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.