Errrr....
So hide the murder weapon and blood stained clothing along with a photo of yourself and the victim...
Jeeeeeeeeneeeeus!
A Glasgow man who murdered a 24-year-old by stabbing him 80 times with a knife and then "went on to pose for a mobile phone picture alongside the victim's body" will be sentenced next month. Stephen Price, 20, admitted murdering 24-year-old Scott Burgess, "with a knife in his home in Glen Street, Paisley, between August and …
"Why not delete the freaking photos?"
To be fair, the report doesn't explicitly state that the photographs were not deleted - it only says that they were taken. Based solely on the report, and nothing else, it's possible that Stephen Price deleted the pictures, but subsequently admitted that he had taken them, or that his partner and her sister grassed him up.
Or perhaps he didn't know how to operate the phone, in which case why not stick it in the bleach bath along with the corpse?
...are we wasting taxpayers (i.e. *our*) money letting the state keep these sh*tbags alive ?
I don't normally side with the death penalty brigade (too many miscarriages of justice, often for political gain), but I think I could make an exception in this instance.
The money saved would be better off in the pension pots of the thousands of people who were encouraged to move to "safe" private pension schemes which turned out to be anything but.
Of putting someone like this in prison for `life´ when it really means he will come out with a change of identity, free money ,free protection from any vengeful relatives or friends of the dead man and he will be considered rehabilitated be some do gooding parole board. In a case like this with such clear evidence, hang the son of a bitch and good riddance. Also much less of a burden on society and closure for the family and friends of the victim.
Why i it that the death penalty is *always* wrong?
Use small words. Apparently, I am not too bright, because I believe all three of the villains in this piece should be stopped from wasting oxygen at the first possible moment.
Skull & crossbones because cretins such as these poison the gene pool.
The Death Penalty is always wrong as if you make a mistake you cant go back and fix it, its permanent. The gains from using such a penalty are grossly outweighed by the losses, too many mistakes happen already.
How would you feel if you were the one sitting on death row due to only circumstantial evidence, or because the powers that be in your country wanted you out of the way? Been the only person who knows your innocence but been unable to prove it and then to be killed and it to come to light afterwards you were innocent? Cant Imagine your family would feel great about it would they? Or any kids you may have
'hang the son of a bitch and good riddance'
Some moron kills someone in a particularly stupid/sadistic way and suddenly the hang em/ flog em brigade comes crawling out of the woodwork.
Two questions:
1. Does executing the murderer bring the victim back to life ?
Answer: Of course not, end result is two people dead rather than one
2.Does pardoning an innocent man who was executed make him feel happier ?
Answer: Of course it does, makes the Tyburn Jig seem like a happy dance.
Get real neanderthals ....
One thing some people against the death penalty seem to ignore is that in the US, you must be convicted by a jury of you peers (taxpayers) beyond any reasonable doubt. If 12 of your fellow citizens feel that what you have done is so heinous that society is better off without you, then there's a real problem. In some states, the Jury must also vote on the sentence. So it's not just "Guilty" and the judge sentences the convict, 12 people must agree on the fact that what you have done deserves death.
During the Jury selection process, the Defense council can reject certain jurors if they seem to be too much of the "kill em all and let god sort them out" type, simply on a matter of prejudice
I swear I'm not a rabid ideologue, and I don't aim to foist my beliefs on others.
My conviction against the death penalty is as follows:
A murderer is a horrible person, who has done a depraved act. If I could have killed him to prevent him from doing so, to save the life of the victim, I would have done so without moral equivocation.
However, when the murder has already taken place, and the reprehensible person who committed it has been captured alive, I find it morally unacceptable for the state to execute him. There's a world of difference between killing a maniac to prevent him from killing, as opposed to locking him in a cell, to await his eventual lethal injection.
Furthermore, I reject the premise that the state, as an institution, can be trusted with the powers of life and death. Would you trust your MPs and Congressmen with your own life? Should they ever be trusted with any, even those of murderers?
...and to get on a jury, all you have to do is prove that you know absolutely nothing that may be relevant to the case at hand. Not to mention that both defense and prosecution attorneys tend to reject jurors who show any signs of intelligence, as appeals to emotion have pretty much completely replaced any form of logical discourse in US law (and politics, and reporting, and business, ad nauseam...)
