[Mike]

Just splitting this off from the police questions topic:

I don't agree with it, not because I don't think some people who *are* guilty of some crimes would be better off removed from this planet, but rather because of the many convictions which have since been found to be wrong, and which would have previously attracted the death penalty.

I quoted the recent George Kelly case as an example.

Halevan replied by saying that the conviction was rules as unsafe, and they still don't know who did it, but that's precisely my point - if there's any doubt as to who did do it, you can't go killing people just because it *might* have been them.

Opinions please....

[Moon Maiden]

I um and ah over this one. You cannot disagree that the current punishment system for people who HAVE committed awful crimes is a practical joke!!!
For some of these people there is no 'reform'.

My personal example is this. When I was working in Crawley (1999) I was advised NEVER to be on my own in the office with a particular worker. The company were obliged to give him a job, but he had just been released after committing murder and rape. :shock:

Needless to say I was NEVER left alone with him. Last year there was a story in the newspaper detailing the attempted murder and assult of a young female whilst with her boyfriend. He attacked them both but they escaped. Guess who was pictured as the guilty party???

Now that isn't justice either for the person he orginally murdered NOR the two people who he attempted to kill the second time round.

I would feel a lot better knowing that those who seek to harm and cause a trouble in our soceity were either permantly removed or at least being punished - which at the moment they are not.

Moon Maiden

[Mike]

I would argue that a true life-term is a worse punishment than death, but that's a different issue.

There are plenty of criminals who have committed attrocities but have later been rehabilitated back into society. However, there are some prisoners who will never be let out because they will always be a threat to to others.

In any case, I think the death penalty is inappropriate as there is always a slim chance that the wrong person has been committed.

[steelblade]

I think the death penalty should be used in some cases.

Rapists, child abusers and some murderers should be sentenced to death. But, only if DNA evidence is found and the conviction is 100% safe. In this day and age it should be possible to remove any doubt, with the use of forensics etc...

I don't believe rapists and peadophiles etc..can ever be rehabilitated, they are to far gone so to speak. What they do is just barbaric.

[Mike]

The problem is the 100% bit.

Fingerprints used to be thougth foolproof and unique - this has since been shown not to be the case.

There are people who have been convicted using dna evidence in the past who, as the technology has been refined, have now been released as it's been realised that the old technology was inadequate.

It is dangerous to assume a technology is mature when somebody's life is at stake.

There are many cases of paedophiles, etc being succesfully reformed, but of course, this doesn't apply to everyone.

[max]

I have a friend who is a psychologist who is against the death penalty for a reason I hadn't given any thought to. Their ambition is to study the psychology of serial rapists/murderers and to be able to prevent future rapes/murders by identifying in advance potential r/ms.

Lock them up for life by all means but let's use them to find out what has caused this aberration.

I'm against the death penalty for many reasons but mostly because you can't say sorry.

[Lickszz]

I am Pro Death Penalty. I think certain crimes warrant the death penalty. In this day and age we have DNA, which is as good as it gets.

An interesting thing is today a court overturned George Kelly's conviction for shooting a man to death while committing a burglary, some 53 years after he had already been hanged. The Court of Appeal overturned the conviction, citing evidence unearthed in police files in 1991 that was not presented in the original trial. The document, a 1949 statement to Liverpool police, identified another man as admitting to the murder.

[t020]

I'm not sure whether its a good or bad idea really. I have to say though, that people who have killed others or violently raped others simply don't have the RIGHT to be reformed and given a second chance into society. Whether they are deprived of this via the death penalty or a life sentence that MEANS life is where I am undecided. Whilst I would have no qualms with murderers being sentenced to death, I am concerned about innocent people being found guilty and then being killed. Even with DNA, a person can be set up to look as though they did something if someone hated them enough.

[Lickszz]

Originally posted by "t020"

I'm not sure whether its a good or bad idea really. I have to say though, that people who have killed others or violently raped others simply don't have the RIGHT to be reformed and given a second chance into society. Whether they are deprived of this via the death penalty or a life sentence that MEANS life is where I am undecided. Whilst I would have no qualms with murderers being sentenced to death, I am concerned about innocent people being found guilty and then being killed. Even with DNA, a person can be set up to look as though they did something if someone hated them enough.

