Is there a case for a death penalty?

GCU Flexible Demeanour

In 2001, Ireland voted in favour of a Constitutional ban on the death penalty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

Would people feel this ban is correct? Would a death penalty be appropriate if this crime was committed in Ireland?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/rapes-committed-with-impunity-218162.html

<...>Indian police charged six men who had been arrested in connection with the attack with murder, adding to accusations that they beat and gang raped the woman on a bus in New Delhi on Dec 16.

A police spokesman said the six suspects face the death penalty if convicted. <...>

Me_Grapes

Been a while since we've had an auld death penalty debate on here.....feel like we're overdue.

dollypet

Garda killers. For me its attacking the fabric of society. Kill a garda in the line of duty- not manslaughter but murdering a guard and I think death penalty should be an option.

Hilly Bill

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

RobbieTheRobber

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

In 2001, Ireland voted in favour of a Constitutional ban on the death penalty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

Would people feel this ban is correct? Would a death penalty be appropriate if this crime was committed in Ireland?

A murder ban is correct!

There is no justification for additional murder, especially not state perpetrated murder!

More importantly we should not use exceptional cases to make law.

carpejugulum

no because of miscarriage of justice

Mrmoe

I definitely think it should be brought back. There are certain crimes/people for which no punishment will suffice. I would include multiple murder & sexual assault to be included. It should be used very sparingly for only the very worst of crimes and individuals. Some people can not be rehabilitated, detered nor will a life time in jail be a suitable punishment for some people.

kneemos

Mrmoe wrote: »

I definitely think it should be brought back. There are certain crimes/people for which no punishment will suffice. I would include multiple murder & sexual assault to be included. It should be used very sparingly for only the very worst of crimes and individuals. Some people can not be rehabilitated, detered nor will a life time in jail be a suitable punishment for some people.

I think I'd prefer the death penalty to a lifetime in jail.

Son Of A Vidic

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Is there a case for a death penalty?

For some of the muppets in the Daíl?..........Yes, absolutely.

Death and Taxes

No.
Various reasons including morally against it, risk of its misuse, the fact that it does not deter others, indeed "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" springs to mind.
Finally , I think we have had quite enough needless killing on this Island since we declared independence!

keithclancy

Meh ... If they had some sort of way to read peoples minds then maybe.

Problem is that the Justice system makes mistakes and its not easy to correct someone being dead.

Me_Grapes

I believe the right to life should not be not a guaranteed right, it should be a qualified right......the simple caveat being do not deliberetly or intentionally end the life of another. If you do, you forfeit your right to life, and deserve to be sentenced to death.

However, I do not want to live in a country where it is possible to be put to death on account of a miscarrige of justice.

Grayson

Well, the death penality doesn't act as a deterrant. It doesn't rehablitate. It generally costs more.

krudler

Hilly Bill wrote: »

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

Except for the one guy left with one eye, how's the last blind guy gonna take the eye of the last guy with one left?

I love when movie quotes can be applied to real life.

Benny_Cake

On a practical level, the only possible justification I could see for the death penalty would be if for some reason it was impossible to protect society from the guilty party by any other method. In reality, I don't think this arises in today's world so capital punishment should be left in the past.

o1s1n

Hilly Bill wrote: »

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

No it won't. It'll just leave a lot of people with only one eye.

It should really be -

'An eye for an eye will only cause a reduction in depth perception'

kneemos

o1s1n wrote: »

No it won't. It'll just leave a lot of people with only one eye.

It should really be -

'An eye for an eye will only cause a reduction in depth perception'

So a world full of clumsy people then?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Always love the way pro-death peantly people state they want it back and the crimes they want it back for but never why they think it will work or what it will achieve.

faceman

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

In 2001, Ireland voted in favour of a Constitutional ban on the death penalty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

Would people feel this ban is correct? Would a death penalty be appropriate if this crime was committed in Ireland?

You've answered your question there.

There is never justification for the death penalty.

