Yahoo! UK News Message Boards – Ipswich Murders – BRINGING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY IS NOT THE ANSWER
Exercises Add commentsYahoo! UK News Message Boards – Ipswich Murders – BRINGING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY IS NOT THE ANSWER
OK, I know others will oppose me for this post, and I accept we are all entitled to our own views on the this matter. But where do we draw the line about ending someone else's life? We are supposed to be a civilised species, not vigilantes in a hate mob!
If Steve Wright is guilty of murdering the five girls, then yes, he deserves to be punished for what he has done. But what good is killing him going to do in the long term? Doesn't taking someone else's life make an executioner no better than those they have executed??
Those who call for the return of the death penalty should look back to the case of Timothy Evans, the man who was wrongly hanged for the notorious 10 Rillington Place murders that were actually committed by John Christie – the very case that got the death penalty abolished in the UK in the first place.
That innocent man who did nothing wrong was ultimately unfairly robbed of his own life.
Try explaining the virtues of the death penalty to the families of Evans, Derek Bentley, Jesse Tafero and Richard 'Dic Penderyn' Lewis – innocent men whose wrongful excutions over the years for crimes they were not responsible for ultimately cost them their lives and ruined the lives of even more families.
I am very sympathetic to the families of the five girls (and of Gary Newlove, also recently needlessly murdered, whose family are also calling return for the return of the death penalty). Nothing will ever ease their pain and suffering for what they have lost.
But killing Steve Wright will not bring back any of the five girls he murdered, nor will it ease the pain for any of the girls' families, who will continue to grieve and mourn their loss long after Wright dies if he were to be executed. He has been confined to a life behind bars, where he will be victimised and subjected to torture every day he continues to live .
No matter how advanced technology becomes, and no matter how damning and conclusive evidence may appear at trial, there will always be a chance – however slight – that the wrong person is being killed for the actions committed by another. In the cases of both Dic Penderyn and Timothy Evans, seemingly damning and conclusive circumstancial and forensic evidence was presented at their trials. But in both cases it later transpired the two men were innocent, and in the case of Penderyn, the real culprit escaped justice altogether.
Perhaps if the authorities had listened to these four men and taken their pleas and testimony seriously; perhaps if the death penalty had been illegal, they might have been exonerated later and freed, and not instead wrongfully had to pay with their lives for crimes they had nothing to do with…
Don't you see? Our country CAN NOT, under ANY circumstances, justify bringing back the death penalty – otherwise we will have learned nothing at all from the cases of Timothy Evans, Dic Penderyn, Jesse Tafero, Derek Bentley et al.
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