Two female police officers killed.

alfablue

disgruntledgoat wrote:

I have no personal experience of a capital crime, no. I like to think that in that terrible situation I would be able to stick by my beliefs but, like many such things, I've no way of saying.

That, to my mind, is one of the reasons why justice should be out of the hands of those affected by such crimes.

This is exactly right; victims or those close to them are not going to make objective judgements, that's why we favour the judiciary rather than the lynch mob in our society.

Cleat Eastwood

alfablue wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

I have no personal experience of a capital crime, no. I like to think that in that terrible situation I would be able to stick by my beliefs but, like many such things, I've no way of saying.

That, to my mind, is one of the reasons why justice should be out of the hands of those affected by such crimes.

This is exactly right; victims or those close to them are not going to make objective judgements, that's why we favour the judiciary rather than the lynch mob in our society.

Except when it comes to dropping bombs on innocent iraqi children - then its "come on lynch mob, we're off for a fight".

By the way who are these lynch mob? No ones ever defined who they are except a vague description of someone whos opinion differs from the status quo.

disgruntledgoat

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

disgruntledgoat wrote:

So you want to be able to lock people on no charge because there isn't enough evidence to charge them with something the police think they did?

Careful what you wish for...

The option was to detain him whilst police continued their investigations into whether he had shot a man dead in a pub. He was given bail. Whilst on bail he then murdered the father of the man he had killed in the pub - he went on the run. Whilst on the run he he lured and murdered 2 police women. Fearing he would then be targeted by the armed respsonse unit - the coward gave himself up.

Those chain of events would not have happened if bail had not been granted. 3 lives versus a couple of days locked in a cell. To me thats a no brainer.

Except they didn't have evidence to charge him with those murders, or detain him further. Otherwise they would have.

pb21

fatreg wrote:

I'm well aware my views are somewhat Draconian but crime shouldn't pay and until it doesn't it will still happen and if it happens afterwards well then thats evolution at work.

I dont think he is going to get any kind of payment for this crime?!

Also, are you suggesting there is a genetic link to committing crime?

Daz555

fatreg wrote:

You'll find crime in civilised Arab countries is very low. Ksa, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar to name but a few.

Civilised? :shock:

CambsNewbie

Well back at work last night saw the best of humanity and the worst..

Was stopped in the street by a lady who was nearly in tears wanting to express her sorrow and her admiration for the work police officers do.

Then had to deal with the usual nuisance youths who thought it would be funny to hide behind some bins and jump out as I arrived making various 'gansta' phrases and 'pop pop'... One of them 'if I had a gun you'd be dead, you get me? Innit.' me 'no if you had a gun you'd probably blown your fingers off. Now run home to mummy, Darren, that's a good boy, and pull your jeans up, I don't want to see your underwear. Thank you.'

natrix

One of the problems with bringing back the death penalty is what do you do about miscarriages of justice??

What if we'd hung the Guildford 4 or the Birmingham 6?? The police and the CPS are only human, they make mistakes like everybody else. If you lock up the wrong person you can let them out when the error is realised, but if you hang them.....................

fatreg

I believe the term beyond reasonable doubt comes into play.

Cleat Eastwood

natrix wrote:

One of the problems with bringing back the death penalty is what do you do about miscarriages of justice??

What if we'd hung the Guildford 4 or the Birmingham 6?? The police and the CPS are only human, they make mistakes like everybody else. If you lock up the wrong person you can let them out when the error is realised, but if you hang them.....................

But they were stitched up and victims of high level government conspiracy as were the shrewsbury two (all even numbers you notice). If the law were impartial such miscarriages wouldn't happen - in fact if we had anything like a free and open society such miscarriages of justice would be a thing of the past, but as in life the state has enemies and every judge has a price....nothing will change.

alfablue

fatreg wrote:

I believe the term beyond reasonable doubt comes into play.

What is beyond reasonable doubt? Is it 95% sure?

If you settle upon 95% sure, you are accepting that in 5% of cases you will have a wrongful conviction.

What about 99% sure? That reduces the risk of wrongful conviction to 1%. Problem is you reduce the chances of conviction drastically, and / or you increase the amount of evidence needed to gain a conviction (and therefore reducing the chances of conviction).

What about 100% sure? That sounds good doesn't it. Unfortunately that means you convict no one, ever, because we can never achieve this certainty (even DNA evidence is problematic).

