Should we bring back hanging?

[eggman]

The Victorians went to great lengths and made exhaustive scientific calculations to make sure that the application of the death penalty by hanging was humane;  in so doing they abolished the short drop and introduced the long drop method instead. In certain states of the USA, the death penalty is available for rape as well as murder.  Given these factors, are we as a society right to demonstrate such compassion in exercising the death penalty and should it be introduced for rapists also, even in cases of marital rape?  A bit heavy, I know, but what do people think?

[finex]

...and just how many innocent people would you have the state kill, in order to ensure that the correct criminal was eventually punished?

 

Past history worldwide has shown repeatedly that you can NEVER have a foolproof justice system. People WILL on occasion be wrongly convicted, and if you have a death penalty, innocent people WILL die.

Unless you have the ability to resurrect corpses, the state should never have the power to kill. Better to be freed on appeal after time in prison than dead, with nobody bothering to verify your innocence as there is no point.

[Yeah Bee]

Death penalty is out of the question? And i'm not a week ass liberal but the death penalty is final. There are many cases in the states where convicted murderers are totally innocent and they where waiting on death row. That is to much of a risk. Second the death penalty is rascistic cuz blacks get the chair, needle, rope, gas or firing squad more often then whites  even thou they comitted the same crime. Third if a killer is running from the police and he knows he will get the chair if he gets caught, nothing is stopping him from killing some bystanders or the chasing polive men. The death penalty as a warning doesn't work. For the same reasons we shouldn't have lifelong sentances either. And think about the prisnoers who has got life inprisonment they will stop at nothing to get power on the inside cuz they know they're never getting out.. 

[kevbuddy45]

YES YES YES. People should be hanged for murder only. In these days of advanced technology and DNA tracing, the chances of wrongfully convicting a murderer are next to none, maybe even none. Cant stand Human Rights people banging on about its 'inhumanity'. Murderers lose their humanity and human rights as soon as the kill a fellow human being.

[eggman]

Finex, thank you as ever for your observations, but with respect you seem to have misinterpreted some of my earlier comments.  I am not proposing that we should execute criminals and cross our fingers in the hope that their convictions were safe;  as you imply, there have been gross miscarriages of justice in this regard, such as the notorious case of Derek Bentley in 1953. I am, however, suggesting that maybe there should be made available the option for criminals themselves to decide whether it is better to rot in gaol for the rest of their lives or simply end it all and have done with it.  Not an especially liberal view, granted, but a surprisingly popular one amongst certain murderers and rapists currently serving the alternative of life imprisonment.

Best wishes, 

eggman