Capital punishment !

[SeagullinExile]

Maybe if backed only with DNA evidence as conclusive proof might be better then ?

DNA is never 100% conclusive.

 

[the wanderbus]

anyway wander hands why arent you at work stealing giros ??

its not worth it now you've got a job as crowborough's answer to johnny morris....

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I think you have been watching too many TV crime programs !!

96 Dead Liverpool fans ? Anyway here's some examples of miscarriages some of which might have resulted in the death penalty had we had it at the time ( and indeed some of them were killed incorrectly by the state ) :

In the United Kingdom a jailed person whose conviction is quashed may be paid compensation for the time they were incarcerated.
It was a notable problem that the parole system assumes that all convicted persons are actually guilty, and that it poorly handled those who are not. In order to be paroled, a convicted person was required to sign a document in which, among other things, they confessed to the crime for which they were convicted. Someone refusing to sign such a declaration of remorse ended up spending longer in jail than a genuinely guilty person would have. Some wrongly convicted people, such as the Birmingham Six, were refused parole for this reason. In 2005 the system changed in this respect, and a handful of prisoners started to be paroled without ever admitting guilt.
In the event of a "perverse" verdict that involves the conviction of a defendant who should not have been convicted on the basis of the evidence presented, English law has no means of correcting this error: appeals being based exclusively upon new evidence or errors by the judge or prosecution (but not the defense), or because of jury irregularities. It occurred however in the 1930s when William Herbert Wallace was exonerated of the murder of his wife. There is no right to a trial without jury (except during the troubles in Northern Ireland when a judge or judges presided without a jury).
During the early 1990s there was a series of high-profile cases revealed to have been miscarriages of justice. Many resulted from police fabricating evidence, in order to convict the person they thought was guilty, or simply to convict someone in order to get a high conviction rate. The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad became notorious for such practices, and was disbanded in 1989. In 1997 the Criminal Cases Review Commission[SUP][35][/SUP] was established specifically in order to examine possible miscarriages of justice. However, it still requires either strong new evidence of innocence or new proof of a legal error by the judge or prosecution. For example, merely insisting you are innocent and the jury made an error, or stating that there was not enough evidence to prove guilt, is not enough. It is not possible to question the jury's decision or query on what matters it was based. The waiting list for cases to be considered for review is at least two years on average. See, for example:

• the Darvell brothers
• Danny McNamee
• the M25 Three
• Ryan James
• Jonathan Jones
• Sheila Bowler
• Christy Walsh case
• Danny Morrison (writer)
• Gerry Magee
• UDR Four
• Murder of Lesley Molseed Stefan Kiszko case

[h=5]Other miscarriages[/h]

