If the death penalty was brought back, someone innocent would inevitably be killed at some point
Right-wing blogger Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines) is pushing a Number 10 e-petition to reinstate the death penalty. His campaign has already gained widespread support, from Murdoch newspaper The Sun to Tory MP Philip Davies (from ‘let the disabled be exploited at below the minimum wage’ and ‘can’t we bring back blacking up’ fame). Mr Davies said:
“It’s something where once again the public are a long way ahead of the politicians. I’d go further and restore it for all murderers.”
However, a quick google search and look through the ‘Innocent‘ database finds that murder charges are fairly regularly overturned in the British Courts. People whose original conviction for murder that have been quashed include:
Andrew Adams who was convicted of murdering science teacher Jack Royal in 1990. Members of the jury later come forward to say they had considered evidence not put before the court, the police had been in contact with witnesses during the trial, and that verdicts of not guilty were returned on others involved in the case, inconsistent with Adams’ guilty verdict
Soldier Andrew Evans, who was convicted of the murder of 14-year-old Judith Roberts on the basis of a dream he experienced
Sean Hodgson, who was convicted of the murder of bar worker Theresa de Simone in 1979, and served 27 years despite David Lace confessing to the murder in 1983
Josephine Smith, whose conviction of murder for her husband was changed to manslaughter, after it was established he had repeatedly beat her and subject her to sexual abuse. Smith had originally pleaded guilty to manslaughter
Tony Martin, whose conviction of murder was reduced to manslaughter for shooting burglars who entered his home, which he had done in a ‘blind panic’
And there are dozens more. It seems odd that a libertarian such as Staines thinks that the state is incompetent to do almost anything other than decide who to kill. Under Davies’s policy, all these people would have now been killed by the state in cold blood.
Under Staines’s plan (cop-killers and child murderers would be liable for the death penalty), Andrew Evans would now have been killed.
So what price a life? Is it right that some innocent people are killed so that others receive thier comeuppance? If, as MP Priti Patel believes, deterence did work (which would imply murderers rationally weigh out risks and benefits to actions, and that a life sentence is seen as a fair risk), how many is it OK to kill to ensure that murderers are put off?
All this ‘ends justifies the means’ thinking and trading of lives feels bizarrely stalinist for conservatives and libertarians. If the death penalty is brought back, it is only a matter of time until someone is innocent is killed – an odd outcome to a campaign based on abhorrence of murder.
85 Responses to “Five good reasons why the death penalty should not be reinstated”
Robert
I suspect this has more to do with us leaving the EU then hanging people, most who state hanging should come back know dam well we have to leave the EU.
The Cardiff five are enough for me guilty in jail and they would have hung.
Bush would be enough for most sane people to say no thanks.
Johann Koehler
Dear Anon E. Mouse,
In comment 7 you wrote the following:
“There is very good evidence that punishment deters crime in all forms… Prison works.”
It is scientifically inaccurate to claim that punishment deters crime in *all* forms. There are many forms of punishment, some prisons being a prime example, that have in fact been shown to *increase* future criminality. For more on this, please see the following exchange with Peter Hitchens from this blog about a month ago: https://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/07/peter-hitchens-bring-back-19th-century-prisons/.
Your point, however, was not about deterrence — it was about incapacitation. Insofar as someone who is behind bars or is dead cannot commit crime in the community, then you are indeed correct. In fact, your words were as follows: “Not a single one of those violent crimes against the person could have taken place if the perpetrators had either been executed or spending the whole of their lives in jail. I’ll take either.”
So let me put the following to you: if your chief concern is for incapacitation, then why are you not advocating as vehemently in favour of life in prison, as opposed to killing offenders? It would seem to me that this accomplishes the same incapacitative goal, with the difference that people don’t die. It also happens to be cheaper, in case there’s a little utilitarian in you that needs placating further!
Thanks,
Johann Koehler
And one other question, again for Anon E Mouse:
In Comment 12 you made the point that the crime and the punishment, at least in the case of Baby P’s killers, is not morally equivalent.
Could you elaborate on the distinction between the two? This is not an attempt to be rhetorically provocative on my part; I’m trying to parse how the death of an offender affords moral superiority over the death of the original victim.
Anon E Mouse
Johann Koehler – I wouldn’t read about the specific acts committed against that child because that kind of thing plays on my mind but just hearing about how he had his fingernails pulled out with pliers in front of his mother who did nothing to protect him was enough to sicken me.
To humanely inject someone which sends them to a sleep from where they will never wake up is simply not the same. I do not advocate an eye for an eye and indeed that is not what it is.
No one is discussing moral superiority or equivalence – (deterrence doesn’t depend on that) over the death of that victim but as a state we have to protect the weak from the stronger and clearly we are not doing that.
Let me put it another way. If the murderers who killed the 121 innocent people between 2006 and 2009 had been hanged or kept in jail until their natural death then 121 families wouldn’t have had their lives wrecked forever.
Of course I would ask why you believe it is right than the person who brutally tortured and killed that helpless child shouldn’t be incarcerated for his whole life or executed. Either will do thanks…
Ed's Talking Balls
‘So let me put the following to you: if your chief concern is for incapacitation, then why are you not advocating as vehemently in favour of life in prison, as opposed to killing offenders? It would seem to me that this accomplishes the same incapacitative goal, with the difference that people don’t die. It also happens to be cheaper, in case there’s a little utilitarian in you that needs placating further!’
I argued in favour of proper life imprisonment at comment 3, Johann. I, like you, made the point that, in common with the death penalty, life imprisonment offers society the same protection from reoffending as capital punishment (short of possible escapes from prison). It doesn’t represent equivalent retribution, however, since the murderer in jail is still afforded rights he so cruelly denied his victims. Nonetheless, from the perspective of reoffending, life imprisonment has much in common with the death penalty.
I find it astonishing that an obvious compromise position has not been reached, or even discussed. Polls suggest that there is public support for capital punishment and support is even greater where the offences to be punished in such a way are particularly heinous (e.g. child murder). Yet I wonder if support would be so widespread if the public was satisfied that murderers would, rightly, forever be denied their liberty.
Lastly, are you sure that life imprisonment is cheaper than state execution? I can’t imagine that that’s true, particularly as it’s so often stated that it costs more to keep someone in prison than it would to educate them at Eton. I would have thought that, if this were to be decided purely on costs grounds, some chemicals and needles/lengths of ropes/guns would be cheaper than permanent incarceration.