS time for the return of the death penalty in this country.
Whether or not it should be occupation specific, I don't know. The example of the U S of A should probably not be used as an argument one way or the other : they're just plain warped. I would judicially kill for premeditation... but then I think of people who have been abused over a long time who finally decide to free themselves of their abuser by killing them.... Terrorists : for the chop. Killers 'for gain': for the chop. Child killers: for the chop ( by the way - child abusers should get life, and it should mean life: their victims get life, afterall ) Psychopathic killers (but aren't they all ?): for the chop. 'Accidental' killers: if you go tooled up it was with the expectation of having to use the weapon, so... for the chop.

Don't ever argue with my daughter, she'd slaughter you.

I have had the argument "Is there ever a right time to stamp on kittens?" with my daughter, starting from the position that there is not, and changing my mind. I am certainly not going to go along with a statement like "Terrorists : for the chop". Sure, real terrorists, who actually plan to kill lots of innocents deserve death, but there are loads of classes of people categorised by the American Government as terrorists who are nothing of the sort. Imagine being a Brazilian handyman on the tube. Strictly speaking, the little old Belgian lady in my street with the blind dog, who was tortured by the Germans for stashing weapons during WWII was a terrorist. I'm not going to kill her, and I don't think she deserves it, although her actions were intended to lead to deaths. Black and white becomes very quickly grey when you start talking about killing people.

This is my problem with the DP. I don't trust my government any longer. Before Tony I was reasonably comfortable that the government meant well, but now I am not. I certainly wouldn't want them to have the power of life and death for British citizens handed to them.

The previously stated question about "would you be willing to be the one in a million..." etc. is an interesting one. With those odds I might be willing to take a risk, but I wonder if those are the odds. The recent spate of 'criminals' being released in Texas following a review of the DNA evidence implies to me that the odds are way worse than that. I wonder if they are more like 1:100.

I recommend this link. It's obviously biased against judicial killing, but still pretty even-handed.

And finally

I've read a fair chunk of this thread & inbetween the expected insults have failed to notice anyone raise the issue of the impact upon society of the death penalty.

Has anyone noticed this with those states that do a lot of state-sponored killing? The main one I know well is Israel, whose various state killing-mechanisms claim several hundreds per year. It is perfectly acceptable to many (perhaps even most) Israelis when a little girl is left orphaned and paralysed by a missile fired at a 'terrorist' (in quotes because I don't know, he may have been) that kills her whole family. Similarly very few deaths of Palestinians, even children, caused by the IDF are even investigated. Do we really want to become that inured to death? I know I wouldn't want to be a part of a society so sick that it doesn't even recognise it's own serious sickness.

[mroz]

/Snip quoted pro DP argument

Don't ever argue with my daughter, she'd slaughter you.

/Snip anti DP exposition

And thereby lose the argument

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Rave]

Has anyone noticed this with those states that do a lot of state-sponored killing? The main one I know well is Israel, whose various state killing-mechanisms claim several hundreds per year. It is perfectly acceptable to many (perhaps even most) Israelis when a little girl is left orphaned and paralysed by a missile fired at a 'terrorist' (in quotes because I don't know, he may have been) that kills her whole family. Similarly very few deaths of Palestinians, even children, caused by the IDF are even investigated. Do we really want to become that inured to death? I know I wouldn't want to be a part of a society so sick that it doesn't even recognise it's own serious sickness.

What's your answer then? Should Israel simpy shrug it off when Hezbollah fire artillery rockets into their civilain areas? Or simply allow them to capture a couple of their soldiers in the odd cross-border raid?

Was, IMO, Ehud Olmert's reaction to the soldier kidnapping incident a bit extreme? Yes, TBH. But does Israel have an absolute right to defend its borders from encroachment, and its people from random death at the hands of terrorists? Yes, and then some.

Sorry, but calling Israel's defense of its people 'state sponsored killing' is willful idiocy in the extreme. The Sabra and Shatila Massacre was, finer points of jurisdicion aside, state sponsored killing. The hunting down and killing of Nazi war criminals, and all but one of the Munich terrorists, unquestionably was state sponsored killing- but I can't get particularly worked up about it, even though morally I think it was wrong. Attacking the terrorists who actively seek to destroy their nation- and by extension, the Jewish people? Give me a break.

The suicide bombers partaking in the 'second intifada' deliberately targeted civilians- typically young civilians, at nightclubs, cafes, pizza bars etc. Israel specifically targets the sponsors of such terrorism, who make a point of surrounding themselves with civilians wherever they go, so that they can't be killed without there being civilian casualties.

It really gets on my wick when Israel is unquestioningly painted as the bad guy without any thought to the complexities of the situation. Please remember that a) the Israeli constitution does not commit it to the destruction of any other state, unlike (at various points in time) most of its neighbours and near neighbours and b) that 16% of Israel's population are Arabs, and they have full citizenship and voting rights under its system pf proportional representation.

[Sinizter]

Clicking on the link for page three keeps returning me to page 2 ... Anyone know whats happening ?

Edit - even this post turned up of page 2 ... so maybe there isnt a page three ... yet the link is there.

[mroz]

Clicking on the link for page three keeps returning me to page 2 ... Anyone know whats happening ?

Edit - even this post turned up of page 2 ... so maybe there isnt a page three ... yet the link is there.

The situation you describe is due to a bug in vBulletin, but don't worry - you're right that the last mystery page doesn't actually exist.