That's why death penalty appeals tend to drag on for years, and are usually either overturned on appeal or commuted by a governor trying to drum up a little political support. (See http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/cp/2006/cp06st.htm for raw statistics about capital punishment in the US -- note that the 2006 data is the newest available.)
That's why the state of New Jersey recently determined that it was CHEAPER to imprison someone for life than put them to death.
"One thing some people against the death penalty seem to ignore is that in the US, you must be convicted by a jury of you peers (taxpayers) beyond any reasonable doubt."
That means nothing, and that is why I'm usually so reluctant on this subject. How many people have been found innocent even after being gone through the process you describe, and sometimes more? Racism and other prejudices really cloud people's judgment (and you should see how racist blacks are against *themselves*, it's amazing!). The Innocence Project, heard of it? They use DNA evidence to show that an inmate is not guilty. Two hundred and ten people were exonerated by this project so far, 15 of which were on death row! A guy was freed most recently, after twenty-freaking-seven years in jail while innocent (misidentified in a photo lineup or something): http://www.innocenceproject.org/
Makes one think, doesn't it? What about losing 27 years of your life? (and life in prison is full of interesting situations you'd rather not be part of, no?)
On the other hand, there is no doubt this guy from the article here did what he did, is there? In my opinion, there is no reason why a 20 year old should do that and continue to live. He is just worse than any other, non-human animal. Even if he is mentally sick, can he be "recovered"? The 17 year old who happily went along should spend at least a few decades doing heavy work in a prison. If I understood correctly, her sister can get a lesser penalty than that, but needs some too of course.
What about big mafia bosses, drug kingpins, mass murderers? Cases of great harm where there is no doubt they are the perpetrators? Why spend the money to keep these guys in jail for life? I like to think that spending life in jail doing heavy work would be much harsher penalty than being killed. But I know that, in my S. American country at least, these big criminals don't work in jail, can control their business from there (where they are actually somewhat protected from their competitors outside and end up living longer), and end up escaping whenever they feel like. Just kill them, and spend the money working on the treatment to the REAL causes of criminality, like poverty, injustice, etc.
Life isn't sacred, nothing is. Get real, absolutist people. The problem is not the death penalty in and of itself; it's the way it is applied. If laws and procedures got corrected, there is no reason not to have death penalty for exceptional, *really* beyond reasonable doubt heinous cases.
But that's just what I think now, it might change tomorrow.
Would you trust your LIFE to the legal system here in the UK? or anywhere else?
Would you be happy to be judged by 12 members of the UK at random? or specially selected ones?
Do you believe that a judge is a moral and fair person that will have no bias in any direction? or any other person that may be judging you?
It IS simple, for me at least.
He apparently killed someone in revenge for an insult. Killing him in return would be revenge for an insult (the murder of a citizen).
It can be argued that society has a right to protect itself. IMHO it should do the minimum of harm to achieve that aim. It can do so by imprisonment, so that's what it should do.
Before you ask, yes I DO think the death penalty is equivalent to (judicial) murder, which is why so many undemocratic regimes (who if they were not in power would otherwise be criminals) use it.
Simple enough for you?
Well I'm just a software engineer with a BSc but if I was ever falsely accused in the good ole US of A I'd hope such a selection of my peers consisted predominantly of particle physicists rather than some perfectly law abiding person with a similar level of intelligence to the perp in this article. These death penalty supporters seem to be unaware that all people are not created equal.
"I don't normally side with the death penalty brigade (too many miscarriages of justice, often for political gain), but I think I could make an exception in this instance."
I presume that your proposed alteration to the justice system, then, requires you personally to make the decision of whether any given case is open-and-shut-enough to apply the death penalty?
"I don't support the death penalty because too many errors are made in deciding when to apply it. In this case my position is reversed because it is obvious we should apply it."
And people are saying the murderers were idiots...
we have this thing called "society" which, put simply, is everyone agreeing that we're not going to behave like savages to each other. If you commit heinous acts like this one, and you are guilty not just beyond reasonable doubt but (a jury say) as surely as we know the sky is blue (sorry - Glasgow - grey), then you've put yourself completely outside our society. Indeed, you're the enemy of our society, just as much as an alien that started to bump people off would be. we'd sure try to bump off that alien in return. It's not about the death penalty being an "eye for an eye", it's about this person's life being worth absolutely nothing because they have so knowingly and egregiously placed themselves outside of our society. They have lost the right to any of the compassion etc that we inside this society use for each other, the compassion that *is* our society. They're outside our society, killing us. Genetically, yes, they're human, but that's all. They chose not to be part of our human society. It doesn't matter which method we choose to keep them out, and stop them from killing us. Except, of course, that cash is finite, and keeping this person in jail for life costs a lot of money that might have been spent on saving or improving lives of those inside our society.
