The Bali 9 and...

[ka9q]

Which we have completely squandered over the past decade.

Absolutely, giving other countries carte blanche to act in a similar manner.

And our own. Have you been reading about the "black site" in Chicago? Appalling. Even with the sickening saga of the CIA overseas, this is still not supposed to happen in this country. Not only do the police embarrass their city and open themselves to serious criminal and civil liability, they risk having a lot of cases thrown out by the courts -- including those of people who were actually guilty. What were they thinking?

Agree, but given their crimes I have yet to see a better alternative proposed by the critics. Could we really let them free?

Of course not. And consider this: Hermann Goering was heard to complain that as a high official on the losing side, the Allies had the right to execute him and he fully expected that he would be. But he actually seemed annoyed by their insistence on giving him such a humiliatingly thorough and public trial first. Precisely!

The Western allies held the ace there and if I am to believe correctly, they threatened that they would take the Nazis they held and hold separate trials to the Soviets.  Since the West held the key figures, the Soviets felt they had to play ball.

And that was no accident. During the last days of the war there was a mad westward scramble by just about everyone left in Germany. The average German feared the raping and plundering Soviet army, and those with more to answer for strongly preferred to surrender themselves to the Americans or the British rather than the Soviets. Werner von Braun was just one of many examples.

Still, after the one joint IMT for the major war criminals the Americans conducted many more on their own.

[Luke Pemberton]

Have you been reading about the "black site" in Chicago?

No, I shall take a read later. Thanks. It's 0655 here, and I am heading for work in 30 minutes so I'll make this quick.

Of course not. And consider this: Hermann Goering was heard to complain that as a high official on the losing side, the Allies had the right to execute him and he fully expected that he would be. But he actually seemed annoyed by their insistence on giving him such a humiliatingly thorough and public trial first. Precisely!

Yes, it supported the denazification agenda. It served its purpose. Goering knew that it was Nazism on trial, and the trial had more significance than than the the collection of personalities in the dock. The rabid Nazi was defending Nazism and he was going to defend the ideology he believed in with vigour.

Werner von Braun was just one of many examples.

He was caught between the Soviets, the US or the SS. Had he been caught by the SS, it is likely that he would have been killed.

Still, after the one joint IMT for the major war criminals the Americans conducted many more on their own.

As did the British and Soviets.

[gillianren]

And our own. Have you been reading about the "black site" in Chicago? Appalling. Even with the sickening saga of the CIA overseas, this is still not supposed to happen in this country. Not only do the police embarrass their city and open themselves to serious criminal and civil liability, they risk having a lot of cases thrown out by the courts -- including those of people who were actually guilty. What were they thinking?

"If the federal government does it, it must be legal"?

[Echnaton]

And our own. Have you been reading about the "black site" in Chicago? Appalling. Even with the sickening saga of the CIA overseas, this is still not supposed to happen in this country. Not only do the police embarrass their city and open themselves to serious criminal and civil liability, they risk having a lot of cases thrown out by the courts -- including those of people who were actually guilty. What were they thinking?

"If the federal government does it, it must be legal"?

I just caught an article on The Intercept web site. Disturbing.  I don't know if it just that The Guardian covers America better than the U. S. media does or this story didn't break into headlines of the domestic outlets I read.

[Luther]

And our own. Have you been reading about the "black site" in Chicago? Appalling. Even with the sickening saga of the CIA overseas, this is still not supposed to happen in this country. Not only do the police embarrass their city and open themselves to serious criminal and civil liability, they risk having a lot of cases thrown out by the courts -- including those of people who were actually guilty. What were they thinking?

All part of the intense radicalisation of your country which has taken place over the last 13.5 years.

And that was no accident. During the last days of the war there was a mad westward scramble by just about everyone left in Germany. The average German feared the raping and plundering Soviet army, and those with more to answer for strongly preferred to surrender themselves to the Americans or the British rather than the Soviets. Werner von Braun was just one of many examples.

