Is it time to rethink the death penalty?

That still has resulted in innocent people being executed...

I don't agree with the death penalty either. But not for the same reason as Capt'n Midnight.

I just don't think the state should be executing people.

What you're suggesting has been tried in America.

The fundamental problem is that most of the people who commit crime are just as unlikely to see the benefit of labour in prison as they are outside of prison.

The death penalty offers a more humane solution for society. Why divert the limited resources of government to maintaining habitual offenders when we can free up these resource for the health system and education?

It's an absolutely horrendous case and utterly sickening, but I think the legal maxim that "hard cases make bad law" is very much applicable.

This state, in line with all of the other members of the Council of Europe, not just the EU, moved away from the death penalty.

When you look at it rationally, and look at murder and similarly serious crimes in places that have the death penalty, those rates are not lower. In the US they're actually far higher. So it clearly has no deterrent value. I've actually read articles theorising that it can have the opposite effect as people committing murder for example can also be quite fatalistic and see it as a quick way out vs very long term prison sentences and life imprisonment.

It's also debasing the state and basically dragging itself down to the level of a murderer itself. The moral high ground is somewhat lost when you say that someone has the right to life, except when they don't.

Then you've got the not insignificant risk that no legal system is perfect. Miscarriages of justice happen, including in murder cases, and you can pick out cases in various justicitions that would have attracted the death penalty in the US, but have turned out on new evidence and appeal to have been incorrect verdicts. You can't un-execute someone, so you can see how it's a problem.

If you take in a NI context, there are plenty of examples where people in the context of the troubles that would in a different time or jurisdiction have lead to capital punishment, and can you imagine the political implications of that?!

You have to ask yourself what you're doing - is it just satisfying some ancient notion of vengeance or justice?

While it's incredibly unlikely that Ireland would ever reintroduce the death penalty - it's not even remotely on the agenda and political opinion and public discourse is absolutely not going to suddenly do a 180º turn. Even if it were, doing so would likely result in an enormous clash with the Council of Europe and the European Union. Not having the death penalty is a rather fundamental principle universally accepted in those institutions at this point. You'd be looking at serious sanctions or being asked to leave. Not to mention a country doing so would no longer be able to use EU arrest warrants for serious crime, and would have significant issues with extradition etc.

It would have enormous implications for Ireland as a member of the EU - simply isn't even a point of discussion, and also for Northern Ireland as quasi-associated non-member with the ECHR baked into foundational aspects of law, and also for the UK, where you occasionally do get these debates, it's mostly tabloid bunkum, and as a member of the Council of Europe. It would suddenly be putting itself into the same category as Belerus, the only European country that still retains the death penalty.

Absolutely my position too. You don’t have to have any sympathy at all for some scumbag murderer to think that the State really should not be in the business of executing people. Life imprisonment, with no parole for especially heinous cases.