Point is, if you introduce the death penalty you have to accept a certain proportion of the accused will be wrongfully convicted and killed. Fine when we get it right, but we WILL get it wrong. We may wrongfully kill 5 out of every 100 people who get the death penalty, for example, if we assume "beyond reasonable doubt" equals 95% certainty. Do we want to kill innocent people? Is that a price worth paying? What if it is you or your loved ones who are wrongfully killed by the state? Still happy?

Furhermore, the very fact that a conviction could result in the death penalty will make juries less likely to convict for fear of making a mistake; the consequence will inevitably be that more killers walk free. Is that a price worth paying?

Those are the logical objections, and I believe the death penalty argument is lost purely on that basis, but personally I find the whole concept of judicial killing is abhorant, and contrary to the aspirations of a civilised society that should comply with its own standards, i.e. killing is wrong (generally speaking; whole other can of worms when it comes to mercy killing/euthenasia/self defence/warfare arguemnts etc).

alfablue

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

natrix wrote:

One of the problems with bringing back the death penalty is what do you do about miscarriages of justice??

What if we'd hung the Guildford 4 or the Birmingham 6?? The police and the CPS are only human, they make mistakes like everybody else. If you lock up the wrong person you can let them out when the error is realised, but if you hang them.....................

But they were stitched up and victims of high level government conspiracy as were the shrewsbury two (all even numbers you notice). If the law were impartial such miscarriages wouldn't happen - in fact if we had anything like a free and open society such miscarriages of justice would be a thing of the past, but as in life the state has enemies and every judge has a price....nothing will change.

If you have justice, there will be miscarriages. There is never absolute knowledge / certainty / facts. Errors will always occur.

spen666

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

natrix wrote:

One of the problems with bringing back the death penalty is what do you do about miscarriages of justice??

What if we'd hung the Guildford 4 or the Birmingham 6?? The police and the CPS are only human, they make mistakes like everybody else. If you lock up the wrong person you can let them out when the error is realised, but if you hang them.....................

But they were stitched up and victims of high level government conspiracy as were the shrewsbury two (all even numbers you notice). If the law were impartial such miscarriages wouldn't happen - in fact if we had anything like a free and open society such miscarriages of justice would be a thing of the past, but as in life the state has enemies and every judge has a price....nothing will change.

Maguire 7
Cadiff 3
Stefan Kisko
Judith Ward

All these are odd numbers

capt_slog

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

But they were stitched up and victims of high level government conspiracy as were the shrewsbury two (all even numbers you notice). If the law were impartial such miscarriages wouldn't happen - in fact if we had anything like a free and open society such miscarriages of justice would be a thing of the past, but as in life the state has enemies and every judge has a price....nothing will change.

Sorry Cleat, you've lost me here. What's the point about even numbers?

Cleat Eastwood

shrews 2
guil 4
birm 6

like duh

spen666

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

shrews 2
guil 4
birm 6

like duh

Maguire 7
Cardiff 3
Stefan Kisko 1
Judith Ward 1

Like D'uh

Cleat Eastwood

spen666 wrote:

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

shrews 2
guil 4
birm 6

like duh

Maguire 7
Cardiff 3
Stefan Kisko 1
Judith Ward 1

Like D'uh

Like the previous pages only mentioned mentioned like the guildford and the birm 6...like thats what I was referring to...like is that ok with you?

Yellow Peril

alfablue wrote:

fatreg wrote:

I believe the term beyond reasonable doubt comes into play.

What is beyond reasonable doubt? Is it 95% sure?

If you settle upon 95% sure, you are accepting that in 5% of cases you will have a wrongful conviction.

What about 99% sure? That reduces the risk of wrongful conviction to 1%. Problem is you reduce the chances of conviction drastically, and / or you increase the amount of evidence needed to gain a conviction (and therefore reducing the chances of conviction).

What about 100% sure? That sounds good doesn't it. Unfortunately that means you convict no one, ever, because we can never achieve this certainty (even DNA evidence is problematic).
Point is, if you introduce the death penalty you have to accept a certain proportion of the accused will be wrongfully convicted and killed. Fine when we get it right, but we WILL get it wrong. We may wrongfully kill 5 out of every 100 people who get the death penalty, for example, if we assume "beyond reasonable doubt" equals 95% certainty. Do we want to kill innocent people? Is that a price worth paying? What if it is you or your loved ones who are wrongfully killed by the state? Still happy?

Furhermore, the very fact that a conviction could result in the death penalty will make juries less likely to convict for fear of making a mistake; the consequence will inevitably be that more killers walk free. Is that a price worth paying?