Optimisation of the surrender strategy did seem to be the main objective of Dönitz for the first week or so of his three-week presidency.

[Peter B]

And that was no accident. During the last days of the war there was a mad westward scramble by just about everyone left in Germany. The average German feared the raping and plundering Soviet army, and those with more to answer for strongly preferred to surrender themselves to the Americans or the British rather than the Soviets. Werner von Braun was just one of many examples.

Optimisation of the surrender strategy did seem to be the main objective of Dönitz for the first week or so of his three-week presidency.

Not to hijack my own thread, but Michell and Webb seem to have a slightly different view:

[geo7863]

I am definitely for the death Penalty. I am just not in favour of the way it has been applied. There have been too many mistakes, too many injustices. You have to be 100% sure, no questions, no balance of probabilities, no uncertainties!

Whether it should be applied for drugs related cases is another matter, I personally don't think so. Indonesia obviously thinks it's required and as others have said, if you go to a country with the Death Penalty for certain crimes...don't commit those crimes...or don't be surprised and all 'remorseful' if you do and get caught....clear and simple! People opposed to this particular sentence have said..."but they have been reformed"! Oh really? massive opportunities to  smuggle drugs in an Indonesian prison and they have 'turned their backs' on those opportunities? I don't think so! It's probably quite easy to say "I will honestly never ever, ever, smuggle drugs again" when you are looking at a death sentence imposed on you!

The death sentence will never deter crimes...it will deter repeat offences of crimes when offenders found guilty have been released on Parole. When the death Penalty was in force in the UK there were something like 70 murderers who had been reprieved (and that doesn't mean commuted to a 'whole life' life sentence but on average back then it was 10 years served and then released) who then went on to murder again. How many murderers have murdered again since the death penalty was abolished? I don't know, but if it was only one murder it would have been avoided had the murderer been executed.

I don't care how the sentence is carried out either. When a young child is abducted, raped, horrifically tortured and then murdered, where their last few hours (or even days) of life are full of horrendous pain and paralysing fear, then I couldn't give a monkeys toss if a lethal injection isn't all nice and peaceful for the filth who committed that crime.

If we in Europe had a prison system and sentencing system similar to that that the US has then I would be more than happy that we don't have the death penalty. If a death sentence were replaced with a whole life tariff, or sentences of 100 years for example, and those found guilty put in a supermax prison with very strict rules and very few comforts,then that would be acceptable punishment. But a whole life tariff is rarely sentenced in the UK and other countries, like Norway, have a 'maximum' life sentence of just a couple of decades.

But the main thing is there must be, in either case, absolutely no doubt, no extenuating circumstances, whatsoever! otherwise you cannot have a death sentence or a whole life tariff.

[gillianren]

Since we can almost never be one hundred percent certain of guilt, the death penalty has also resulted in the deaths of innocents.  Look into the statistics of how many people have been freed over DNA evidence--and look into states like Texas, that limit how long you have to present new evidence, even if the technology involved is itself new.

[geo7863]

Since we can almost never be one hundred percent certain of guilt, the death penalty has also resulted in the deaths of innocents.  Look into the statistics of how many people have been freed over DNA evidence--and look into states like Texas, that limit how long you have to present new evidence, even if the technology involved is itself new.

Yes you can be 100% certain of guilt. Two guys cut off a young off-duty soldier's head in the middle of a public street in London and then waited for the Police to show up. Yesterday a Guy in Scotland was convicted of Murdering an Escort and then raping a further two escorts in the same room as her corpse, they escaped and then he then called the Police and told them what he'd done. There is sometimes no doubt whatsoever and if there is doubt then you don't impose the death penalty.

The US is renowned for having a bad record with regards to the Death Penalty, just look at the 'Robin Hood Hills' tragedy, That's why I said I am all for the death penalty but not the way it has been applied.
 

[Andromeda]

Bill Bryson wrote an excellent article about the death penalty a few years ago, titled "Hotel California".  It sums up very well my own reasons for being completely against it.

