o sung wu - Personally, I'm on record as being totally opposed to the death penalty, for ANY reason whatsoever. I'm most definitely in favour of corporal punishment for certain heinous offences occasioned against women and children. But the death penalty, absolutely not.

I'm yet to be convinced there is reason to have any degree of confidence in the legal / justice systems. Not only has the legal establishment ably demonstrated its total disinterest in anything but money, but we've seen recent examples where centuries old laws have been turfed out by numbskulled politicians seeking personal glory. Take for example the scrapping of double jeopardy & proposed abandonment of 'right to not self-incriminate' provisions in Queensland. As per Blackstones Formulation 'its better that ten guilty go free .....'

There are however a few gotchas. Firstly, our supposedly 'advanced' society has no issue sending our kids off to war, and imposing on them a legal requirement to kill people. Most interestingly, our society actually criminalizes military personnel who refuse to kill, and as a nation we (collectively) support the unspeakably evil practice of warfare. What say we DEMAND our then head of state personally lead the troops into battle ... how many wars would Australia be involved in then ?? More to the point, how long would the red-headed witch, or for the matter, the RAbbott, continue to infest the planet ??

Secondly, the media circus surrounding the late Denis Ferguson left no room for doubt that 99.99999% of Australians would happily dismember the old bloke personally and enjoy doing so. Mind you they would never admit such in a situation where they could be identified. Personally I'd be EXTREMELY surprised if effectively everyone here wouldn't personally shred a Denis Ferguson clone kiddyfiddler who 'used' one of their offspring, and especially so in the case of the most vocal anti death penalty advocates. Sure they wouldn't dare admit it, but then hypocrisy is, and always will be, part of the human condition.

to be continued

continued

Kiddyfiddling doesn't rate high on my hate list because it won't ever affect me personally, on the other hand, I wouldn't even make a peep in protest should someone propose the death penalty for breach of trust on the part of elected representatives AKA bloodsucking parasites. Furthermore I'd have no qualm about extending the death penalty to members of the legal establishment who rate profit more important than clients, to arrogant upstart judiciary, to banksters, & to public company CEOs who think they are worth $20,000,000pa.

Note particularly that establishing guilt conclusively is infinitely easier in the latter examples, hence my unqualified support for the death penalty whereas I would oppose it in any other situation for exactly the same reason, ie impossibility of being totally certain of guilt.

For what its worth, the issue of cruel & unusual treatment is a non event. Its quite possible to put animals down humanely, so why not human animals.

And hi to you, O Sung Wu.

Only space prevented me from providing a few more examples. How about John Leslie Coombes. Who murdered a man in 1987 and served 11 years He was paroled and then killed a man and was sent to jail and given parole again. He then murdered a young woman, and hopefully, the idiots will keep him in jail forever, this time?

Then there is Lithgow inmate Rodney Francis Cameron, who was jailed three times for murdering four people at random, and has now been jailed for life, where he has now admitted to two more murders in Victoria and two in South Australia while on the loose.

Then there is David Barak, who killed his wife, and was given two years jail because the judge said that he had shown "true remorse and contrition", who was released from jail and two months later murdered another woman?

You know, as an ex soldier I do love reading first hand accounts of soldiers in battle, especially from both sides. It actually saddens me that so many fine young men have to kill each other for political reasons. Yet all of those wasted young men, on both sides of many conflicts, often have great respect for each other. I am sure that most of them would much prefer to kill the Ivan Milats and Ariel Castro's of their own societies, than kill each other.

When judge Falcone in Sicily was murdered by the Mafia, the Italian government sent in Italian paratroopers to keep order. There was one fine looking young para nursing an MG 42 who loooked like he could take on the whole mafia single handedly with his machine gun. I was sorry that he was not allowed to do just that and get rid of those internal terrorists that have plagued Italy for too long.

'evening to you PRAXIDICE & LEGO...

I've no argument with either of you two gentlemen. Everything you say has merit. Where we do depart company is the question of the death penalty.

And I must confess to you both, I don't have a realistic or an appropriate alternative to the death penalty, only a suggestion ?

They have this bloke down in the Victorian Prison system, I believe his name's Julian Knight ? He shot and killed at least seven or eight purely innocent souls (randomly), on a busy inner city street in Melbourne. Believe it or not, he's due to make application for parole in a couple of years ! I know little of the facts of the case, but are you kidding me, releasing this bloke back into the community !

He deserves to be put to death absolutely there's no argument from me. But we should NOT execute this creep, notwithstanding he richly deserves it.

So what then do we do with him ? Are we not a very advanced, civilized society ? If so my humble suggestion - despite the huge economic impost to the community, he MUST remain confined (maximum security), for the rest of his natural life. He must die (naturally) in custody, without ever having a moment of personal freedom. This bloke has forfeited ALL right to any freedom forever ! That's my solution to people like Knight and other similar criminals.

LEGO, some of those names you mentioned, I recognise, but only from media release is all. Lawson, well as I said, I was part of the Parramatta Gaol investigation on him. Incidentally, he died in Grafton Gaol, some years ago now. You know Lawson was a brilliant painter. He also authored a popular comic back in the 60's, 'The Lone Avenger', a cowboy comic ?

O Sung Wu,

Yes, I remember The Lone Avenger.

And I completely agree with you on all your other points - no, no death penalty, but yes, lifelong imprisonment.

And for some, murderer/rapists for example, lifelong solitary confinement, so that they don't have any opportunity to influence any other prisoners, and perhaps in some very remote town, so that they will be forgotten.

From there they can contemplate that they still have a life which they denied others, and how precious it is.

"ybgirp "A glass of nembutal kills painlessly and quickly, as does a plastic bag filled with an inert gas over the head. Both are without any unpleasant side effects as they work, both achieve death very quickly. "

Is that right? Have you seen either of these methods personally?

I haven't watched someone die after taking Nembutal.
I have, however, read quite a bit about the woman that took 3 weeks to die after she travelled to Mexico to buy and ingest Nembutal.
(See "When Erin Chose to Die" The Australian.)

So I guess it doesn't always work quickly.

A plastic bag filled with gas would work by suffocating someone...a truly awful way to die, and it takes about 3 long minutes of violent struggling. And yes, I have watched people choke to death.

Neither of these methods should be considered by a humane society.
Australia is a humane place to live, so we don't have the death penalty.