A lot of media coverage at the moment is about COVID-19.

You may not know though last year, "A total of seventeen people, all male, were executed in the United States in 2020, sixteen by lethal injection and one by electrocution."

With....

"A number of states still allowing the condemned person to choose between electrocution and lethal injection, with the most recent US electrocution, of Nicholas Todd Sutton, taking place in February 2020 in Tennessee."

The top six executing Countries (in various means in 2020) included China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Amnesty International, said in a statement on the 2020 figures: “As the world focused on finding ways to protect lives from COVID-19, several governments showed a disturbing determination to resort to the death penalty and execute people no matter what.”

Some don't like the death penalty or people going to the electric chair (that's generally my view as), but others have no problem with it (which I don't understand) - what do you think?

Depends on the crime,I have no problem with men who rape children, for instance, being executed, it may or may not act as a deterrent but it sure stops second offences.

<<"but it sure stops second offences.">>

Well of course it does. A person is dead! It doesn't mean it will deter other people and some people may simply go underground, or try to.

For example in China, 2020, there are 42 criminal offences eligible for the death penalty and that of course doesn't include any prison time for any other breach of the law, which could equate to something like the death penalty - like life in prison (a full life time there).

In China, the conviction rate was 99.965% in 2019 and 99.969% in 2018.

There may be a valid reason or reasons for example in China to why someone may go against the laws set by the Chinese Government. China legally is hardly a place to live in peace and harmony with a government that is a dictatorship - and this video comes from Australia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuaTt0-Slr8

Finally, what happens if you are innocent?

Dear Nathan,

I used to be against capital punishment.

Now I'm not so sure. I think it does depend on
the crime. I watched 60 Minutes and the case of
Jamal Khashoggi - was discussed. The US based
journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia's government
who walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul
and never came out. They said he was murdered and
dismembered. In the months that followed narratives
emerged over how he died, what happened to his
remains and who was responsible.

How do we deal with people who commit such heinous
crimes? I'm not sure of the answer to that.
Or people who kill and abuse children?

Do we just lock them up for the rest of their lives?
How can we get the guarantee that they won't be released on
parole and re-offend?

Crimes that are so heinous with no signs of remorse
being shown - should have consequences shouldn't they?

Dear Nathan,

I forgot to add - what about war crimes?
Is it right to put people on trial for war crimes?
Should the Nuremberg trials have taken place?
Should there have been a death penalty for the
crimes committed?

Where do we draw the line for who faces the death penalty?

I am not interested in worrying if the death penalty is a deterrent or not. If a slime ball is dead, there is very little chance of them committing another crime.

I have been amazed at times to see that a child rape/murderer had raped a child before. With the death penalty for such crimes, you are going to save some innocents in this world, where we appear to be more interested in the welfare of the criminal than the victim.

This is not an issue for Australians.

It’s a mad world.

Dan

Australia does not have capital punishment, so why worry about it.

We have enough problems of our own without concerning ourselves with how other countries conduct themselves (in ways that do not affect Australia, in particular).

It is futile, and psychologically harmful, to kick about anything we have no control over. A good rule of thumb is: if you cannot do anything about something, forget it.

There's that old adage:

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is
for good men to do nothing."
( Edmund Burke).

Perhaps we ought to worry about capital punishment because the lack of it cost the taxpayer money.
What has it cost to keep Anita Coby’s murderers in comfort for years?
And that’s just one example.

A quote from the founder of conservatism by Brer Fox, the antithesist of the same.

More profundity from the blackberry bushes.

Dan

Money versus morality inevitability crops up in any discussion on capital punishment. Pretty useless, like all other reasons for and against, due to the fact that that capital punishment in Australia ceased around half a century ago and doesn't look like coming back despite cries for vengance by few people every time a murder is committed.

I think that a never-to-be-released sentence is more appropriate than quick death. And let's not forget that people who might have been executed have been found not guilty after spending years in jail.

Stop expecting society to help assuage your personal rage; particularly if you have no connection whatsoever to murder victims, which is usually the case.

ttbn,

<<This is not an issue for Australians.>>

Actually it is.

