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Life and Death Row : The Mass Execution - BBC

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  • The death penalty doesn't act as a deterrent - I've not seen any evidence around the world to suggest it does.

    I would wonder about the motives of why anyone working in the criminal justice system would want to execute somebody. Our most prolific hangman Albert Pierrepoint admitted in his memoirs that it failed as a deterrent.

    I fail to see how you can take a life and for it not to affect you even if you are an executioner.




    I don’t want it to deter.
    I want it to punish.
  • Not a fan of the death penalty due to the miscarriage of justice issue.

    That said, if someone killed anyone close to me and I found them, I would swing for it if the option wasn’t there legally.
  • The extended wait for the victim's family to see the convicted put to death seems to keep them in limbo. When they talk the pain seems so raw and new still, time doesn't heal but it does take the edge off, but all these people are still a complete mess.
  • Not a fan of the death penalty due to the miscarriage of justice issue.

    That said, if someone killed anyone close to me and I found them, I would swing for it if the option wasn’t there legally.

    Not a fan of the death penalty due to the miscarriage of justice issue.

    That said, if someone killed anyone close to me and I found them, I would swing for it if the option wasn’t there legally.

    That isn't a contradiction though. It is a reasonable stance. How do you make up for somebody wrongly executed? Somebody's son or daughter? I don't want that happening in my name.

    If somebody killed a person close to me - and I had the chance to get revenge, I would be quite likely to. But the state doing so coldly is completely different.
  • The death penalty doesn't act as a deterrent - I've not seen any evidence around the world to suggest it does.

    I would wonder about the motives of why anyone working in the criminal justice system would want to execute somebody. Our most prolific hangman Albert Pierrepoint admitted in his memoirs that it failed as a deterrent.

    I fail to see how you can take a life and for it not to affect you even if you are an executioner.


    I don't think anyone is debating whether it's a deterrent.

    The consensus is more that someone who commits such a horrendous crime should face the same punishment.
  • The criminal justice system shouldn't be based round revenge. And I'd see the man who drove off after smashing my wing mirror hung, drawn and quartered.
  • Should palice fans get the death penalty?
  • A slight tangent to the general tone of the thread, but nevertheless in line with the general heading "mass execution" in the USA.

    The single biggest mass hanging in America was when 38 Santee Sioux were hanged on 26 December 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota.

    The background being that in the preceding years, the Santee Sioux were cheated out of much of their lands in Minnesota by a treaty that was not interpreted to them correctly by the half breed interpreters and they were confined to a reservation in lands where their main nature food source, the buffalo, had been driven to extinction. They were thus wholly dependent upon the American authorities to feed them, under the terms of the treaty. Sadly food was not always forthcoming (nor clothes) and their lifestyle was one of hunger and subservience.

    During a period of mass starvation and despite there being food on the reservation, the white superintendent on the reservation (McGylrick?) refused to release food for consumption and indeed was quoted as saying "if they are hungry, let them eat grass".

    The Sioux went on the rampage, left the reservation and in their prime aim of stealing food, killed many (claimed to be upto 300) outlining settlers. McGyrick was later found dead with grass in his mouth.

    At the subsequent round up and trial of the Sioux, hundreds were sentenced to be hanged, but on appeal (to Abraham Lincoln), he commuted many to life imprisonment and 38 to hang (one was later proved to have been innocent).

    The "incident" is remembered today, where Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota make a pilgrimage on horseback to Mankato in late December. One nice point is that as a token of reconciliation, the travelling Oglala are given shelter and food by white communities en route from Pine Ridge to Manakato.

    A sad chapter in American History.
  • MrOneLung said:

    MrOneLung said:

    I would want them killed end of.
    I would push the button, open the trapdoor, pull the trigger, turn on old sparky with no qualms at all.

    You're obviously a deep thinker.
    So if someone killed your kin you wouldn't feel the same?
    I completely disagree with the death penalty but should one of my loved ones be a victim then yes I would feel the same. That’s natural and exactly the reason why family shouldn’t be involved in the justice meted out. Justice has to be completely dispassionate.

  • The thing that I don't understand is why they wait so long to carry out the executions?

    There were 2 of them who were pretty much caught red handed, confessed and eyewitness's could identify them - why then wait 20 years before executing? It helps no one, families can't move on and it consumes their lives for decade's.

    I don't know if the death penalty is right or wrong but, if that's the sentence delivered and it's 100% that the suspect did it then at least carry it out quickly and let the families try to rebuild their lives.
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