Applications of the Death Penalty: The Gas Chamber
I do my best. :p
We all get furious over people like child killers. Knowing the appropriate response has been the age old dilemma. But I'm convinced that the death penalty isn't the way forward.
We executed a child killer in Britain called Timothy Evans. Then discovered shortly afterwards that John Halliday Christie actually killed the baby. It's one of the cases that facilitated the end of hanging here.
I've read biographies of people, like the Moors Murderers and the Kray Twins, who state that they really wish they'd been hanged. The indignity of life in prison is worse to their minds. It's a slow death, hidden away, living with all that you did to be there in the first place.
Then you get people like the Guildford 4, who were released after serving decades behind bars. Turned out that they were innocent after all. There could have been no such redemption, had they been killed too.
There are a frightening amount of miscarriages of justice every year. Yet more which never get exposed. Until we have a perfect judicial system, then I can't see how anyone can say with utter confidence that such and such was guilty. If that is the case, then can they be executed?
Thank you very much for reading; and for your kind words about my writing. <3
JoHarrington, Jul 18, 2012