"In April 2005, nine Australians – the "Bali Nine" – were convicted for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kg (18 lb) of heroin out of Indonesia. The heroin was valued at around A$4 million and was bound for Australia.[2] Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were sentenced to death and executed on 29 April 2015."

The Bali Nine: Where are they now? article tells you a lot about those still alive. This is an issue is relevant to Australia, including their parents in Australia - after all Australians were involved. Some people were lucky they were not executed, but still remain in prison. Some though are changing their lives for the better and want to be released.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-bali-nine-where-are-they-now_1

So yes this is relevant to Australia and by the way, I wouldn't want some of my relatives going on a holiday to China to see the attractions there, like the Great Wall of China but later find out they are going to be executed, after a decision was made by the Chinese Government.

Dear Dan,

Perhaps this little ditty might be more to your
level:

"I made myself a snowball
As perfect as could be
I thought I'd keep it as a pet
And let it sleep with me

I made it some pyjamas
And a pillow for its head
Then last night it ran away
But first - it wet the bed!"

Stay dry and out of the bushes.

Well, I do have some connection, a much respected cousin (a few removes away) was murdered in a robbery attempt on a Caribbean island. His murderer got 22 years and will possibly out in a few years, still young enough to marry and have a family or to murder again.
He took the productive life of a young father and husband; I’d have hung him.

Nathan,

It might be an issue for Australians or anyone else who goes to a foreign country and breaks the law thinking they can do whatever they do at home. But it's still nothing to do with Australia. None of our business. Nothing we can do about it. Don't worry about it.

And, as far as I'm aware, nobody has been executed for visiting the Great Wall of China. But, you know your rellies better than I do. Do they play up overseas?

Is Mise,

22 years is about right for murder in most jurisdictions. It all depends on the circumstances - crime of passion; heat of the moment; cold-blooded, intentional killing; killing a police officer; terrorism; child killing. In the last three cases, perpetrators should have no hope of parole: they should die in jail. But, capital punishment? That is demeaning to any society practising it, including the US, not just Third World countries.

I don't think you would have hanged your distant cousin's murderer. People who say that they favour execution expect someone else to do the job.

As Amnesty International has just put out:

Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan, since June 2020 has been locked up and endured months of torture including being shackled - all because she reported on COVID-19. She has now also gone on a hunger strike. She desperately needs medical treatment. Her brother says, “I don't think she's going to live much longer. If she doesn't make it through the coming winter, I hope the world will remember her as she once was.

So we have cases of people being treated appallingly and thrown into prison simply due to reporting about COVID-19 in China. It's really an all on nothing circumstance.

Australia has recently won the title of the most boozed-up Nation but didn't get the prize for most drug addicts for some strange reason !

You have veered right off your own topic, Nathan. This woman you are on about is not facing the death penalty, and nobody not directly involved has the slightest idea how she is being treated. Amnesty International is a notoriously leftist organisation that nobody takes much notice of these days. Her brother says? You don't know that she even has a brother.

I loathe China and Communism, along with all other totalitarian regimes, but what goes on within Chinese borders is none of our business. China's threat to Australia is what we should be worried about: not some individual who might, or might not, have bad somethings done to her. There are over a billion Chinese citizens to worry about what goes on in their own country; their lack of interest, courage, whatever, is why they under the boot of the vilest regime on Earth. We need to be concentrating on our own country if we do not want to end up the same way. And, talking about 'electric chairs', capital punishment, which we do not have, along with maybes about unknown foreigners, is not the way to go about that.

But, seeing you have violated your own topic, I will also diverge and say that, as a responsible, still more or less democracy, Australia should boycott the Winter Olympics in China.

ttbn,
I would have happily hung the murderer and not given it a second thought.
Soldiers kill entirely innocent enemy soldiers, they kill blokes who have done them no harm (but would if they got the chance), blokes who have a wife and family to support .I was a soldier who saw active service, killing a callous murderer would have been nothing.

Really it is pretty simple.

I have little condemnation of a parent of a murdered child who may seek to kill a known offender before they are taken into custody.

But I most certainly don't want the State to have the power over life and death of anyone.

It would be interesting to know how many of those trying to strip the States of some of their pandemic powers would be of the same mind but they are not unrelated.

If for some reason I did face life in gaol I would prefer to end it all with a lethal injection.