• Robert Green, Henry Berry and Lawrence Hill were hanged in 1679 at Greenberry Hill on false evidence for the unsolved murder of Edmund Berry Godfrey.
• Adolph Beck, whose notorious wrongful conviction in 1896, because of mistaken identity, led to the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal.
• John Alexander Dickman was wrongfully convicted of the murder of John Nisbet on 6 July 1910, and sentenced to death, on purely circumstantial evidence, and on the basis of an ID parade where the witness was tainted. The Home Secretary of the time, Winston Churchill, took a keen interest in the case, and he expressed doubts about the evidence. A campaign was run to free Dickman, but John Dickman was hanged in Newcastle Prison on 10 August 1910. In 1925 a person called "Condor" confessed to killing John Nisbet. The document of 40,000 words spread over 205 pages was sent to Truth Magazine. The document was sent on to the Home Office but they refused to order the police to investigate it.
• William Herbert Wallace who was convicted of murdering his wife, but the conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1931, the first such instance of a capital conviction being quashed.
• Walter Graham Rowland was tried for a murder in Manchester and hanged in 1947, despite poor identification evidence and a confession from another.
• Timothy Evans's wife and young daughter were killed in 1949. Evans was convicted of the murder of his daughter and was hanged in 1950. An official inquiry conducted 15 years later determined that the real killer of Evans's daughter had been Evans's co-tenant, serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. Christie was also responsible for the death of Evans's wife, his own wife, and six other women. He was the chief witness against Evans at his trial because the police accepted all of his statements as fact. The police were incompetent in their several searches of the house at Rillington Place, missing bones of earlier victims exposed in the tiny garden of the property. They also concocted false confessions from Evans to justify their accusations against Evans. The case was important in leading directly to the abolition of capital punishment in 1965 in the UK.
• Mahmood Mattan, little known case of a Somali fisherman, hanged in Cardiff in 1952. Conviction overturned in 1998. £1.4 million compensation was shared out between Mattan's widow Laura, and her three children.
• Derek Bentley, executed for murdering a police officer. The charge was based on the allegation that during a standoff with police, he shouted to an armed friend 'Let him have it, Chris'. The case is often said to be a miscarriage of justice, and the verdict was overturned half a century later. It should be noted, however, that the grounds for overturning the verdict was that the trial had not been fair, due to various procedural defects. Had Bentley still been alive, there would certainly have been a retrial; he was not pronounced innocent by the Court of Appeal.
• Andrew Evans served more than 25 years for the murder of 14-year-old Judith Roberts. He confessed to the 1972 murder after seeing the girl's face in a dream. His conviction was overturned in 1997.
• Stephen Downing was convicted of the murder of Wendy Sewell in a Bakewell churchyard in 1973. The 17-year-old had a reading age of 11 and worked at the cemetery as a gardener. The police made him sign a confession that he was unable to read. The case gained international notoriety as the "Bakewell Tart" murder. After spending 27 years in prison, Stephen Downing was released on bail in February 2001, pending the result of an appeal. His conviction was finally overturned in January 2002.
• The Birmingham Six were fraudulently convicted in 1975 of planting two bombs in pubs in Birmingham in 1974 which killed 21 people and injured 182. They were finally released in 1991.
• In 1974 Judith Ward was convicted of murder of several people caused by a number of IRA bombings in 1973. She was finally released in 1992 having served 18 years in prison.
• The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were wrongly convicted in 1974 and 1976 respectively of planting bombs in various pubs in Guildford and Woolwich. Their convictions were quashed in 1989 and 1991. On February 9, 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a public apology to the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four for the "miscarriages of justice they had suffered."
• Stefan Kiszko was convicted in 1976 for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975. He spent 16 years in prison before he was released in 1992, after a long campaign by his mother. He died of a heart attack the following year at the age of 41. His mother died a few months later. In 2007, Ronald Castree, of Shaw, near Oldham, was found to have the same DNA as Lesley's attacker and was convicted at Bradford Crown Court.
• John Joseph Boyle aged 18 was convicted under the pretenses of an alleged confession at Belfast City Commission on October 14, 1977 of possession of firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life, and membership in the I.R.A. He was sentenced to ten years in prison on the first count, and to two years in prison on the second count, the terms to run concurrently. A suspended sentence of two years imprisonment imposed for a previous offense was also invoked, making a total of twelve years in prison. When released he underwent a long fight to prove his innocence. In 2003, his conviction was quashed but he has been denied compensation.
• Paul Blackburn was convicted in 1978 when aged 15 of the attempted murder of a 9-year-old boy, and spent more than 25 years in 18 different prisons, during which time he maintained his innocence. He said he had never considered saying he was guilty to secure an earlier release because it was a matter of "integrity". He was finally released in May 2005 having served 25 years when the Court of Appeal ruled his trial was unfair and his conviction 'unsafe'.
• The Bridgewater Four were convicted in 1979 of murdering Carl Bridgewater, a 13-year-old paper boy who was shot on his round when he disturbed robbers at a farm in Staffordshire. Patrick Molloy died in jail in 1981. The remaining three were released in 1997 after their convictions were overturned.
• Peter Fell, a former hospital porter, described in the media as a "serial confessor" and a "fantasist", was sentenced to two life terms in 1984 for the murder of Ann Lee and Margaret "Peggy" Johnson, who were killed while they were out walking their dogs in 1982. His conviction was overturned in 2001. He had served 17 years.
• Sean Hodgson, also known as Robert Graham Hodgson, was convicted in 1982 of murder following various confessions to police, although he pleaded not guilty at his trial. His defence said he was a pathological liar and the confessions were untrue. He was freed on March 18, 2009 by the Court of Appeal as a result of advances in DNA analysis which established his innocence.[SUP][36][/SUP]
• Winston Silcott was jailed for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the 1985 Broadwater Farm Riot in Tottenham. He was cleared in 1991, when new evidence came to light.
• Kenny Richey, a UK-US dual citizen, spent 21 years on Death Row in the US after being convicted of starting a fire that killed 2-year-old Cynthia Collins. His conviction was eventually thrown out. Richey agreed to a plea bargain in which he agreed to plead 'no contest' to involuntary manslaughter, child endangering and breaking and entering. In exchange for this plea, the prosecution dropped the charges of arson and murder. Part of the agreement was that Richey leave the U.S. immediately.[SUP][37][/SUP]
