To be appalled by the latest execution in the US.

I do agree with the death penalty but I could never vote for it all the while we have corrupt/ incompetent police officers.

Wonderfullife you want vengeance not justice and that is wrong too.

I agree with others, I would not like to see the re introduction of the death penalty as the innocent cannot be bought back to life.
I do though sometimes find myself saying that some crimes are so bad and heinous that I think they should die, but that is vengeance not punishment and I know it is wrong.

Timothy Evans

Derek Bentley

Mahmood Hussein Mattan

Innocent

Ruth Ellis guilty but !

We have a very good justice system WonderfulLife. Are you able to point to a better one? I wouldn’t vote to reintroduce capital punishment because if a miscarriage of justice occurred then you couldn’t bring back the executed convict. Would you really vote to bring back capital punishment ‘because we don’t have a decent justice system and the country has gone to hell in a hand cart’? What strange reasons. I hope you don’t get to vote on the matter if that’s your logic.

Germanshepherdsmum

He got what he deserved. Tough if it wasn’t a gentle death - nor were the deaths of his victims.

I do agree with the above.

I disagree, if it was my husband, daughter, son, grandchild parent that this man had committed a crime against I would want him to suffer the most horrible death possible. If he suffered because of a failed execution then fantastic. I would put my name forward to do the job myself.

I would vote for capital punishment in the UK if there ever was a vote because we don't have a decent justice system and the country has gone to hell in a hand cart.

I agree with Rosie. Some prison sentences do seem derisory but that doesn’t justify state torture.

We tell our children they shouldn’t retaliate with violence if someone hits them so how can we condone the state using violence against its citizens?

GrannyGravy13

The rational side of my brain is against capital punishment.

I will admit to hearing the details of some crimes and my heart says that the offender does not deserve to live, then my head pops up with incarceration for life is not a picnic .

If you take a life, than you should be locked up until the end of your life, no trips out, no time off for good behaviour *life should mean life*

This is pretty much how I feel too. I am opposed to capital punishment, but there are some crimes which are just so utterly heinous, and some criminals who are plainly just evil to their very core, that they should never see the light of day again.

When the death penalty was abolished in the UK (rightly so in my opinion) I thought it was to be replaced by "life imprisonment" that would be a whole life term. That murderers can be released after a relatively short term is an insult to the victims and their families.

If a country has the death penalty then it is beholden on it to carry out the execution in as humane way as is possible. This was not humane. To sink to such cruel methods makes the state as low as the criminal they seek to kill.

I know the details of his crime. I'm not disputing that at all. I still don't think capital punishment is acceptable and to use a death as an experiment is just wrong.

This individual was a hired killer who had stabbed and bludgeoned a preacher’s wife to death.

If he had been spared the death penalty and been given a life sentence you can bet that some years along the line some human rights lawyer would have been campaigning for his release.

He won’t kill anyone else now, will he.

No country that has the death penalty can call itself civilised. We are not superhuman; we can’t decree who should live and who should die.

The rational side of my brain is against capital punishment.

I will admit to hearing the details of some crimes and my heart says that the offender does not deserve to live, then my head pops up with incarceration for life is not a picnic .

If you take a life, than you should be locked up until the end of your life, no trips out, no time off for good behaviour life should mean life

No sympathy whatsoever for him. He got what he deserved - the person he murdered didn't.

I have just read that the victims son said that justice had been done today. grandmabatty may not want to hear the details of his crime, but we should realise the impact his crime had on the victim and her family.

Capital punishment apart, it seems odd that a more straightforward method couldn't be found. How is it possible for animals to be put down with a simple injection? I gather the necessary chemicals are hard to source but that seems ridiculous in this day and age.
What a mess!

He got what he deserved. Tough if it wasn’t a gentle death - nor were the deaths of his victims.

In fact, whether it was learning about the ten commandments at school back in the dim and distant past, I think it would be fair to say it was always part of a collective consciousness that murder was just about the worst thing a person could do, and maybe that was reinforced but heftier sentences, and capital punishment here up till about 1963 I think.

We've always had gang warfare, The Krays for example, that encompassed psychopaths, but there just seems to be an awful casualness about the taking of life amongst the very young knife carriers of today, as if it is some rite of passage and badge of honour to take out some poor innocent kid.. The enormity of taking a life seems to have been lost on the perpetrator.

I agree maddyone

I agree too Maddy.

maddyone

I have great sympathy for the victims. Some murders are absolutely depraved, but I still don’t agree with state sanctioned murder. The problem in Britain is that many murders are not even charged as murder but charged as manslaughter, when it is clear to everyone that the crime committed was murder, but additionally, even when the charge is murder and the perpetrator convicted of murder, the tariff is so low. Twenty years, reduced to ten served normally, is not a deterrent and is certainly not enough punishment. Taking a life purposefully should attract a much longer tariff. The twenty reduced to ten devalues the life of the victim.

Absolutely agree maddyone

I have great sympathy for the victims. Some murders are absolutely depraved, but I still don’t agree with state sanctioned murder. The problem in Britain is that many murders are not even charged as murder but charged as manslaughter, when it is clear to everyone that the crime committed was murder, but additionally, even when the charge is murder and the perpetrator convicted of murder, the tariff is so low. Twenty years, reduced to ten served normally, is not a deterrent and is certainly not enough punishment. Taking a life purposefully should attract a much longer tariff. The twenty reduced to ten devalues the life of the victim.

Yes, absolute sympathy for the victims, of course. But it doesn't alter the fact that the death penalty is wrong, and this one seems particularly barbaric.

My sympathy is reserved for the victims of crime not the murderer.