Dear Atheist,

«If for some reason I did face life in gaol I would prefer to end it all with a lethal injection.»

Indeed, and you should always be allowed that choice.

Is Mise,

BS. You are all mouth and trousers. Besides, you wouldn't pass the entry test. If you were as hard and murderous as you claim to be, you would have 'hanged' the perpetrator, not 'hung' him.

There are any number of blowhards who fantasise about what they 'would' do, knowing full well that they will never have to actually carry out their fantasies

ttbn,
‘Hanged ‘ and ‘hung’ are now used interchangeably, this is shewn in much modern writing, get over it.

Which combat units did you serve in?

State sanctioned murder in the form of killing of the innocent in war is the most common form of execution. How many innocent Afghan's has Australia executed in the past 20 years, probably hundreds.

Issy, ttbn joined the Tutti-Frutti Brigade, First Division, he's still in it, AH!

15/1/2020 John Steven Gardner

Gardner was given a death sentence for the shooting death of his wife, Tammy Gardner. Tammy had placed a call to 911 and named her husband as the assailant after she had been shot in the head. She died in the hospital three days later after the family chose to take her off life support. Prosecutors claimed Gardner shot Tammy because she had filed for divorce. Defense argued there was no forensic evidence connecting Gardner to the crime.
During sentencing, the jury learned that Gardner was convicted of shooting his first wife in Mississippi in 1983. Rhoda Gardner was only 18 and pregnant at the time of her death.

29/1/2020 Donnie Cleveland Lance

Lance had been sentenced to death for the killings of Sabrina "Joy" Lance and Dwight "Butch" Wood Jr. The two were slain on November 8, 1997, at Wood's home in Jackson County, about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Lance went to the home, kicked in the front door and shot Wood in the front and back with a shotgun and then beat Joy Lance to death with the butt of the shotgun, according to a Georgia Supreme Court summary of the case.
Lance had consistently said he did not kill the pair.

6/2/2020 Abel Revill Ochoa

The evidence shows that on Sunday, August 4, 2002, appellant shot his wife, two of his sisters-in-law, his father-in-law, and his 18-month-old daughter. Appellant reloaded his gun and shot his seven-year-old daughter. This occurred in the home where appellant lived with his wife, his two daughters, and his father-in-law. Everyone was killed except for one of the sisters-in-law (Alma) who testified at appellant's trial that appellant looked "very mean, very angry" when the shooting began.

John Steven Gardner and Abel Revill Ochoa should've been taken out the back of the courthouse, face against the brick wall, and dispatched with a bullet to the back of the head.
I'm not convinced guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt for Donnie Cleveland Lance, but I also don't know all the facts.

14 to go NathanJ?

The real perpetuators of criminality are the do-gooders, the criminal defence lawyers & incompetent bureaucrats courtesy of leftist academic upbringing.

Is Mise,

Again, BS. The words are not interchangeable; they are misused by semi-literate people, the dumb and the pigheaded.

Military service has nothing to do with the discussion. You are the one who brought it up. You are the one who thinks a spot of soldiering - real or imagined - makes you capable of executing people. If you have a glorious military career you want to talk about, or if you want to invent one, go for it. I have no interest in war stories and lies. But there are people here who believe things said anonymously, that cannot be proved or disproved, who lap up fairy stories and bluster.

ttbn,
The words are interchangeable just Google and you’ll get answers, you do know about Google?
As for the rest of your rant, see a psychiatrist.

Is Mise,

Go back to your pointless arguments with that silly woman. You deserve each other.

ttbn,
Aren’t you going to tell us about your military service and where you learn’t your good manners?

It's a troublesome world
All the people who're in it
Are troubled with troubles almost every minute
We ought to be thankful a whole heaping lot
For the places and people we're lucky we're not!

Is Mise,

See if you can get things together long enough to point out where I said I had any military experience. You will find that it was you who claimed to have been the big brave warrior, not I. I have never been anywhere near anything in the martial line, I am happy to say.

You seem to have some serious reading/cognitive problems - or worse. You mentioned a psychiatrist for me. I rather think that's projection on your part, digger

ttbn,

<<You have veered right off your own topic, Nathan.>>

The fact that China would put a journalist in prison for reporting about COVID-19 is very serious. In fact the Chinese Government will not even reveal how many people they execute per year.