[Echnaton]

Since we can almost never be one hundred percent certain of guilt, the death penalty has also resulted in the deaths of innocents.  Look into the statistics of how many people have been freed over DNA evidence--and look into states like Texas, that limit how long you have to present new evidence, even if the technology involved is itself new.

Yes you can be 100% certain of guilt. Two guys cut off a young off-duty soldier's head in the middle of a public street in London and then waited for the Police to show up. Yesterday a Guy in Scotland was convicted of Murdering an Escort and then raping a further two escorts in the same room as her corpse, they escaped and then he then called the Police and told them what he'd done. There is sometimes no doubt whatsoever and if there is doubt then you don't impose the death penalty.

The US is renowned for having a bad record with regards to the Death Penalty, just look at the 'Robin Hood Hills' tragedy, That's why I said I am all for the death penalty but not the way it has been applied.
 

First, the murders you describe are exceptionally rare and fall within gillianren's almost never conditions. 

Second, guilt is established at trial by how prosecutors present evidence. So the question really is not whether "we" as in you, I, gillianren and whoever know or believe we know the guilt to 100%, but whether a jury relying on a practiced prosecutor's case that is rebutted by an less skilled defense attorney can be persuaded they know to 100% when that is not the actual case.   I think the answer to that is yes, a jury can be wrongly persuaded.

So if you think a jury could not be wrongly persuaded into a greater level of certainty than they can reasonably have, please let us know.   

[geo7863]

Since we can almost never be one hundred percent certain of guilt, the death penalty has also resulted in the deaths of innocents.  Look into the statistics of how many people have been freed over DNA evidence--and look into states like Texas, that limit how long you have to present new evidence, even if the technology involved is itself new.

Yes you can be 100% certain of guilt. Two guys cut off a young off-duty soldier's head in the middle of a public street in London and then waited for the Police to show up. Yesterday a Guy in Scotland was convicted of Murdering an Escort and then raping a further two escorts in the same room as her corpse, they escaped and then he then called the Police and told them what he'd done. There is sometimes no doubt whatsoever and if there is doubt then you don't impose the death penalty.

The US is renowned for having a bad record with regards to the Death Penalty, just look at the 'Robin Hood Hills' tragedy, That's why I said I am all for the death penalty but not the way it has been applied.
 

First, the murders you describe are exceptionally rare and fall within gillianren's almost never conditions. 

Second, guilt is established at trial by how prosecutors present evidence. So the question really is not whether "we" as in you, I, gillianren and whoever know or believe we know the guilt to 100%, but whether a jury relying on a practiced prosecutor's case that is rebutted by an less skilled defense attorney can be persuaded they know to 100% when that is not the actual case.   I think the answer to that is yes, a jury can be wrongly persuaded.

So if you think a jury could not be wrongly persuaded into a greater level of certainty than they can reasonably have, please let us know.

I know they are exceptionally rare, but hardly almost never, and they deserve the death penalty in my view. As I said there ARE cases where there is 100% certainty, where the only issue before the court is not 'if' they committed the murder but what are the circumstances, the mitigating evidence as to why the murder was committed. An example in the US courts recently being the Boston Bomber, his lawyer freely admitted that his client did it with a "but here's why he did it" tacked on.

And as I have said if the evidence is weak enough to be able to leave a shred of doubt in a jury's mind then the death Penalty should NOT be in consideration.

And as I have also said if the alternative sentences were 'realistic' enough, a whole life tariff being the norm rather than the exception, where 'deserved' obviously, then I am happy that the death sentence will not be on the agenda.

[ka9q]

I am definitely for the death Penalty. I am just not in favour of the way it has been applied. There have been too many mistakes, too many injustices. You have to be 100% sure, no questions, no balance of probabilities, no uncertainties!

And that's just some of the reasons I'm solidly opposed to it.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

The Death Penalty is one of those government powers that always will end up being abused for political gain.
Historically it always has.

[geo7863]

The Death Penalty is one of those government powers that always will end up being abused for political gain.
Historically it always has.

How?