Those are the logical objections, and I believe the death penalty argument is lost purely on that basis, but personally I find the whole concept of judicial killing is abhorant, and contrary to the aspirations of a civilised society that should comply with its own standards, i.e. killing is wrong (generally speaking; whole other can of worms when it comes to mercy killing/euthenasia/self defence/warfare arguemnts etc).

Well that's not strictly true is it? What about those who have committed mass murder such a Brevik? There are witnesses galore, arrest at the scene and a confession to boot. Capital punishment in the case of a capital crime doesn't have to be the only sentence but I see no reason why it cannot be an option when the guilt of the offender is unequivocal and the circumstances so abhorrent.

I think lawlessness and degrees of lawlessness develop when the resulting punishments are considered risk worthy. Classroom discipline is a problem in school because Kids"know their rights" and "can't be touched". Now caning didn't put a blanket stop to misbehaviour in school but as a kid who grew up at a time when corporal punishment was permissable the consequences of what could happen to me stopped me from straying in to that wrongdoing.

What we have here is someone who has killed several people and handed himself in. The last two may be a statement on his behalf, "I'm a killer and a cop killer to boot" which will give him an immense amount of kudos inside and make sure that he is well attended to by his fellow inmates as he will have status.

He patently didn't fancy a stand off with the firearms unit as the prospect of losing his life didn't appeal to him. Perhaps if there had been a prospect of losing his life in the first place several people wouldn't have died.

styxd

Capital punishment in the case of a capital crime doesn't have to be the only sentence but I see no reason why it cannot be an option

Because we don't live in the fucking dark ages

I consider myself to be a man of fairly liberal views

"But I still think the state should be allowed to kill people if it see's fit."

What the fuck!

capt_slog

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

shrews 2
guil 4
birm 6

like duh

Oh.

It's just that it was written as if there was something significant about them being even. I know there was two, four and six, I'm not fecking dim.

fatreg

Yellow Peril wrote:

Perhaps if there had been a prospect of losing his life in the first place several people wouldn't have died.

Exactly my point. The price is your own life therefore the gamble may not be worth it.

Alpha blue. 95% is good enough for me, I mean the police dont always get it right as it is and have killed people, john Charles de Menzes to name one. As you have said we are human and therefore susceptible to error, sadly, that's part and parcel of human life and we won't ever change that, but please, give me your thoughts on Anders Brevik, killed numerous children all to try and stop/halt multiculurism, what do you think his punishment should be? My thoughts are, he deserves absolutely no right to life, he turned his back on society the day he shot innocent people, therefore society should turns its back on him and let him die and very long and painful death.

alfablue

Yellow Peril wrote:

Well that's not strictly true is it? What about those who have committed mass murder such a Brevik? There are witnesses galore, arrest at the scene and a confession to boot. Capital punishment in the case of a capital crime doesn't have to be the only sentence but I see no reason why it cannot be an option when the guilt of the offender is unequivocal and the circumstances so abhorrent.

With Brevik, a miscarriage is more likely to relate to his mental capacity / mental status at the time of the act. Admittedly there is little room for doubt that he committed the act, but guilt depends on him being deemed to be free from mental disorder, and it was deciding that point that was the purpose of the court hearing. They may have got it wrong.

He patently didn't fancy a stand off with the firearms unit as the prospect of losing his life didn't appeal to him. Perhaps if there had been a prospect of losing his life in the first place several people wouldn't have died.

If there was a certainty that he would lose his life if caught, many more people may have died as he fought to the death to evade capture, as he would have nothing to lose. This is what is often seen in massive shoot-outs experienced in the US.

alfablue

fatreg wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Perhaps if there had been a prospect of losing his life in the first place several people wouldn't have died.

Exactly my point. The price is your own life therefore the gamble may not be worth it.

Alpha blue. 95% is good enough for me, I mean the police dont always get it right as it is and have killed people, john Charles de Menzes to name one. As you have said we are human and therefore susceptible to error, sadly, that's part and parcel of human life and we won't ever change that, but please, give me your thoughts on Anders Brevik, killed numerous children all to try and stop/halt multiculurism, what do you think his punishment should be? My thoughts are, he deserves absolutely no right to life, he turned his back on society the day he shot innocent people, therefore society should turns its back on him and let him die and very long and painful death.

wrongly killing 1 in 20 people you give the death penalty is a very very scary prospect! I cannot comprehend why anyone would find that acceptable. I will just have to accept there are people that do! Strange world we live in. :? Maybe the desire for vengeance is so powerful amongst some that it overcomes logic!

Brevik: lock him up for his whole life.

styxd

Exactly my point. The price is your own life therefore the gamble may not be worth it.