RobbieTheRobber

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Always love the way pro-death peantly people state they want it back and the crimes they want it back for but never why they think it will work or what it will achieve.

Or how to deal with the problems of the state (mistakenly) killing innocent people!

When the state kills a person who is incorrectly found guilty for murder and posthumously found innocent of that crime, who now pays the penalty?

Do we hang the judges, the prosecution, the police?

kneemos

The thing I could never understand about the death penalty is why they make it so hard,electrocution,gassing even leathal injection seems to drawn out and made as difficult as possible,bring your dog to the vet and it's one injection,falls asleep and it's over,why can't they do this for people?I'd prefer the firing squad or beheading to the present barbaric methods.

TheDoc

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Always love the way pro-death peantly people state they want it back and the crimes they want it back for but never why they think it will work or what it will achieve.

Surely its obvious

As a massive deter for serious crimes. For anyone thinking of committing a serious crime, to have to think twice before doing it.

Am I pro death penalty personally? I don't think I fall on either side really, I can see the points from both. I wouldn't really give a **** about a murderer, rapist or paedophile being sentenced to death, I'd read it or hear about it and give a nod of approval.

Although for someone to be sentenced and there for be a mistake made, interesting one.

I'm sure the inevitable would be , if a death penalty was re-introduced, the standard of our justice system would have to improve accordingly.

Solair

We're required to ban it as members of the Council of Europe and the EU anyway.

It's not something that's ever likely to be even debated. Reintroducing it would also be highly unlikely to pass a referendum here.

Bigger issue here is weak sentencing within the existing law!

thomasj

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

In 2001, Ireland voted in favour of a Constitutional ban on the death penalty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

Would people feel this ban is correct? Would a death penalty be appropriate if this crime was committed in Ireland?

3 things:

1. death penalty could argubly be a "quick way out" for the criminal, why not make them suffer over a long period of time?

2. At what stage are you 100% satisfied that someone commited the crime that warrents the death penalty?

3. The risk that circumstancial evidence (ie not conclusive) may decide the faith of someone and may wrongly convict them

Garda killers. For me its attacking the fabric of society. Kill a garda in the line of duty- not manslaughter but murdering a guard and I think death penalty should be an option.

One of the last men peter pringle who was sentenced the death (by hanging) over the murder of a member of the garda force had his conviction quashed as it was "unsafe and unsatisfactory" if it wasn't for the decision weeks later to change the death penalty decision to life imprisonment he could have been executed for something he did not do.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazine/2012/0121/1224310486659.html

Death and Taxes

dollypet wrote: »

Garda killers. For me its attacking the fabric of society. Kill a garda in the line of duty- not manslaughter but murdering a guard and I think death penalty should be an option.

They usually get promoted, remember Abbeylara!

LordSutch

Would be tempted to vote for the death penalty after hearing about murders like the one on Christmas eve in Sheffield-England. Sixty eight year old pensioner walks from his house towards the local Church to play the organ at midnight Mass, and on his route he gets his head brutally smashed in and dies! Full story here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/i-have-not-stopped-crying-for-him-and-i-know-you-have-not-stopped-either-says-devastated-widow-after-evil-murder-of-church-organist-alan-greaves-on-christmas-eve-8433414.html

Knee-jerk reaction is rage and anger, bring in the death penalty for the murderer I say, providing the evidence is watertight (and preferably with a confession). When I am not in knee-jerk mode then maybe a life (meaning full term life) sentence would be a better option?

Real Life

i dont see any way the death penalty can be justified

Solair

Life slopping out in Mountjoy is probably worse!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

TheDoc wrote: »

Surely its obvious

As a massive deter for serious crimes. For anyone thinking of committing a serious crime, to have to think twice before doing it.

Do they? In states where they have the death penalty, they also have crime. usually on similar levels.

I'm sure the inevitable would be , if a death penalty was re-introduced, the standard of our justice system would have to improve accordingly.