True, people can be set up but that's an entirely seperate issue. For instance some people confess to crimes they haven't committed, perhaps the police put too much heat on them. Take Ian Huntley for example, now if it turns out that he is guilty then I would be in favour of Death Penalty for him. As it stands we do not know the evidence as of yet, but already he is seen as been a guilty man, how on earth can he ever hope of receiving a fair trial? The fact that he has tried to commit suicide means in some peoples eyes that he is trying to take the easy way out and therefore must be guilty, not even considering that he feels he could have been fitted up for the crime and feels he doesn't stand any chance of a fair trial and doesn't want to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

[Mike]

Originally posted by "Lickszz"

In this day and age we have DNA, which is as good as it gets.

How do you know? That's what people thought ten years ago and since then, convictions based on DNA evidence have since been overturned as more recent technology has found them to be incorrect.

There's no way of telling whether this will happen again in the future.

[t020]

Even if DNA was 100% accurate and was matched to someone they could still have been set up. For example a hair could've been planted, skin cells, or blood, or any other bodily fluids. I'm not saying it would be easy but it would be by no means impossible if you knew someone and wanted to stitch them up. This really shows that you can't ever be 100% certain, which makes me think life sentencing, meaning LIFE, would be more effective. Furthermore the very fact that Huntley tried to kill himself supports the argument that death is more appealing than a life long sentence, so surely this is a more effective punishment anyway, and if mistakes have been made, they can at least in part be rectified at a later date?

[Lickszz]

Originally posted by "Mike"

How do you know? That's what people thought ten years ago and since then, convictions based on DNA evidence have since been overturned as more recent technology has found them to be incorrect.

There's no way of telling whether this will happen again in the future.

Because it's considered the biggest scientific breakthrough in crime ever. Statistics speak for themselves, No 2 DNA's same. DNA has solved many crimes and gained convictions for crimes that would have been left unsolved often with the guilty person walking free. The conclusive evidence that DNA provides is almost infallible. Tampering of evidence is always a possibilty but will it ever be possible to totally eradicate that? I think not.

[Lickszz]

Originally posted by "t020"

Even if DNA was 100% accurate and was matched to someone they could still have been set up. For example a hair could've been planted, skin cells, or blood, or any other bodily fluids. I'm not saying it would be easy but it would be by no means impossible if you knew someone and wanted to stitch them up. This really shows that you can't ever be 100% certain, which makes me think life sentencing, meaning LIFE, would be more effective. Furthermore the very fact that Huntley tried to kill himself supports the argument that death is more appealing than a life long sentence, so surely this is a more effective punishment anyway, and if mistakes have been made, they can at least in part be rectified at a later date?

It's just Life long sentences may not be more appealing for any victims families.

[Mike]

Originally posted by "Lickszz"

Because it's considered the biggest scientific breakthrough in crime ever. Statistics speak for themselves, No 2 DNA's same.

As you've just said - almost. Whilst there is still a doubt then you can't just go round killing people.
I know that DNA testing has helped many crimes but it's still an emerging technology.

As I've said twice already, there were people who were convicted using early DNA testing technology who have since been freed as the technology has advanced further and it was realised that the original testing methods were incorrect. As it's still a technology that is being developed and refined, there is no way that you can say that that situation won't arise again.

[Phanerothyme]

A solution would be to apply natural justice.
If an executed man is posthumously pardoned, then the judge that handed that sentence down owes the family of the deceased one life.

The executed person's remaining famliy should then have the right to pass a death sentence on the Judge or a surviving relative.

Judges would then think a little more carefully before handing down death sentences.

The death penalty is only acceptable if you believe that executing innocent people is a price worth paying justice.

in other words, if you were innocent and incorrectly convicted for a crime which carried the death penalty, you would accept your sentence being carried out to further the greater good.

