OK.. Firstly early in the thread someone posed the following, asking which was murder, its quite clear what constitutes murder, what constitutes manslaughter and what would or should be classified as justifiable homicide.
Common sense rules here.
1/ Man shoots stranger in the street - Murder
2/ Man shoots stranger who is attacking someone in the street - justifiable homicide
3/ Man shoots stranger who he finds in his garden - manslaughter
4/ Wife shoots husband she finds abusing child - justifiable homicide
Why do we need it? for several reasons.
1 - It's promised replacement, life in prison has been watered down by the do gooders to the extent that only a tiny handful of killers ever serve a life sentence, the majority of murderers can expect to be released on license in under 10 years, regardless of the tariff initially set when they where sentenced.
2 - A fairly high proportion of murders go on to commit further crimes including rape and murder.
3 - If we hang someone, we are assured 100% that they can never kill again, even with life in prison (whole life term) murderers have gone on to kill again.
4 - Hanging was a deterrent here, I'm old enough to remember the reports in papers as a child and conversations on the subject, in general most people feared prison and punishment back then and a lot feared the rope.
Whilst hanging would never deter the hardened criminal who did not care about his future, nor could it deter "chance" crimes where the killing was done in the heat of the moment, in petty crime circles it was feared, especially as unlike now there where no facts about how it was carried out or what happened to you during it about, it was veiled under a cloak of secrecy.
Currently there is nothing to deter a criminal, they will in fact most likely get a better life in prison than on the streets, we need to toughen up sentencing, toughen up prison life and have an ultimate penalty which says " If you commit this act, you will pay with your life, without exception (the only ones of course being mental illness and pregnancy).
I still say that looking at how violent crime has risen since those earlier days of the death penalty (forget the massaged figures from the government, talk to people who lived back then) that the short sharp shock of the death penalty in its original form would shock the hell out of some of them once a few of their age group had been hung.
Yes I do believe in the death penalty, but not in the form it takes in the USA for instance.
The methodology is flawed, painful, drawn out pre execution and slow.
The appeals process is a joke with often murderers filing multiple appeal in different courts that see them sitting on death row for sometimes in excess of 20 years.
When the death penalty returns here, and it will in time, the methodology and implication should follow our previous tried and trusted method.
British long drop hanging was one of if not the fastest and most human method of execution so far developed and 100% certain in outcome.
Here we had a streamlined appeals system, with just one appeal allowed during the 4 weeks depending on the day of sentencing, before sentence was carried out.
Sentence was always set to be carried out after 3 clear sundays had passed, sometimes this meant due to holidays such as christmas etc it would be longer than 30 days from the sentencing date, but more often than not it averaged around 30 days.
During this time the appeal and any pleas for clemency would be heard, then the home secretary would make their decision and this would be communicated to the prison and the prisoner.
The execution process itself was over in under 30 seconds of the executioner entering the death cell, the average was around 20 seconds, the record a mere 7 seconds from the moment the executioner entered the condemned cell to the felon being dead on the end of the rope.
Unlike how many films depict it, there was no last cigarette or drink, the executioner entered the cell at 8 am usually, (9 am in some prisons) with his assistant, as he quickly pinioned the condemned's hands behind his back the warders slid the wardrobe or book case that hid the entrance to the gallows out of the way, the prisoner was marched straight onto the drop with his feet aligned on the chalk marking the center of the drop, then as the executioner placed the white cap over his head, then the noose, adjusting it under the crook of the left jaw, the assistant dropped to his knees and fastened a leather strap around the prisoners legs.
He then flung himself off the drop as the executioner reached over, pulled the safety cotter pin and pushed the lever to release the trap doors.
Instantly the spinal column would be severed by the displacement of the vertebrae usually between the 2nd & 3rd cervical vertebrae causing instant deep unconsciousness and massive spinal shock.
At the same time the larynx would be crushed and the hydoid bone in the throat broken, blocking the airway, and the carotid arteries would rupture internally.
Brain death was instant, the heart would continue for a short time as it can do in such rapid death situations, but the person was gone.
There was no swinging, choking, dancing on the end of the rope and after James Berry finished his tenure as top executioner during the victorian era botch jobs where extremely rare, in fact post edwardian era I don't know of a single genuine botched execution.
The rapid and virtually painless death, the streamlined appeals process, along with the short gap between sentence and execution are the reasons I favour a return to this method, I firmly believe all aspects of it offer the most humane execution solution possible.
Finally regarding Evans, we have to remember that.
A - the forensics we have now did not exist then.
B - the chief witness for the prosecution was Christie who was an ex policeman, this previous position he held embellished him with an air of authority and trust as a witness that would have been hard to counter without good forensic evidence.
C- Evans was effectively sentenced for both his wife and his daughters deaths, though later exonerated for his wifes death when Christie was tried and found guilty, he was still held responsible for his daughters death until his pardon for this in 2003.
Re Hanratty, as this case (the A6 murder) is often quoted as a miscarriage of justice, forensic & DNA testing a few years ago on evidence retained from the case proved conclusively that they did get the right man.