• The Cardiff Newsagent Three, Michael O'Brien (of the Cardiff Newsagent Three), Darren Hall and Ellis Sherwood, were wrongly convicted for the murder of a newsagent, Phillip Saunders. On October 12, 1987 Mr Saunders, 52, was battered with a spade outside his Cardiff home. The day's takings from his kiosk had been stolen, and five days later he died of his injuries. The three men spent 11 years in jail before the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in 1999. The three have since been paid six figure compensation, but South Wales Police had still not apologised or admitted liability for malicious prosecution or misfeasance.
• Michelle and Lisa Taylor, wrongly convicted for the murder in 1991 of Alison Shaughnessy, a bank clerk who was the bride of Michelle's former lover. The trial was heavily influenced by inaccurate media reporting and deemed unfair.
• The Cardiff Three, Steven Miller, Yusef Abdullahi, and Tony Paris were falsely jailed for the murder of prostitute Lynette White, stabbed more than 50 times in a frenzied attack in a flat above a betting shop in Cardiff's Butetown area on Valentine's Day 1988, in 1990 and later cleared on appeal. In 2003, Jeffrey Gafoor was jailed for life for the murder. The breakthrough was due to modern DNA techniques used on evidence taken from the crime scene. Subsequently, in 2005, nine retired Police Officers and three serving Officers were arrested and questioned for false imprisonment, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in public office. On 6 July 2011, eight of the officers stood trial at Swansea Crown Court for perverting the course of justice together with three witnesses accused of perjury. However, on 1 December 2011 the entire case collapsed, as the judge ruled the police officers could not be given a fair trial due to the previous publicity.[SUP][38][/SUP]
• Sally Clark was convicted in 1996 of the murder of her two small sons Christopher and Harry, and spent three years in jail, finally being released in 2003 on appeal. The convictions were based solely on the analysis of the deaths by the Home Office Pathologist Alan Williams, who failed to disclose relevant information about the deaths, that was backed up by the paediatric professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose opinion was pivotal in several other child death convictions, many of which have been overturned or are in the process of being disputed. In 2005 Williams was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and barred from practising pathology for 3 years. In July 2005 Meadow was also removed from the Medical Register for serious professional misconduct and prohibited from practising medicine. Sally Clark became an alcoholic as a result of her ordeal and died of alcohol poisoning in 2006.
• The Gurnos Three, also known as the Merthyr Tydfil Arson Case (Annette Hewins, Donna Clarke and Denise Sullivan). Wrongly convicted of the arson attack on the home of Diane Jones, aged 21, in October 1995. Someone had torn away part of the covering of her front door and poured in petrol to start the fire. The fire spread so rapidly that Ms Jones and her two daughters, Shauna, aged two, and Sarah-Jane, aged 13 months, were all killed. The convictions of Ms Hewins and Ms Clarke were quashed at the Court of Appeal in February 1998 and a retrial ordered in the case of Ms Clarke.
• Donna Anthony, 25 at the time, was wrongly jailed in 1998 for the death of her 11-month old son, also because of the opinion of Sir Roy Meadow, and finally released in 2005.
• Angela Cannings also jailed wrongly for four years on the now discredited evidence of Sir Roy Meadow. Angela was later stalked by a jail inmate she befriende and the strain of the wrongful conviction destroyed her marriage.
• Barry George was cleared on August 1, 2008 of murdering Jill Dando after a retrial in which police were unable to rely on discredited forensic evidence.
• David Carrington-Jones was released on October 16, 2007, after spending six years in jail for a rape he did not commit, having been previously found guilty on two counts of rape and sexual assault against a pair of teenage sisters in December 2000. One of the accusers subsequently admitted to police she made up the allegations against her stepfather, Mr Carrington-Jones, because she 'did not like him'. It has transpired that the girl had previously made other false allegations of rape against her brother, fiancée, stepfather and even a customer at her place of work, but the jury was not told of this and Mr Carrington-Jones was sentenced to a ten-year jail term at Lewes Crown Court. He was later refused parole hearings because he refused to admit his guilt. Mr Carrington-Jones is said to be discussing claiming compensation.
• Suzanne Holdsworth served three years of a life sentence after she was convicted in 2005 of murdering Kyle Fisher, a neighbour's two-year-old son, by repeatedly banging his head against a wooden bannister at her home in Hartlepool. She was found not guilty in 2008 by the Court of Appeal after new medical evidence suggested Kyle may have died from an epileptic seizure.
• Sion Jenkins, acquitted after a second retrial of the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins in February 2006. Jenkins was convicted in 1998 but the conviction was quashed in 2004 following a CCRC referral. The basis of the quashed conviction at the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) were the concessions by the Crown's pathologist that evidence given at the first tribunal were inaccurate.
• Barri White and Keith Hyatt. On 12 December 2000, Rachel Manning, aged 19, was found strangled to death and her face battered with a car crook lock, in the grounds of Woburn Golf Club, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Her boyfriend, Barri White, 20 at the time, was jailed for life in 2002 for her murder, only to be freed after being acquitted of killing her at a retrial. Mr White's co-accused, Keith Hyatt, 47 at the time, served two-and-a-half years for perverting the course of justice, relating to the post-death battering of the victim’s face, before also having his conviction quashed. Dr Peter Bull, an expert in geo-science forensics, labelled the evidence 'totally implausible'. Subsequently, in 2011, Shahidul Ahmed, 40, from Bletchley, appeared at Milton Keynes Magistrates' Court and was remanded in custody for Manning's murder after the case was reinvestigated by a new team.
• John Bodkin Adams, is a particularly notable case when a man was acquitted when he may now, with access to archives, be considered to have in all likelihood been guilty. Adams was arrested in 1956 for the murders of Edith Alice Morrell and Gertrude Hullett. He was tried in 1957 and found not guilty of the first charge, while the second was dropped via a Nolle prosequi, an act which the presiding judge, Lord Justice Patrick Devlin, later termed "an abuse of power".[SUP][39][/SUP] Police archives, opened in 2003, suggest that evidence was passed to the defence by the Attorney-General Reginald Manningham-Buller in order to allow Adams to avoid the death sentence, then still in force. Home Office pathologist Francis Camps suspected Adams of killing 163 patients in total.[SUP][40][/SUP] Adams was only ever fined for minor offences and struck off the medical register for four years.
• In March 2012 it was reported that Adam Scott, a 20-year-old from Devon, had been charged with rape, in a city he claimed never to have visited, because of an error caused by contamination in the laboratory of LGC Forensics. Scott's solicitor called for a public inquiry.[SUP][41][/SUP]