Hasn't in other countries.

So again: how is this supposed to work here, when it hasn't worked in other places?

Gyalist

LordSutch wrote: »

Knee-jerk reaction is rage and anger, bring in the death penalty for the murderer I say, providing the evidence is watertight (and preferably with a confession). When I am not in knee-jerk mode then maybe a life (meaning full term life) sentence would be a better option?

Confession is probably the most unsafe evidence that there is. Even without torturing the suspect it is very easy to get them to admit to a crime

Solair

Despite the emotive response, Ireland's murder rates are actually quite low. They're drastically lower than the United States and in line with Northern Europe.

The US' death penalty certainly doesn't seem to work as a deterrent.

I personally think it just reduces justice to some medieval style eye for an eye vengeance system and makes for a brutal society.

I think Ireland was a way nastier place in the 19th century when the death penalty was in fashion.

juan.kerr

I have always thought that a cost benefit analysis is the most important thing in death penalty debate.

If we have a recidivist serving a 30 year sentence without parole for example, is it cheaper to imprison him for that length of time, or to execute him within a year?

Note: A key requirement must be that the sentence is carried out in a reasonable timeframe e.g. within 6 months of conviction, and that there aren't a myriad of appeal processes allowed. It shouldn't be allowed to drag on for decades since that negates the savings.

I sometimes wonder why people with hundreds of convictions shouldn't be executed. They contribute nothing to society so why do we tolerate them?

RobbieTheRobber

Gyalist wrote: »

Confession is probably the most unsafe evidence that there is. Even without torturing the suspect it is very easy to get them to admit to a crime

Or to get a mentally unstable suspect to confess to pretty much anything!

catallus

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

Or how to deal with the problems of the state (mistakenly) killing innocent people!

When the state kills a person who is incorrectly found guilty for murder and posthumously found innocent of that crime, who now pays the penalty?

Do we hang the judges, the prosecution, the police?

Obviously in that case it should be the Defence Counsel who should be killed for incompetence.

juan.kerr

Before we go off on a tangent, how many murder convictions have ever been quashed in Ireland due to innocence?

RobbieTheRobber

catallus wrote: »

Obviously in that case it should be the Defence Counsel who should be killed for incompetence.

Why not the Garda who presented the counsel with the evidence?

catallus

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

Why not the Garda who presented the counsel with the evidence?

The Garda would be carrying out his duty as required and expected, nothing wrong with that? The defence would be incompetent.

It makes me wonder about all these quashed convictions, when the case is reviewed it often shows up profound mistakes by the defence in doing their job.

Hippies!

Hilly Bill wrote: »

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

No it doesn't, if a person woke up one morning to find their eye missing and lets say I was arrested for eye theft and the law of the land decided that I must give them one of my eyes as punishment....who takes the laws eye? Nobody. It isn't a big hysteria of eye theft where everybody wakes up one morning to find everyone else has stolen everybody elses eyes. That's what the law is for.

Do you feel safe walking down the streets nowadays knowing that at any moment a little fcuker of an eye thief could grab your eye and make off with it? and be able to steal many more eyes when he/shes done their 2 days in the joy for it.

Take their eyes I say, it'll make it much harder for them to nab anyone elses and thus the world won't go blind.

o1s1n

I was always conflicted over this one. It's pretty plain to see that the death penalty has not acted as a deterrent in many US states. And on the flip side, other forms of rehabilitation for inmates have worked really well in other countries.

However, I know that if someone did something truely awful to one of my family memebers I'd want to see them fry.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Just in passing, I'd say the prospect of wrongful conviction is probably acute in that Indian case. Six people may well be convicted, but we'll never know if they are just the "usual suspects" fitted up to get past the controversy. It's a bit of a tragedy - the death penalty is probably banned in the jurisdictions that are less likely to misconvict in the first place.

faceman wrote: »

You've answered your question there.

There is never justification for the death penalty.

