General Chat

Well I am really glad times have changed from that never heard of that before Hippo, although I shouldn't be surprised. Nell always enjoy your comments as you know again you have said eloquently some of what I believe too. Kim apologies when I said I agree I meant your statement about desensitizing violence. Budgie very rare does a person end up spending all their lives in prison wrongfully accused of the crime, it may take many years but at least there is a chance they can be cleared & live in freedom again. Thank you all for your comments I read them all with interest. Pat x

Pat- My dad never wanted one I hasten to add!!!

Thats makes me feel a little easier Hippo lol. Pat x

Its OK Pat!! I knew what you meant - really!! Kim XX ps was I bein intellectual for a change (instead of an oik? ) Oh where is our Jacquie when we need her ?- she wouldve been onto this like a terrier down a rabbit hole!! Am missing her already and shes only been gone, for about 6 hours!! :o(( Kim XX

Before I leave this thread I would like to add these few snippets. Thirty-eight of the 50 US states and the federal government permit capital punishment. Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma account for more than half of the 1,000 executions performed since 1977. Texas alone has carried out 355. There is a fall in support & shifting attitudes to the death penalty the use of more advanced DNA testing which did not exist when many of the criminals currently on death row were convicted. In a number of cases such tests have revealed that people who were executed were actually innocent after all. 'There's now considerable public scepticism about whether all those being executed are really guilty and that has cast doubt on the whole system,' said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center. In addition there have been legal moves to restrict the death penalty. Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that crimes committed by juveniles - under 18 - could not be punished by death, thereby allowing 71 people off death row. Three years ago the court declared it unconstitutional to execute criminals who were mentally retarded. These are small victories for people like me who do not believe in executing people. There has to be a better way. Thank you again those who are for and those who are against everyone has been allowed their say on this thread I thank you all for allowing that. Pat x

Yes an Australia/ Vietnamese refugee was excecuted for drug traffiking in Singapore at 6am yesterday morning. Although I do agree that drug traffikers should be punished I do not feel that the death penalty should be imposed. He was excecuted by hanging and I feel it is so Barbaric. There was a programme on TV yesterday that explained what happened to people that are hanged. It made me feel physically sick. They suffer like you wouldn't believe. Ok give them life imprisonment for their actions but no one deserves to die like that. I am not a do gooder but some countries are still in the middle ages regarding this issue. Just a few details below on the person who was excecuted taken from MSN Australia Regards Jackie a letter to a loved one, Nguyen Tuong Van wrote that he had found the 'true meaning of life' on death row. As he sat in Singapore's Changi Prison, exhausting the ink in his pens, the Australian salesman who was caught trying to smuggle nearly 400gm of heroin to Australia took stock of his 25-year existence. 'So many things I should have done. And should not have,' he wrote. Nguyen, like a leading man, was painted by those who knew him as a good son, popular student, cherished friend and devoted brother. But he starred in a tragic plot. His love for his wayward twin, Khoa, apparently spurred him to smuggle heroin from Cambodia through Singapore - a country said to have the world's highest per capita rate of capital punishment. Nguyen told police he needed to repay up to $25,000 for a loan he had taken for Khoa, to fund legal fees for his twin brother's drug and affray charges. 'There was also a $12,000 loan which my twin brother took that I needed to repay on his behalf,' Nguyen told police. 'He only had until the end of this year to pay up that loan. 'I did not intend to let my twin brother know I am paying his debt.' On November 22, Khoa visited his brother for the first time since Nguyen's arrest three years ago, and later told Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls he would now turn his life around. The twins were born in a refugee camp in Thailand while their mother, Kim, was on her way to Australia from Vietnam. Nguyen stated after his arrest that he did not know his father until a month before he was caught at Changi International Airport in December 2002. 'He came from America to look for my brother and I,' he said. 'My mother married in 1987 to a Vietnamese Australian. My step-father beat my brother and I quite often.' After attending Mt Waverley Secondary College Nguyen planned to study at Deakin University. But, for financial reasons, he worked as a storeman, door to door salesman and in market research instead. In late 1999 he set up a computer sales business in Melbourne but soon wound it up to raise legal fees for Khoa. His support for his brother, in some way, was returned to him through the Australian public and political leaders. Several appeals for clemency were made by Prime Minister John Howard and the Australian government. Former prime minister Bob Hawke made a personal appeal to Singapore. Pope Benedict XVI, his predecessor Pope John Paul II, a United Nations human rights expert and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark were among others urging Singapore to spare Nguyen. Former governor general Sir William Deane accused Singapore of breaching international law. Australia's Amnesty International parliamentary group presented Singapore's High Commissioner Joseph Koh with petitions from more than 100 parliamentarians and 300 parliamentary staff. Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls also took up the fight, hand delivering a letter from Premier Steve Bracks urging a change of heart by the Singapore government. Union workers threatened action against Singapore Airlines, calls were made for the Prime Minister to abandon a cricket match and a Melbourne church held prayer vigils all week before ringing its bell 25 times at the time of Nguyen's execution. Nguyen's friends Bronwyn Lew and Kelly Ng mounted the Reach Out campaign, with thousands of hand-shaped notes calling for clemency. The hands represented the 'contact' Nguyen was allowed with his visitors - a hand pressed on either side of a glass screen. In the days leading up to his death, Nguyen's legal team turned their energy to press Singapore to allow Kim Nguyen to hug her son goodbye. Nguyen's senior lawyer, Lex Lasry, QC, says his client was a reformed man. This is the reason behind supporters wearing yellow ribbons - a symbol of rehabilitation in the Singapore jail system, he said. The irony, Mr Lasry said, was that his client was 'thoroughly rehabilitated and now Singapore will kill him'. Nguyen was said to be a compassionate, thoughtful man, with genuine concern for everyone around him. In a letter to Singapore president S.R. Nathan, Nguyen said he found God on death row and accepted responsibility for his actions. 'Amidst these score of painful revelations an unspoken truth was exposed,' he wrote. 'I found myself in deep sorrow for the true victims; the families of those whom (sic) suffer as a result of losing a loved one to drugs. 'This truth has put many things in perspective for me.' In a separate letter he talked of his mother Kim Nguyen. 'With aching comprehension I come to terms with the loss I feel without mum,' he wrote. 'I have begun to learn the true meaning of life. 'In a place ravaged by fear and haunts I have found hope. I have discovered purpose.'