 

[Phat Baz 68]

That's what I'm asking you.

You appear to be saying that because you think prisoners are having a cushy life, that's reason enough to have them killed. If you're putting the question back on me with the reasons of what you believe is happening, then I'd say that that answer is no. What you seem to seek is revenge, not justice.

My question to you is if it was one of your relatives/ children (and i really hope that never happens) what would you want done then ?
Put yourself in their shoes for a few minutes and think about it !!

 

[GreersElbow]

Capital punishment is not justice, it is revenge. It is NOT a deterrent, as murder in states with capital punishment still happen. In terrorism, you're only creating a martyr. Ian Hislop does well to argue against it.

 

[SeagullinExile]

I think you have been watching too many TV crime programs !!

Yeah. The Police never cover things up....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19610226

 

[Phat Baz 68]

96 Dead Liverpool fans ? Anyway here's some examples of miscarriages some of which might have resulted in the death penalty had we had it at the time ( and indeed some of them were killed incorrectly by the state ) :

In the United Kingdom a jailed person whose conviction is quashed may be paid compensation for the time they were incarcerated.
It was a notable problem that the parole system assumes that all convicted persons are actually guilty, and that it poorly handled those who are not. In order to be paroled, a convicted person was required to sign a document in which, among other things, they confessed to the crime for which they were convicted. Someone refusing to sign such a declaration of remorse ended up spending longer in jail than a genuinely guilty person would have. Some wrongly convicted people, such as the Birmingham Six, were refused parole for this reason. In 2005 the system changed in this respect, and a handful of prisoners started to be paroled without ever admitting guilt.
In the event of a "perverse" verdict that involves the conviction of a defendant who should not have been convicted on the basis of the evidence presented, English law has no means of correcting this error: appeals being based exclusively upon new evidence or errors by the judge or prosecution (but not the defense), or because of jury irregularities. It occurred however in the 1930s when William Herbert Wallace was exonerated of the murder of his wife. There is no right to a trial without jury (except during the troubles in Northern Ireland when a judge or judges presided without a jury).
During the early 1990s there was a series of high-profile cases revealed to have been miscarriages of justice. Many resulted from police fabricating evidence, in order to convict the person they thought was guilty, or simply to convict someone in order to get a high conviction rate. The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad became notorious for such practices, and was disbanded in 1989. In 1997 the Criminal Cases Review Commission[SUP][35][/SUP] was established specifically in order to examine possible miscarriages of justice. However, it still requires either strong new evidence of innocence or new proof of a legal error by the judge or prosecution. For example, merely insisting you are innocent and the jury made an error, or stating that there was not enough evidence to prove guilt, is not enough. It is not possible to question the jury's decision or query on what matters it was based. The waiting list for cases to be considered for review is at least two years on average. See, for example:

• the Darvell brothers
• Danny McNamee
• the M25 Three
• Ryan James
• Jonathan Jones
• Sheila Bowler
• Christy Walsh case
• Danny Morrison (writer)
• Gerry Magee
• UDR Four
• Murder of Lesley Molseed Stefan Kiszko case

[h=5]Other miscarriages[/h]