We probably dont know enough about what goes on inside a killers head. But I'm sure it isn't as logical/straight forward as you make out.

Hoopdriver

alfablue wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Well that's not strictly true is it? What about those who have committed mass murder such a Brevik? There are witnesses galore, arrest at the scene and a confession to boot. Capital punishment in the case of a capital crime doesn't have to be the only sentence but I see no reason why it cannot be an option when the guilt of the offender is unequivocal and the circumstances so abhorrent.

With Brevik, a miscarriage is more likely to relate to his mental capacity / mental status at the time of the act. Admittedly there is little room for doubt that he committed the act, but guilt depends on him being deemed to be free from mental disorder.

He patently didn't fancy a stand off with the firearms unit as the prospect of losing his life didn't appeal to him. Perhaps if there had been a prospect of losing his life in the first place several people wouldn't have died.

If there was a certainty that he would lose his life if caught, many more people may have died as he fought to the death to evade capture, as he would have nothing to lose. This is what is often seen in massive shoot-outs experienced in the US.

To be sure, the US has an unfortunate number of mass shootings, but the mass murders to which you refer are not shoot-outs - all the firing is generally and unfortunately in one direction, a one-way scenario from the killer to the victims and passers-by. Sometimes, but by no means often, they are later shot by police, who are pretty swift at barricading the streets, but by then the killing of innocents has generally already taken place. The kind of stand-up, blow-away, fight to the death shoot-out you are describing doesn't really happen - and certainly not often. Think back to that idiot who dressed himself up as The Joker, got all tooled up and murdered people at the Batman premier; he was pretty quick to turn himself in when the well-armed Colorado troopers showed up.

disgruntledgoat

I think Breivik is a bad example. If you execute somebody like that you make them into a martyr to their followers... all that "you can kill a man but not an idea" stuff.

Surely better to have him get old, frail and pathetic in prison with no hope of ever being released. I don't understand why the state taking a life makes a killer taking a life any better. It's just revenge.

Hoopdriver

I agree. With Breivik the better thing by far would have been to have declared him insane and put him away forever. By declaring him insane you pretty well invalidate and repudiate his ideas and spending the rest of your life in SuperMax (especially the US version) would be nobody's idea of a holiday.

spen666

Hoopdriver wrote:

I agree. With Breivik the better thing by far would have been to have declared him insane and put him away forever. By declaring him insane you pretty well invalidate and repudiate his ideas and spending the rest of your life in SuperMax (especially the US version) would be nobody's idea of a holiday.

Bit of a contradiction in your logic here

If they are insane, then they should not be punished and sent to prison, or do you think that being insane is a crime and deserves punishment?

If they are not insane, then you send them to your Supermax Prison but you have then not invalidated or repudiated his ideas

Hoopdriver

spen666 wrote:

Hoopdriver wrote:

I agree. With Breivik the better thing by far would have been to have declared him insane and put him away forever. By declaring him insane you pretty well invalidate and repudiate his ideas and spending the rest of your life in SuperMax (especially the US version) would be nobody's idea of a holiday.

Bit of a contradiction in your logic here

If they are insane, then they should not be punished and sent to prison, or do you think that being insane is a crime and deserves punishment?

If they are not insane, then you send them to your Supermax Prison but you have then not invalidated or repudiated his ideas

It may have passed your notice but dangerously insane people are generally locked up in very secure institutions.

spen666

Hoopdriver wrote:

spen666 wrote:

Hoopdriver wrote:

I agree. With Breivik the better thing by far would have been to have declared him insane and put him away forever. By declaring him insane you pretty well invalidate and repudiate his ideas and spending the rest of your life in SuperMax (especially the US version) would be nobody's idea of a holiday.

Bit of a contradiction in your logic here

If they are insane, then they should not be punished and sent to prison, or do you think that being insane is a crime and deserves punishment?

If they are not insane, then you send them to your Supermax Prison but you have then not invalidated or repudiated his ideas

It may have passed your notice but dangerously insane people are generally locked up in very secure institutions.

These are NOT prisons.

We do have secure hospitals, but these are for treatment not punishment and the conditions any such person is held in is not punitive

alfablue

Indeed, secure hospitals are not intended to be punitive. They are however staffed by Nurses who are members of the Prison Officers' Association (which is a little odd), and the conditions that patients experience in a secure institution are not that pleasant. Anyone who thinks someone has got a soft option of getting indeterminate detention in a secure hospital rather than a fixed prison term, is very much mistaken in my view.