Thank you for this article. The example of the Iranian girl was especially troubling. I guess it may also be a reflection of the minimal understanding many cultures share on the realities of mental illnesses.

I did not see any mention of the USA which is our closest ally strategically.

I would be interested to see information on which states in the USA using the death penalty, the methods and the socioeconomic aspects.

In the USA medical pratitioners participate in executions especially lethal injection and the American Medical Association remains silent. This is contrary to the Hippocratic Oath and the precepts of Western Medicine.

Please list Texas and its executions.

The death penalty should be imposed for very serious crimes like abduction, rape and murder. It should especially apply to the abduction and murder of children. To not apply this sensible penalty is to condemn to death more innocents.

Daniel Miles has now been convicted of the murder of Yolande Michael while on the run from a NSW prison. He had escaped from prison where he was serving time for the murder of 16 year old Donna Newland.

In the mid sixties, Leonard Keith Lawson was released from prison after abducting and murdering a 15 year old girl. While on parole he raped and murdered 15 year old Mary Jane Bower at Collaroy, in Sydney. With the police looking for him, he entered SCEGGS girls school in Bowral, and attempted to abduct a schoolgirl. In the struggle with a heroic teacher, he fired a sawn off rifle several times, wounding the female teacher and killing 15 year old Wendy Luscombe.

When Gordon Barry Hadlow was released from a Queensland prison after 22 years, for the rape and murder of a six year old girl, Samantha Dorothy Bacon, he then abducted, raped, and murdered a 9 year old girl, Sharon Margaret Hamilton.

Had these three child rapist murderers been executed, four young women would still be alive today. The attitude of the anti death penalty brigade is curious. The lives of the worst kinds of criminals are sacrosanct. Only the lives of the innocent are expendable.

Capital punishment definitely stops repeat offenders.

Another reason for the death penalty is that is an effective tool for the fight against international organised crime. The crime bosses who order executions must be bumped off for the protection of the community. To fail to do so would see a situation develop where criminal bosses run their criminal organisations from jail and order the execution of judges, prosecutors, politicians, journalists and witnesses. This is already happening in Italy and many South American countries and it will happen here too unless we come down on these sorts of criminals like a ton of bricks.

Yes despite this government’s distinct lack of interest or commitment in matters of human rights (apart from free lunches at the UN), it is odd that they can’t at least see a practical side to an active condemnation of executions and associated abuses outside Australia.

Better conditions in some of these cruel regimes would see a decrease in the “boatloads of illegals” seeking to “invade our shores”.

I studied the death penalty as a first year Uni student a couple of years ago. I argued for it and I still believe it is the best deterrent in the crimes of murder, terrorist acts, paedophilia and rape.

However, I do not think the death penalty should apply to most crimes and I find it sad and extreme on the part of Iran that a young girl was executed because she may have had sex all the while suffering with mental illness. This underlies the appaling fact, as stated by others here, that mental illness is still a taboo topic in some countries.

An appropriate punishment for crime might include life imprisonment (armed robbery, heinous/vicious assault), castration/sterilisation ( sexual predators), 20 years hard labour (stealing cars/property/arson) and perhaps 3 years hard labour (graffiti/vandalism). I could go on. So whilst I'm not in agreement with the death penalty as a sanction for most crimes, I think we could and should do much more in terms of punishment for certain crimes. However, I would imagine that those who are against the death penalty (such as Tim and Amnesty) would probably be strongly opposed to my sentencing suggestions? I would hope not.

The REAL Death Penalty in the US: A Review
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters

Innocence Issues

Death Penalty opponents have proclaimed that 118 inmates have been "released from death row with evidence of their innocence", in the US, since the modern death penalty era began, post Furman v Georgia (1972).

That number is a fraud.

Those opponents have intentionally included both the factually innocent (the "I truly had nothing to do with the murder" cases) and the legally innocent (the "I got off because of legal errors" cases), thereby fraudulently raising the "innocent" numbers.

Deterrence Issues

Seven recent studies, all finding for deterrence.

One study, specifically, found that moratoriums on the death penalty sacrificed innocent lives. All of the other studies confirm that conclusion.

Racial issues

White murderers are twice as likely to be executed in the US as are black murderers and are executed, on average, 12 months more quickly than are black death row inmates.

Any other racial combinations of defendants and/or their victims in death penalty cases, is a reflection of the crimes committed and not any racial bias within the system, as confirmed by studies from the Rand Corporation (1991), Smith College (1994), U of Maryland (2002), New Jersey Supreme Court (2003) and by a view of criminal justice statistics, within a framework of the secondary aggravating factors necessary for capital indictments.

Class issues

No one disputes that wealthier defendants can hire better lawyers and, therefore, should have a legal advantage over their poorer counterparts.  The US has executed about 0.15% of all murderers since new death penalty statutes were enacted in 1973.  There is no evidence that wealthier capital murderers are less likely to be executed than their poorer ilk, based upon the proportion of capital murders committed by wealthier criminals. 

Polling data

74% of Americans support the death penalty, generally. 53% say the death penalty is not used enough. Catholics show 70% support. (Gallup 5/05). Support was 74% in 2003, as well (Gallup 5/03). This support is within the margin of error of the all time high for general support -- 80% (Gallup, 1994)