• Robert Green, Henry Berry and Lawrence Hill were hanged in 1679 at Greenberry Hill on false evidence for the unsolved murder of Edmund Berry Godfrey.
• Adolph Beck, whose notorious wrongful conviction in 1896, because of mistaken identity, led to the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal.
• John Alexander Dickman was wrongfully convicted of the murder of John Nisbet on 6 July 1910, and sentenced to death, on purely circumstantial evidence, and on the basis of an ID parade where the witness was tainted. The Home Secretary of the time, Winston Churchill, took a keen interest in the case, and he expressed doubts about the evidence. A campaign was run to free Dickman, but John Dickman was hanged in Newcastle Prison on 10 August 1910. In 1925 a person called "Condor" confessed to killing John Nisbet. The document of 40,000 words spread over 205 pages was sent to Truth Magazine. The document was sent on to the Home Office but they refused to order the police to investigate it.
• William Herbert Wallace who was convicted of murdering his wife, but the conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1931, the first such instance of a capital conviction being quashed.
• Walter Graham Rowland was tried for a murder in Manchester and hanged in 1947, despite poor identification evidence and a confession from another.
• Timothy Evans's wife and young daughter were killed in 1949. Evans was convicted of the murder of his daughter and was hanged in 1950. An official inquiry conducted 15 years later determined that the real killer of Evans's daughter had been Evans's co-tenant, serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. Christie was also responsible for the death of Evans's wife, his own wife, and six other women. He was the chief witness against Evans at his trial because the police accepted all of his statements as fact. The police were incompetent in their several searches of the house at Rillington Place, missing bones of earlier victims exposed in the tiny garden of the property. They also concocted false confessions from Evans to justify their accusations against Evans. The case was important in leading directly to the abolition of capital punishment in 1965 in the UK.
• Mahmood Mattan, little known case of a Somali fisherman, hanged in Cardiff in 1952. Conviction overturned in 1998. £1.4 million compensation was shared out between Mattan's widow Laura, and her three children.
• Derek Bentley, executed for murdering a police officer. The charge was based on the allegation that during a standoff with police, he shouted to an armed friend 'Let him have it, Chris'. The case is often said to be a miscarriage of justice, and the verdict was overturned half a century later. It should be noted, however, that the grounds for overturning the verdict was that the trial had not been fair, due to various procedural defects. Had Bentley still been alive, there would certainly have been a retrial; he was not pronounced innocent by the Court of Appeal.
• Andrew Evans served more than 25 years for the murder of 14-year-old Judith Roberts. He confessed to the 1972 murder after seeing the girl's face in a dream. His conviction was overturned in 1997.
• Stephen Downing was convicted of the murder of Wendy Sewell in a Bakewell churchyard in 1973. The 17-year-old had a reading age of 11 and worked at the cemetery as a gardener. The police made him sign a confession that he was unable to read. The case gained international notoriety as the "Bakewell Tart" murder. After spending 27 years in prison, Stephen Downing was released on bail in February 2001, pending the result of an appeal. His conviction was finally overturned in January 2002.
• The Birmingham Six were fraudulently convicted in 1975 of planting two bombs in pubs in Birmingham in 1974 which killed 21 people and injured 182. They were finally released in 1991.
• In 1974 Judith Ward was convicted of murder of several people caused by a number of IRA bombings in 1973. She was finally released in 1992 having served 18 years in prison.
• The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were wrongly convicted in 1974 and 1976 respectively of planting bombs in various pubs in Guildford and Woolwich. Their convictions were quashed in 1989 and 1991. On February 9, 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a public apology to the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four for the "miscarriages of justice they had suffered."
• Stefan Kiszko was convicted in 1976 for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975. He spent 16 years in prison before he was released in 1992, after a long campaign by his mother. He died of a heart attack the following year at the age of 41. His mother died a few months later. In 2007, Ronald Castree, of Shaw, near Oldham, was found to have the same DNA as Lesley's attacker and was convicted at Bradford Crown Court.
• John Joseph Boyle aged 18 was convicted under the pretenses of an alleged confession at Belfast City Commission on October 14, 1977 of possession of firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life, and membership in the I.R.A. He was sentenced to ten years in prison on the first count, and to two years in prison on the second count, the terms to run concurrently. A suspended sentence of two years imprisonment imposed for a previous offense was also invoked, making a total of twelve years in prison. When released he underwent a long fight to prove his innocence. In 2003, his conviction was quashed but he has been denied compensation.
• Paul Blackburn was convicted in 1978 when aged 15 of the attempted murder of a 9-year-old boy, and spent more than 25 years in 18 different prisons, during which time he maintained his innocence. He said he had never considered saying he was guilty to secure an earlier release because it was a matter of "integrity". He was finally released in May 2005 having served 25 years when the Court of Appeal ruled his trial was unfair and his conviction 'unsafe'.
• The Bridgewater Four were convicted in 1979 of murdering Carl Bridgewater, a 13-year-old paper boy who was shot on his round when he disturbed robbers at a farm in Staffordshire. Patrick Molloy died in jail in 1981. The remaining three were released in 1997 after their convictions were overturned.
• Peter Fell, a former hospital porter, described in the media as a "serial confessor" and a "fantasist", was sentenced to two life terms in 1984 for the murder of Ann Lee and Margaret "Peggy" Johnson, who were killed while they were out walking their dogs in 1982. His conviction was overturned in 2001. He had served 17 years.
• Sean Hodgson, also known as Robert Graham Hodgson, was convicted in 1982 of murder following various confessions to police, although he pleaded not guilty at his trial. His defence said he was a pathological liar and the confessions were untrue. He was freed on March 18, 2009 by the Court of Appeal as a result of advances in DNA analysis which established his innocence.[SUP][36][/SUP]
• Winston Silcott was jailed for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the 1985 Broadwater Farm Riot in Tottenham. He was cleared in 1991, when new evidence came to light.
• Kenny Richey, a UK-US dual citizen, spent 21 years on Death Row in the US after being convicted of starting a fire that killed 2-year-old Cynthia Collins. His conviction was eventually thrown out. Richey agreed to a plea bargain in which he agreed to plead 'no contest' to involuntary manslaughter, child endangering and breaking and entering. In exchange for this plea, the prosecution dropped the charges of arson and murder. Part of the agreement was that Richey leave the U.S. immediately.[SUP][37][/SUP]
