Oh bloody hell does it always have to end up in an argument? This was perfectly civilised up until a couple of posts ago, now there's aggression and animosity. Give it a rest.


Back to the topic of capital punishment:

I agree in principle that if a murderer has committed a murder which conforms to the specifications of Murder 1, the death penalty is appropriate. This is in an ideal world where the judicial system can correctly identify every time whether an accused person is guilty or innocent. However, every judicial system on this planet is far from perfect. I simply do not trust the system well enough to condone the execution of a convicted murderer because I am not convinced that they have been correctly identified.

I believe that, under British criminal law at least, 98% certainty is required that the person is guilty in order to convict them. How often do you think a jury is 98% certain? I'd wager it's in less than half of all cases where there is a conviction.

Someone once said, "It is better to free ten guilty men than to imprison one innocent." I think that's pretty close to the truth.

Now, you might say that this has more to do with the crappy system of justice than the death penalty, but the difference is that once someone is executed, if it is later discovered that they were innocent it is too late.

Actually in a neat little link to the original topic of US presidential candidates, I think I saw on the news Bush saying he believed that everyone on death row or who had been executed (maybe in his term in office there... Texas is it?) is/was guilty. I think that's very very naive.