Some people just need killing.*

[sosoclever]

I think these three are among those. A mother allows her boyfriend and his brother to torture her infant son for more than a year (because babies need toughening up, you know), until they go too far and the baby is killed . . . and England plans to protect these people if they survive their prison sentences? So, what, maybe she can have another

Comments

[ayoub]

I agree... Capital punishment has its place.

[sosoclever]

I really think this is it.

[quiet_dignitea]

I want her and people like her to have one foot nailed to the ground in a public place with their crimes posted so people can do anything they want short of killing them!

[sosoclever]

I'd rather just have them dead. Then there's no chance of escape. I'm not saying I'm against things like having people drawn and quartered, if it fits the crime, but I don't want them fouling the air anymore.

[chateau_noir]

One of the most depressing things about this case is that it's highlighted the statistics for child abuse in this country (and the inability of the child protection services to deal with the workload), and it's just frightening. Child abuse has always been a peculiarly English-centric crime, from the workhouses of the 19th Century onwards. I don't know why

[sosoclever]

We have plenty of disgusting people in the States, too. England hasn't quite cornered the market. There was that six-year-old girl in Florida who was found living in a closet piled with the dirty diapers she'd worn over the years. She had no communications skills, and the rescuers described her as being like an animal.

From the stories I've read about it, the guy was convicted in the rape of the little girl.

The death penalty would help, if it wasn't next to impossible to actually carry it out. It wouldn't deter the sickos, but it would stop them from doing it again once they were caught. But too many people worry about how humane it is, and how it removes any possibility of rehabilitation, but, really, do we think these people are going to change their ways? Do we want to take the chance?

I have said before, and will say again, our "compassion" will be the death of us.

[chateau_noir]

I'm hugely in favour of capital punishment, but I also advocate it for drunk drivers as well as murderers, rapists and child molestors, so no one ever listens to me.

[sosoclever]

I like the idea of it being more widely applied, too.

[stacye13]

I vote for mandatory sterilization too.

[sosoclever]

I still find the idea too frightening. I don't trust the people who would be put in charge to make just decisions.

[secretrebel]

But you do trust the people in charge to make just decisions about killing? That seems extreme.

[sosoclever]

I just wrote a big long response to this, and LJ ate it. I have to do something that will earn me money, but I will answer you later.

[siggy63]

It's a horrible case, but capital punishment wouldn't have prevented it nor will it deter others. These people all ready have awful lives and they're only going to get worse. There are so many vulnerable families out there; it's a terrible shame. I can't imagine how it can be fixed unless we put a lot more money in to social care.

[sosoclever]

If the man in this case had been put to death for raping the two-year-old girl, then he wouldn't have been around to kill this little boy. There are plenty of extremely vulnerable families out there who don't break the backs of innocent babies because they need "toughening up." This isn't a matter of a desperate family. This is a psychopath/sociopath or three who don't really need to be sharing my air anymore.

I realize there are plenty of cases that could lead to the death penalty (at least here in the States) which are not so cut and dried, but this one certainly sounds like it is.

[siggy63]

Yep, I understand that this man has done heinous things but, if I am to take someone's life away or ask the state to do it for me and with that understanding that the justice system is imperfect and mistakes will be made, I need a whole lot more than "sounds like". I understand completely the desire for vengence and, if this had been my child, I'm sure I would be quite willing to end this guy, but (to me) that still wouldn't make it right.

Now, I'm going to look like a passive agressive type because I'm not going to be able to reply to your comment, should you make one; I'm off in an hour to sit in a big wet field and watch Richard Thompson (among others) at the Cropredy folk festival for four days.

[sosoclever]

You just said that to make me jealous!:-P

I would want a lot more than "sounds like" to actually have the death penalty used, but I was not in the courtroom, so "sounds like" is the best I can do. I don't know how the British court system works (I just found out in the last couple of weeks that the judges no longer wear wigs), but in the States, I believe (I could be wrong) that a death sentence needs a unanimous vote from the jury. Now, I will happily admit that members of a jury can be wrong, but that's how come some murderers are found innocent, too. Plus, we have an outrageous system of appeals here that generally keep most people who do receive the death penalty from ever actually having the sentence meted out (assuming their sentences aren't commuted by corrupt governors trying to garner good-will). John Wayne Gacy (serial child-rapist/killer in Illinois in the 70's) wasn't executed until about fifteen years after he was convicted.