• The Cardiff Newsagent Three, Michael O'Brien (of the Cardiff Newsagent Three), Darren Hall and Ellis Sherwood, were wrongly convicted for the murder of a newsagent, Phillip Saunders. On October 12, 1987 Mr Saunders, 52, was battered with a spade outside his Cardiff home. The day's takings from his kiosk had been stolen, and five days later he died of his injuries. The three men spent 11 years in jail before the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in 1999. The three have since been paid six figure compensation, but South Wales Police had still not apologised or admitted liability for malicious prosecution or misfeasance.
• Michelle and Lisa Taylor, wrongly convicted for the murder in 1991 of Alison Shaughnessy, a bank clerk who was the bride of Michelle's former lover. The trial was heavily influenced by inaccurate media reporting and deemed unfair.
• The Cardiff Three, Steven Miller, Yusef Abdullahi, and Tony Paris were falsely jailed for the murder of prostitute Lynette White, stabbed more than 50 times in a frenzied attack in a flat above a betting shop in Cardiff's Butetown area on Valentine's Day 1988, in 1990 and later cleared on appeal. In 2003, Jeffrey Gafoor was jailed for life for the murder. The breakthrough was due to modern DNA techniques used on evidence taken from the crime scene. Subsequently, in 2005, nine retired Police Officers and three serving Officers were arrested and questioned for false imprisonment, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in public office. On 6 July 2011, eight of the officers stood trial at Swansea Crown Court for perverting the course of justice together with three witnesses accused of perjury. However, on 1 December 2011 the entire case collapsed, as the judge ruled the police officers could not be given a fair trial due to the previous publicity.[SUP][38][/SUP]
• Sally Clark was convicted in 1996 of the murder of her two small sons Christopher and Harry, and spent three years in jail, finally being released in 2003 on appeal. The convictions were based solely on the analysis of the deaths by the Home Office Pathologist Alan Williams, who failed to disclose relevant information about the deaths, that was backed up by the paediatric professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose opinion was pivotal in several other child death convictions, many of which have been overturned or are in the process of being disputed. In 2005 Williams was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and barred from practising pathology for 3 years. In July 2005 Meadow was also removed from the Medical Register for serious professional misconduct and prohibited from practising medicine. Sally Clark became an alcoholic as a result of her ordeal and died of alcohol poisoning in 2006.
• The Gurnos Three, also known as the Merthyr Tydfil Arson Case (Annette Hewins, Donna Clarke and Denise Sullivan). Wrongly convicted of the arson attack on the home of Diane Jones, aged 21, in October 1995. Someone had torn away part of the covering of her front door and poured in petrol to start the fire. The fire spread so rapidly that Ms Jones and her two daughters, Shauna, aged two, and Sarah-Jane, aged 13 months, were all killed. The convictions of Ms Hewins and Ms Clarke were quashed at the Court of Appeal in February 1998 and a retrial ordered in the case of Ms Clarke.
• Donna Anthony, 25 at the time, was wrongly jailed in 1998 for the death of her 11-month old son, also because of the opinion of Sir Roy Meadow, and finally released in 2005.
• Angela Cannings also jailed wrongly for four years on the now discredited evidence of Sir Roy Meadow. Angela was later stalked by a jail inmate she befriende and the strain of the wrongful conviction destroyed her marriage.
• Barry George was cleared on August 1, 2008 of murdering Jill Dando after a retrial in which police were unable to rely on discredited forensic evidence.
• David Carrington-Jones was released on October 16, 2007, after spending six years in jail for a rape he did not commit, having been previously found guilty on two counts of rape and sexual assault against a pair of teenage sisters in December 2000. One of the accusers subsequently admitted to police she made up the allegations against her stepfather, Mr Carrington-Jones, because she 'did not like him'. It has transpired that the girl had previously made other false allegations of rape against her brother, fiancée, stepfather and even a customer at her place of work, but the jury was not told of this and Mr Carrington-Jones was sentenced to a ten-year jail term at Lewes Crown Court. He was later refused parole hearings because he refused to admit his guilt. Mr Carrington-Jones is said to be discussing claiming compensation.
• Suzanne Holdsworth served three years of a life sentence after she was convicted in 2005 of murdering Kyle Fisher, a neighbour's two-year-old son, by repeatedly banging his head against a wooden bannister at her home in Hartlepool. She was found not guilty in 2008 by the Court of Appeal after new medical evidence suggested Kyle may have died from an epileptic seizure.
• Sion Jenkins, acquitted after a second retrial of the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins in February 2006. Jenkins was convicted in 1998 but the conviction was quashed in 2004 following a CCRC referral. The basis of the quashed conviction at the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) were the concessions by the Crown's pathologist that evidence given at the first tribunal were inaccurate.
• Barri White and Keith Hyatt. On 12 December 2000, Rachel Manning, aged 19, was found strangled to death and her face battered with a car crook lock, in the grounds of Woburn Golf Club, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Her boyfriend, Barri White, 20 at the time, was jailed for life in 2002 for her murder, only to be freed after being acquitted of killing her at a retrial. Mr White's co-accused, Keith Hyatt, 47 at the time, served two-and-a-half years for perverting the course of justice, relating to the post-death battering of the victim’s face, before also having his conviction quashed. Dr Peter Bull, an expert in geo-science forensics, labelled the evidence 'totally implausible'. Subsequently, in 2011, Shahidul Ahmed, 40, from Bletchley, appeared at Milton Keynes Magistrates' Court and was remanded in custody for Manning's murder after the case was reinvestigated by a new team.
• John Bodkin Adams, is a particularly notable case when a man was acquitted when he may now, with access to archives, be considered to have in all likelihood been guilty. Adams was arrested in 1956 for the murders of Edith Alice Morrell and Gertrude Hullett. He was tried in 1957 and found not guilty of the first charge, while the second was dropped via a Nolle prosequi, an act which the presiding judge, Lord Justice Patrick Devlin, later termed "an abuse of power".[SUP][39][/SUP] Police archives, opened in 2003, suggest that evidence was passed to the defence by the Attorney-General Reginald Manningham-Buller in order to allow Adams to avoid the death sentence, then still in force. Home Office pathologist Francis Camps suspected Adams of killing 163 patients in total.[SUP][40][/SUP] Adams was only ever fined for minor offences and struck off the medical register for four years.
• In March 2012 it was reported that Adam Scott, a 20-year-old from Devon, had been charged with rape, in a city he claimed never to have visited, because of an error caused by contamination in the laboratory of LGC Forensics. Scott's solicitor called for a public inquiry.[SUP][41][/SUP]

