Death by Firing Squad Law Passed

Lock him up and throw away the key......

I agree neelie, lock him up and don't make his life very comfortable. Keep him away from anyone he can influence and maybe bombard him with what is good and kind from the Koran.

Good news today is that support for the death penalty in Britain has dropped below 50% for the first time.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32061822

Magpie123 No! he should not be executed! "Jihadi John" would welcome the death penalty as a it would make him martyr. Just lock him up for evermore as a danger.

Yes magpie - sorry, but I am not in the least ambivalent about that.

Jihadi John does he deserve the death penalty?

And either would better than the electric chair, IMO.

I really can't engage in a debate about which method is best when the whole idea is so unacceptable

The argument is about the death penalty or not- if it is accepted that the death penalty is acceptable, and I certainly do NOT- then a firing squad may well be better than lethal injection, but certainly not worse.

Did you see the made for television film starring Tommy Lee Jones and one of the Arquette sisters? It was excellent [I've been a fan of Jones ever since]?

Many years ago I read "The Executioners Song" by Norman Mailer. It concerns the trial, imprisonment and execution of Gary Gilmore, who was accused of (and confessed to) some horrendous murders.

The book is gripping, Gilmore was sentenced to death in a state where it was very rarely actually carried out, and centres around Gilmore's "fight" to actually be executed.

Not exactly the best written book in the world, but I would still recommend it.

So yes Petra you are clearly missing something -I'd say it was a knowledge of how the criminal justice system works - or rather sometimes doesn't

Good post Grumppa. Of course there are potentially multiple players in a miscarriage of justice case. Whilst the Guildford 4 and Birminghsm 6 were terrible examples, I find the Stefan Kiszko case heartbreaking - 16 years in prison for a murder he could never have committed, a useless inept defence, police failing to disclose. He was beaten up in prison many times and no one cared. He died shortly after been released and his poor mother died 4 months after him. The sister of the murdered child went to his funeral but her poor family had to wait many more years to see justice done. So a miscarriage of justice hurts not only the wrongly accused and thrir families but the victims families who may never see a true conviction

Petra, a miscarriage of justice can arise from a stupid jury, incompetent counsel, a biased judge, mistakes in the CPS, or incompetent or corrupt police. Or fresh evidence may come to light after conviction. If the convicted person has already been executed nothing can be done to put things right.

In the early Sixties Penguin published two books, Hanged In Error and Hanged By The Neck, at the time of the big debates on capital punishment here. The second set out the reasoned arguments of principle against capital punishment; the first gave examples of the wrong person being executed. I found Hanged In Error the more convincing of the two, although I was and am anti cp on all the other grounds as well.

GrannyTwice. I'm obviously missing something. If the Police are not responsible for miscarriages of justice, who is?
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The Police gather the evidence to present to the CPS, who then decide whether there is enough evidence to secure a proscecution.
We all know there are some dubious Defence Lawyers but it is the Police who collect the evidence. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

Killing for revenge. I come from a place of not killing these people for revenge, but believing there are evil people in this world and I see no reason for them to live.

Although I wish 'Life' were exactly that. For someone to be given Life at 30, and to have them out at 60, or even far younger sometimes, seems very wrong.

Yes, I want them alive just in case there was a miscarriage of justice, as well as because I don't believe in killing people, which makes us just as bad as them.

Nor I.

I agree feetle revenge would be awful. I just can't accept that one person taking the life of another can be right under any circumstances.

@magpie123 Now you are introducing revenge into the equation, which is a horrifying thought. The last people who could be trusted to give a fair assessment would be the family of a victim. And we know it is done in some Muslim countries - which is no recommendation.

I agree with the death penalty for First Degree Murder (premeditated). I think the victims family should have a say in how the punishment is carried out.

Lee Rigby's murderers come to mind.

I don't think it is a deterrent, but if I were determined to murder someone, I would feel happier about a nice syringe sending me to death, than a firing squad.

If the death penalty is a deterrent how come there are murders

I don't think judicial killing is ever justifiable and find the public – albeit limited public – nature of executions in the USA stomach churning. In addition, the American legal system is often lax: there are more than a few instances of court appointed defense attorneys being drunk, judges sleeping through trials, evidence deliberately concealed and other equally appalling failures in capital trials which have resulted in a death penalty and refusal to allow appeals. Some years ago an attorney, in Georgia I think, though I'm not sure, ran a project with his senior students to investigate the cases of the convicted prisoners currently awaiting execution. So many were found to have had mistrials for a wide variety of reasons that the state suspended the law that allowed execution.

I'm not nice, I would put them in a cold bare cell with subsistence rations and no privileges.
But if there had been a miscarriage of justice, they could still be freed.

So only the police are responsible for miscarriages of justice? I don't think so!