"CHINA has been branded the world's worst executioner as the state kills thousands of people every year using firing squads, lethal injections and mobile death vans.

The true numbers of those killed by the Communist Party are thought to be staggeringly high - but the regime keeps them closely concealed as state secrets."

http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13939633/china-brutal-execution-death-vans-trials/#:~:text=CHINA%20has%20been,as%20state%20secrets.

The story also shows you some of the images involved of people being taken away by police, people being carted away to be killed and one going into a death van.

It's all pretty gruesome stuff - and I agree with you on one point - people like Is Mise will greatly do the talk, but not do the walk.

ttbn,
I never said you had any military experience, where would I get such a notion?

Nathan,
Still up your nose am I?
You must have the second sight to be agreeing with ttbn, or is it just another case of bad manners?

Is mise,

ttbn said:

<<People who say that they favour execution expect someone else to do the job.>>

I agree and that is what I was referring to. Nothing else.

People who say that they favour execution expect someone else to do the job
NathanJ,
There'd be a huge pool of decent people who'd volunteer for that if only the stupid wouldn't stop them !

Nathan,
Backing off is understandable.

Looks like Indy will be lining up to chop heads off with a blunt axe,

Paul1405,
Hide, morons first !

I thought that Indy, I would be on your long list of "undesirables". In your ideal police state, where the police decide a persons guilt, there's no innocence, you and your blunt axe will be kept very busy. Hay, good idea for that Seniors National Service, exercutioner, How many do you think will be needed to get the job done, 10,000.

I'm sorry, individual, but I cannot agree that people who would execute other people could be "decent". There is nothing decent about killing anyone, with the exception of self defence. I accept that the families and friends of a murder victim might very well want the same for the person who killed their loved one. I cannot say that I wouldn't feel the same way. But I wouldn't, because, a) I am not a killer, b) I would also be charged with murder and c) I would not expect society to take revenge for something that does not affect them, and d) I would cease to be a civilised person; I would be no better than the killer.

All this blood lust is pretty horrific when compared with actual forgiveness often displayed by families of victims.

Well said ttbn.

As Buddha said, Forgiveness is the hardest thing in life.

ttbn,
You've got to be cruel to be kind-that old adage is now more relevant than ever.
Paul1405 you've not forgiven the Europeans for doing what you've done yourself by settling here.

Murder affects everyone, the murderer has removed a consumer who contributes to the general good, or a taxpayer or potential taxpayer, the loss of whom affects society in general.

Here’s another reason not to have the death penalty. The person below was responsible for one a man doing 20 years jail before he was cleared of murder:

"In South Australia chief forensic pathologist, Dr Colin Manock, was at all relevant times ‘unprofessional, incompetent, untrustworthy’ according to documents lodged with the Supreme Court. Dr Manock gave ‘expert’ evidence in some four hundred criminal trials over his 26- year tenure, resulting in convictions which are now all deemed unsafe and require re-opening. This is an unprecedented volume of potential miscarriages of justice for any jurisdiction. For example, Dr Manock’s testimony in the case of the deaths of three babies in 1992 and 1993 was discredited in a 1994/95 inquest by the coroner. Yet he was allowed to keep practising. Right up until he retired".

ttbn,

<<I'm sorry, individual, but I cannot agree that people who would execute other people could be "decent".>>

Along with the other comments in that post, I agree with all of them.

Just because I agree with a number of ttbn's comments on this page, does not make me anti Is mise. Is mise you will need to understand that and stop tying to stir the pot on that one. It's not doing you any credit.

NJ, Issy is the bigest stick stirrer on the Forum. He generally does ok until her comes up against me, that's when I wipe the floor with him. He talks gun, I give him a blast, talks more guns and I shoot him down. He's a sitting duck and I give him both barrels, bulls eye every time. Issy will back me up on that.

Nathan,
What you wrote was, “… and I agree with you on one point- people like Isn Mise will greatly do the talk, but not do the walk.’

Did I get that wrong, shame on me for taking you literally; just what did you mean?