> Would you trust your LIFE to the legal system here in the UK? or anywhere else?
There are three legal systems in the UK... one in England & Wales, one in Scotland, and one in Northern Ireland. They are all completely different.
> Would you be happy to be judged by 12 members of the UK at random? or specially selected ones?
12 in England & Wales... 15 in Scotland... don't know how many in Northern Ireland.
I highly agree with this particular A.C. While I do not approve of the death penalty I would not hesitate to *prevent* the murder of an innocent person if the situation allowed for it, up to and including taking the bad guy out myself if need be.
However, executing them after the fact does no on any good. While the thought of conserving the precious oxygen that would otherwise be wasted on criminals like these does seem practical and even 'right', David Wiernicki s correct. The law must apply equally to all; there can be no special exceptions, regardless of the circumstance. In situations like this, when the evidence is (and everyone should agree here) very good; DNA, fingerprints, photo and/or video; a life sentence should mean exactly that. LIFE IMPRISONMENT. This murderer should know that while the state won't kill him, he'll NEVER set foot outside those prison walls again.
I think J.R.R Tolkien said it best in LOTR. Gandalf said that "Many who live deserve death, and many who die deserve life." I think that unless one can give life to those who deserve it, one has no right to give death either.
1) On a practical level, with all the safe guards in the world there is no way to prevent mistakes (not all relevant evidence is discovered at the time - 12 reasonable people may convict on the current evidence which may be totally compelling and appear to be complete, but is contradicted at a later date).
2) More importantly, on a moral level, you cannot teach people that killing people is wrong by killing people. The law cannot be contradictory. The only excuse for killing people should be immediate self defense.
I was once called up for jury duty. At lunch time I overheard two members of another jury discussing a case, "I knew he was guilty as soon as I saw him" one of them said. Plus, how about the recent case of Stefan Kiszko who "confessed" to murdering a child. The police had a confession, surely an "open and shut" case - by those rules he would have been executed and therefore the actual murderer who has subsequently been found & convicted would still be free.
Clearly people who present a continued threat to society should be kept locked up. They should also pay their debt to society by doing something useful. I suggest sorting rubbish for recycling. I can't be bothered to sort all my rubbish out, so how about everyone just chucks it all in the same bin, it gets shipped off to the nearest prison / recycling plant and the convicts sort it out by hand. If they refuse to do the recycling, they get refused any privileges, fed a bland subsistence diet etc. If they exceed their recycling targets they get perks like phone calls, cigarettes, TV etc.
...,capital or otherwise, is that it is kept hidden. There is no way for others to learn from the mistakes of their peers (except bny being imprisonned with them).
Which mads for a better deterrent in the UK Navy: a sailor being taken down below and given his lashes, or an assembly being called and all the other sailors being shown what happens to them if they break the maritime laws?
No, I'm not for the re-introduction of flogging (although...) but my point is: a deterrent is only as good as the number of people who are aware of it. For most people, what happens after you get caught is a vague notion at best, soon forgotten anyway.
And releasing juveniles with a verbal slap-on-the-wrist is not helping, either. (now *there* is a misnomer: Juvenile Deliquent. "Juvenile: pertaining to youth or childhood; young or immature", "Delinquent: failing in what duty requires". How then can you fail in your duty if you are considered immature? Either you're a juvenile - in which case your legal guardian bears the blame for your action, same as pet owners - or you're mature enough to be a delinquent.)
Yes, I worked for the IT section of a Police department. A real eye-opener as to the behaviour on both sides of the fence.
I'll stop ranting now.
Thats the penalty people like this should receive. Remove them from the gene pool by removing their ability to procreate.
Actually i would happily extend this to anyone sentenced to a crime for 10 years+. If you've done something so bad as to be imprisoned for 10 years you really have no right procreating!
Perhaps it could be used as a deterrent for things like chavs who steal cars - be caught stealing cars, b&e, assault, etc 3 times and have your ability to have kids removed for ever. