bring back hanging yes or no?

[Markus R]

Originally Posted by Davemetalhead

Let's turn this around - what if a loved one was found guilty of murder and condemned to death, even though you KNOW they're innocent, everyone else thinks they're guilty, you just can't prove it. Would the death penalty still be right?

As for DNA testing, it's not foolproof. It's still subject to human failings - tests get mixed, sent to the wrong labs, contaminated. DNA testing may be 99% correct , but do you want to be that 1% that gets convicted due to faulty testing? (pulling numbers out of my arse there to prove a point).

Capital punishment is barbaric.

Yes, that is why I am against the death penalty. too many innocent people have died (and could have died had it still been in existence). This is where our 'civilised society' is a joke. How many people have been put in jail/executed due to incompetence and as Mal Hombre rightly said, corruption?

I agree with you Davemetalhead - DNA is certainly not 100%. Too many put too much faith in it. It isn't infallible.

[palo5]

I don't understand why people do/did hanging as a method of killing. Is it a 'cultural thing'?

[Markus R]

Originally Posted by palo5

I don't understand why people do/did hanging as a method of killing. Is it a 'cultural thing'?

As you probably know palo5, many years ago public hangings were a spectacle with thousands attending...probably also to act as a deterrent. As for actual 'hanging', not sure about the history as for that method being used. I know some of the beheadings that were used as a method of execution went badly wrong with the executioner often having to sever the head from the neck with many strikes of the axe - this was sometimes down to ineptitude, losing their nerve, or having to be intoxicated to carry it out.
Sometimes the executioner would have to finish severing the head with a knife...doesn't bear thinking about
I think they viewed hanging as being the quickest (and less messiest) way of dispatch.

[steve40]

all i can say is we will all have to wait and see if it is debated, but if it is then i am sure there will be some human rights goody goody (wanker) who will still try to campain for the lives of trash that dont deserve to live.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by Markus R

I know some of the beheadings that were used as a method of execution went badly wrong with the executioner often having to sever the head from the neck with many strikes of the axe

Seriously?

[Markus R]

Originally Posted by palo5

Seriously?

Yes, completely true (unfortunately for the recipient)

Here is an exerpt of the notorious executioner Jack Ketch (on the execution of Lord Russell):

'On that occasion, Ketch wielded the instrument of death either with such sadistically nuanced skill or with such lack of simple dexterity—nobody could tell which—that the victim suffered horrifically under blow after blow, each excruciating but not in itself lethal. Even among the bloodthirsty throngs that habitually attended English beheadings, the gory and agonizing display had created such outrage that Ketch felt moved to write and publish a pamphlet title Apologie, in which he excused his performance with the claim that Lord Russell had failed to "dispose himself as was most suitable" and that he was therefore distracted while taking aim on his neck.'

[Mal Hombre]

The ax was quite blunt it crushed more than cut,the sword used in Europe was more effective.

[Achjay]

bullet in the back of the head within 5 minutes of being found guilty - much easier than all this faffing around with hanging. I'll even do it for them!

[palo5]

Originally Posted by Achjay

bullet in the back of the head

The back of the neck is 'less messy' from I've heard, but I don't know if it's true

Maybe it is cultural

[damp-patch]

Originally Posted by steve40

all i can say is we will all have to wait and see if it is debated, but if it is then i am sure there will be some human rights goody goody (wanker) who will still try to campain for the lives of trash that dont deserve to live.

Writing as a fully paid up 'human rights goody goody (wanker)' I will never see capital punishment as anything other than a descent to the moral level of the killer.