Is Mise,

<<He took the productive life of a young father and husband; I’d have hung him.>>

Your words, not mine.

You are willing to type things here including supporting the death penalty and portray yourself as someone willing to undertake the work yourself here - but only behind a keyboard. Really that's about as far as it would go.

I do not believe you would undertake any activity regarding the electric chair or the death penalty at all in the real world. As ttbn has pointed out, with those who support the death penalty expect someone else to do the work.

And I would have hung him, slowly, so that only the tips of his toes touched the floor.
Is that clear enough?
Google Captain Drew Gollan to see the life that this piece of scum terminated.
Decent people can kill and still be decent people.

Issy Hitler favoured piano wire. I thought you would be a firering squad man yourself. Then there's the Dodge City approach for some Shooters and Hooters, hang em from the nearest tree.

Is Mise,

<<Decent people can kill and still be decent people.>>

If you were defending yourself or someone else and the other person dies, then maybe, but with the death penalty, someone who is hung to death or put to the electric chair, then no.

I suggest you watch the documentary 'Utopia' by John Pilger. http://johnpilger.com/videos/utopia

View from 30:40 mins to 37:50 mins and eventually hear the story of a Aboriginal man who was hung at a prision in a remote Western Australia prison on Rottnest Island with other prisoners forced to watch a terrible act in front of their eyes.

A full story is told there and NO the people who killed Aboriginal people on Rottnest Island were not decent people.

How much clearer does someone need to be? What about people like Lindy Chamberlein or George Pell, what if they were to be executed? By the way don't forget claims made against Lindy were later found not to be accurate and the claims re George Pell were at a basic level thrown out by the High Court of Australia.

Nathan,
What was not decent about the people who executed Nazi war criminals as a result of the Nuremberg War Trials?
As for Pilger, I have better things to do with my time, like playing Patience.
Bye the way, I have no intention of having a feud with you,, you may imply that. I am a liar as much as you like, it matters not.

The low standard of police investigations needs to be considered in any discussion on this matter also. Griffith University found that 55% of wrongful convictions were due to failures in police investigations.

Forensic failures were at fault in 31% of wrongful convictions.

Incompetent prosecutions accounted for 17%.

And judicial incompetence account for 32%. The appeal courts figured highly in this area.

ttbn,

Totally agree. The amount of people who are subesquently released due to a 'miscarriage of justice' is something not to be written off and needs to be seriously considered when discussing the dealth penalty. Not everyone gets the benefit of being released from prison, saved from being put to death or escaping the electric chair. No one would want anyone to be put to death (when they have committed no crime). One might say a person is guilty, well I don't know that, do I?

The last man legally executed in Australia, Ronald Ryan was possibly innocent. Ryan was found guilty of the murder of prison warder George Hodson, during an escape attempt from Pentridge Prison, Victoria, in 1965. There is every possibility Hodson died as a result of friendly fire from another warder. The corrupt Liberal Premier of Victoria, Henry Bolte was up for re-election in 1967, and Bolte was looking at possible defeat. Running on a law and order platform, Bolte used the Ryan case as a lever for re-election. Despite doubts about Ryan's guilt, Bolte pressured the Victorian Governor not to commute Ryan's sentence to life imprisonment. Ryan was hanged at Pentridge Prison Feb 1967, on hearing the news of Ryan's exercution. Bolte declared himself re-elected, he was re-elected April 1967, thanks to the death of Ronald Ryan. Bolte died, not at the end of a rope, but of old age in 1990.

Paul,
What did Ryan’s death have to do with the lifespan of Bolte?

Issy, once read a book about Ronald Ryan, didn't have much of a chance in life. I'm going to have to start charging you if I'm going to keep on answering your questions, there's a danger with you getting all that free knowledge, you could end up half as smart as me, and that wont do.

Maybe just maybe, as Ryan was a person with nothing going for him in life, who paid the ultimate price at the end of a rope. Maybe Bolte in his own way was a murderer who had an innocent man executed for his own selfish purposes. One judged to be a low life criminal, the other is knighted and has a statue erected in his honour. Any irony there?

Paul,
Sure there is irony and I think that Ryan didn’t kill the warden, but I fail to see how Ryan’s death extended Bolte’s life, that’s all.