I for one do not.

[Lickszz]

Originally posted by "Phanerothyme"

A solution would be to apply natural justice.
If an executed man is posthumously pardoned, then the judge that handed that sentence down owes the family of the deceased one life.

The executed person's remaining famliy should then have the right to pass a death sentence on the Judge or a surviving relative.

Judges would then think a little more carefully before handing down death sentences.

The death penalty is only acceptable if you believe that executing innocent people is a price worth paying justice.

in other words, if you were innocent and incorrectly convicted for a crime which carried the death penalty, you would accept your sentence being carried out to further the greater good.

I for one do not.

Of Course giving such a sentence would require absolute concreate evidence with no doubt - beyond reasonable doubt would not be sufficient. I do believe that cases exist where there is no doubt about the outcome. They are probably rare though.

[Phanerothyme]

Originally posted by "Lickszz"

The conclusive evidence that DNA provides is almost infallible. Tampering of evidence is always a possibilty but will it ever be possible to totally eradicate that? I think not.

DNA evidence is very fallible. The science is good bt poorly understood by juries and is presented to them by expert witnesses, that then use unhelpful and spurious statements like
"the chances of anyone else matching the DNA are 60 million to one".

Which simply isn't true.

The evidence may be faultlessly obtained, but the interpretation of the evidence on behalf of the Jury is often lamentably bad.

Also, it is completely impossible to rule out contamination, so using DNA evidence can lengthen court cases whilst the investigation in court turns to the veracity of testing something invisible to the human eye and trying to establish where it came from.

DNA evidence is useful, but can only really be used in addition to other, more tangible evidence. It is not, as the police hoped, a magic bullet.

[Lickszz]

Originally posted by "Phanerothyme"

DNA evidence is very fallible. The science is good bt poorly understood by juries and is presented to them by expert witnesses, that then use unhelpful and spurious statements like
"the chances of anyone else matching the DNA are 60 million to one".

Which simply isn't true.

The evidence may be faultlessly obtained, but the interpretation of the evidence on behalf of the Jury is often lamentably bad.

Also, it is completely impossible to rule out contamination, so using DNA evidence can lengthen court cases whilst the investigation in court turns to the veracity of testing something invisible to the human eye and trying to establish where it came from.

DNA evidence is useful, but can only really be used in addition to other, more tangible evidence. It is not, as the police hoped, a magic bullet.

I am not totally convinced Phanerothyme. The very thing that DNA has been responsible for re-opening criminal cases, quashing verdicts. Lots of unsolved cases from many moons ago have only been solved through the emergence of DNA.

[Phanerothyme]

I don't doubt it, but that doesn't really address the issue.

If anyone here can explain to me exactly how DNA matching works in terms of criminal evidence, then I'd be really interested to hear.

I'm not a scientist, but I consider myself to have a good general understanding of science. Now if a geneticist were to explain to me exactly how DNA 'fingerprinting' (an ill chosen term if ever there was one) is carried out, I have no doubt that he would lose me completely after...

The huge genome is cut up with restriction enzymes to produce short, manageable DNA fragments. These bacterial enzymes recognize specific four to six base sequences and reliably cleave DNA at a specific base pair within this span. Cleaving human DNA with one of these enzymes breaks the chromosomes down into millions of differently sized DNA fragments ranging from 100 to more than 10,000 base pairs long.

which is when it starts to get densely technical.

This information then has to be imparted to a jury of people just like you and me, by an expert witness for either the prosecution or defence, although the should be impartial, often they are primed by the legal team.

So the evidence may even be infallible, but it is its interpretation on behalf of a jury that decides how the evidence affects the case.

In a similar vein, there are plans to make special non-jury financial courts because jurors cannot be expected to grasp the insane complications and tonnes of paper evidence often a hallmark of city fraud cases.

[Lickszz]

Your right and I could see a possibility where that would throw a jury into disorder if explained in such a fashion. I'd like to imagine that this would be broken down with detailed deciphering. It makes sense.