Just to clarify - and this is really a half pedantic point - presumably, at the same time, we'd agree that sometimes the State needs to use lethal force. For the sake of argument, an armed Garda might need to shoot someone who seemed to be posing an immediate threat to the public, or a soldier on UN service might similarly need to respond to an assault.

The slight complication to that is (assuming you accept that point), it leaves us saying that we accept that a Garda or soldier can kill someone, even if they subsequently turned out to be mistaken. On the other hand, we ban any possibility that a judge, following balanced consideration of evidence including the case of the perpetrator, might see that the best way of securing public safety would be imposition of a death penalty.

Death and Taxes

juan.kerr wrote: »

Before we go off on a tangent, how many murder convictions have ever been quashed in Ireland due to innocence?

Last one I remember offhand was John Diver, wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, google it.
His original conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court and he was aquitted in a new trial. Spent a long time in prison for something he never did.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/john-diver-found-not-guilty-of-wifes-murder-267476.html

seamus

As said above, the death penalty doesn't actually work as a deterrent and it's too easy to make a mistake, so there's no good reason to have it.

That said, I reckon suicide should be available as an option for anyone convicted of a capital crime.

juan.kerr

WileyCoyote wrote: »

Last one I remember offhand was John Diver, wrongly convicted of murdering his wife, google it.

That's one case, are there many more? As I stated in my post there would be a period of 6 months (or up to a year) to get through the appeals processes, which should catch cases like this.

juan.kerr

seamus wrote: »

As said above, the death penalty doesn't actually work as a deterrent and it's too easy to make a mistake, so there's no good reason to have it.

That said, I reckon suicide should be available as an option for anyone convicted of a capital crime.

I'm less concerned about the deterrent, more the cost of locking the criminal up for years. One more waste of taxpayers money.

Death and Taxes

juan.kerr wrote: »

That's one case, are there many more? As I stated in my post there would be a period of 6 months (or up to a year) to get through the appeals processes, which should catch cases like this.

Wrong!
It took six years to right this wrong! Even then the Guards who framed him refused to re-open the investigation into his wifes murder.

juan.kerr

WileyCoyote wrote: »

Wrong!
It took six years to right this wrong! Even then the Guards who framed him refused to re-open the investigation into his wifes murder.

What's 'wrong'?

That 6 years could have easily been compressed into 6 months if the judicial system functioned correctly.

I don't think it's appropriate to discuss an individual case but I know what the following means:

After the verdict, a garda inspector said they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the murder.

From: http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0712/diverj.html

Death and Taxes

juan.kerr wrote: »

What's 'wrong'?

That 6 years could have easily been compressed into 6 months if the judicial system functioned correctly.

I don't think it's appropriate to discuss an individual case but I know what the following means:



From: http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0712/diverj.html

So they I , they framed an innocent man, but refused to admit it.

juan.kerr

WileyCoyote wrote: »

So they I , they framed an innocent man, but refused to admit it.

I'm happy to agree to disagree on that one.

NeVeR

There are times when i see something on the TV and i would say "Kill him" .. it's a heat of the moment thing.

I don't think killing people is the way to go.

But if found guilty of murder you should be locked up for a minimum of 30 years. No early release for good behavior ... nothing...

Make me sick when someone gets let out after a few years after committing a murder.

---

On another note Garda need better tools to convict people. Better DNA and finger print databases etc.

amen

That's one case, are there many more

I can't find a link but around 2000ish a drug addict confessed to killing two people and was charged and held. Turns out it wasn't him. The guy who killed the two people then drove to the west and killed/attempted to kill a priest.

An explanation for the confession by the person who didn't commit the murder explaining why the confession contained details of the murder was never provided.

Think the addict later died so no court case.

The whole corruption in Donegal. They involved drug/weapons. If there was a death penalty the corruption might never have come to light.

Micky Dolenz

Death penalty would certainly free up the prisons and save us a few quid.

Saying that, I like being from a state that no matter how bold I am they won't kill me.