Im not saying i dont see your point or value your opinion but you have to look at it from all angles dont you ? You could put 1000 times more up on here that were got right couldn't you !
There are people in jail like Peter Sutcliffe, Denis Nilsen, Ian Huntley, Robert Black, Roy Whiting, Ian Brady etc etc that are secure convictions !!

 

[Tricky Dicky]

NO. Two wrongs don't make a right. We don't live in the dark ages.

How can you take the moral high ground if somebody commits murder, and the state says "that's wrong, and just to prove it, we're going to kill you", nope, doesn't work for me.

 

[Racek]

Im not saying i dont see your point or value your opinion but you have to look at it from all angles dont you ? You could put 1000 times more up on here that were got right couldn't you !
There are people in jail like Peter Sutcliffe, Denis Nilsen, Ian Huntley, Robert Black, Roy Whiting, Ian Brady etc etc that are secure convictions !!

Oh dear..... Ian Huntley. Ok, just say that he did not do it. He was put up to it and as there were no witnesses, then how do we know in years to come he was innocent.

I not defending him!

 

[Phat Baz 68]

At least it is good to see that people dont want to roam the streets in lynch mobs.
I suppose somedays Im for it others maybe I'm not but they need their lives in prison to be cold, isolated and inhospitable for the rest of their naturals at least.
Not lives full of colour TVs, Dvds , Gyms, Free education etc why should they have all that ??

 

[GreersElbow]

TROY DAVIS

Murdered because they were wrong.

At least it is good to see that people dont want to roam the streets in lynch mobs.
I suppose somedays Im for it others maybe I'm not but they need their lives in prison to be cold, isolated and inhospitable for the rest of their naturals at least.
Not lives full of colour TVs, Dvds , Gyms, Free education etc why should they have all that ??