'morning all, just seen this phrase ''I would not like to be an honest judge or an innocent person on trial in the american system'' This was an observation following a film of a true event, The Onion Field. A Californian tragedy which took place in 1963. Wambaugh's film was first screened in 1979 and I have been interested in what was the outcome of the perpetrators. For those unaware of the films history, look at www.bookloversreviews(.)com/TrueCrime/onionfield(.)shtml Jimmy Smith born 1931, who was first accused of murder and then paroled has only this past July returned to jail for a drug offence, breaking his parole. Greg Powell born 1933, is still (to my knowledge) on death row. I agree with some views on here, but glad I am not in the position to judge some of todays offenders, Derek in France

Fred I think you expressed your views very clearly. But I've read about the execution of Edith Thompson and can only believe she was dealt with by a society which upheld the double standard and was executed for committing adultery. Similarly, the case of Derek Bentley, a mentally retarded 19-year-old, executed for a policeman's murder. Bentley did not have a gun and did not offer any violence when arrested. He was, I believe, hanged because the boy who shot the policeman was 16 and too young to be hanged. DNA testing wouldn't have made any difference to Edith Thompson or Derek Bentley. Where the death penalty is part of law, there is always a possibility that people will be hanged unjustly. nell ps Pat, thank you for your kind comments. I always enjoy what you have to say too!!

Many of the comments on this thread make an awful lot of sense to me and it is very clear that overall opinion is very much against the death penalty. What I find interesting, though, is the maked difference to last week when there were a number of threads about a certain Mr Paul Gadd, expressing rather opposite views. I just wondered how we reconcile this u-turn in opinions in such a short space of time?

Many people keep mentioning 'absolute certainty' or 'incontrovertable proof' - there is no such thing in law. There aren't two levels of guilty, the top being 'absolute certainty' and bottom being ' some chance of innocence'. The judge at the trial of the Guildford Four expressed regret he couldn't sentence them to death. Instead they spent 15 years in prison because our beloved police force kicked confessions out of them, wrote statements for them and supressed any evidence that proved their innocence. These same worthy policemen were happy to let a 14-year old boy (one of the Maguire Seven) spend his teenage years behind bars in the full knowledge that the child was completely innocent. In fact, I think the word 'delighted' was used by the police when the verdicts were announced. All the advances in technology won't save people when the police are determined to get them convicted.

Peter The people who added those comments to the threads you mention have not appeared on here, I don't know why. I did see the comments & obviously would not agree with some people's assessment that mutilating someone would stop the horrific practices they are accused of, it wouldn't & to me it's is even more barbaric the executing people. Fred The reason we are mainly talking about the U.S. is because I put up this thread to mark yesterdays 1,000th execution there since the death penalty was reintroduced. I felt the need to say something about it. Jackie Thank you for that I too was appalled when I heard that Singapore where going to go ahead with the sentence & by hanging I agree it is barbaric. I am pleased to say we have come a long way from as you call it the middle ages. Thank you Derek will check that out as I have never heard of it. Twinkle I was going to mention the Guildford four and the Birmingham six but thought I might open a whole can of worms. I feel very strongly that miscarriages of justice happen too often for us to be so clear in our assumption the death penatly is the right way, I will never feel it is. Just as well there wasn't any death penatiy when those two cases were being heard. Pat x

Pat, yes I agree with you fully. In fact, some of the comments last week were quite sick and I had one of the threads removed. But is just shows how opinions can differ.

Hi Peter and Pat, My view never changes - I am utterly against the death penalty for whatever crime. Gwynne

This is a great thread with no aggression on it, which is admirable. I personally have mixed feelings about capital punishment, but have read all the replies with interest. :-)

My only gripe with the wait is that so much money has been spent on keeping the man alive - I believe that if you do a crime you pay the price whatever that may be - lethal injection in America as opposed to a slap on the wrist over here. I would be the first on the list to bring back capital punishment here if the police were not quite so corrupt!!