This is what I argue. Liberties and freedoms stripped away, life in a 6ft x 6ft cell with the grottiest food imaginable and only 30 minutes of spare time outside your cell to walk in a room to stretch your legs (otherwise you've gotta pay for their healthcare when they develop muscular problems).

Ian Huntley has proved that a death penalty would give him what he wants. Huntley has tried to kill himself multiple times because he is living a life which has nothing left to value, death would be an escape for him. If we killed him, he'd be getting what he wants and there'll be no justice in that.

 

[Phat Baz 68]

Tell me what would you do with them then ??

 

[Phat Baz 68]

Anyway i will leave it for you all to discuss and vote on !!!

 

[Tricky Dicky]

At least it is good to see that people dont want to roam the streets in lynch mobs.
I suppose somedays Im for it others maybe I'm not but they need their lives in prison to be cold, isolated and inhospitable for the rest of their naturals at least.
Not lives full of colour TVs, Dvds , Gyms, Free education etc why should they have all that ??

Prisons and their "perks" is a very different argument. I was very surprised to hear this week that prisoners have subscription channels on TVs in their cells - of course that's not right, but I suspect it's done to keep them out of mischief.

 

[GreersElbow]

Tell me what would you do with them then ??

re-read my post, you will be enlightened.

The argument "Imagine if it was your family/friends" - a fallacy in itself, an appeal to emotion is not based on fact, but built on tugging the strings on the heart in order to win an argument.

Prisons and their "perks" is a very different argument. I was very surprised to hear this week that prisoners have subscription channels on TVs in their cells - of course that's not right, but I suspect it's done to keep them out of mischief.

I doubt a TV subscription does anything to keep them from mischief, what is needed, made evident by the TV series "The Prisoner" is that there's virtually no outside support for ex-prisoners, so they're more likely to re-offend. Inside prison, education needs to put forward. Help them help themselves.

 

[Willy Dangle]

I agree with capital punishment and would happily see it back as long as it is as humane as possible.

However I would rather see life meaning life. Our taxes should go to running a prison and paying the wages of those in service etc but Prisoners should do hard labour for their time and if that means life then so be it. The hard labour should be paid labour and they should earn the keep in terms of food clothing etc. The pay they recieve should be the minimum wage and what is left after their keep should go either towards victim support or a charity of the victims choosing. That should be the case until either the time is done or the prisoner dies.

When I say hard labour I mean hard labour. 14 hr days 7 days a week working on something that contributes to society or charities.

 

[The Large One]

My question to you is if it was one of your relatives/ children (and i really hope that never happens) what would you want done then ?
Put yourself in their shoes for a few minutes and think about it !!

When these stories have come up, I have stopped and tried and put myself in their shoes. The fact is, I'd imagine the ordeal is so horrible, I couldn't do it effectively, so I'd have to answer from a detached point of view - as would you. I'd say I'd want that they spend the rest of their lives where they can't touch society, and society can't touch them in conditions befitting appalling people.

However, that's not your rationale, nor the point you were making; you've convinced yourself that they're spending their time 'living the life of Riley', so they therefore need to be killed.

 

[drew]

Im not saying i dont see your point or value your opinion but you have to look at it from all angles dont you ? You could put 1000 times more up on here that were got right couldn't you !
There are people in jail like Peter Sutcliffe, Denis Nilsen, Ian Huntley, Robert Black, Roy Whiting, Ian Brady etc etc that are secure convictions !!

I think that argument just about shoots yourself in the foot. Lets kill everyone and who gives a damn if a few innocents get caught up in the crossfire, just collateral damage. Well nobody really other than their friends and family. Maybe one day Phat Baz might just be in the wrong place at the wrong time with no alibi and ends up in the firing line!

 

[The Spanish]

NO. Two wrongs don't make a right. We don't live in the dark ages.

we didnt live in the dark ages when we had it. it was within living memory.

i wouldnt have it back simply because it would cost far more in terms of appeals, everyone and his dog trying to obstruct it, than it would to just life someone off. it wouldnt be like last time we had it, where it was over and done with a few months after conviction, tops. it would be interminable nowadays, people claiming racial bias, all sorts of society dividing crap, just for their own agendas. would be a ****ing disaster nowadays. anyway a society who blubs their ****ing eyes out over singing contests is hardly going to reinstate the death penalty, no matter what some meaningless poll says.

I fail to see why a 30 year minimum is that much more civilised than capital punishment, to be honest. destroying someone in a more cowardly squeamish way, over time, with no hope for them, just to save yourself the trauma of being party to capital punishment, remotely.

but what makes my mind up for me is that people like brady and huntley would far prefer it to a 40 year sentence. that in itself is the clinching argument for me for not bringing it back.

 

[Hamilton]

Killing another person is wrong.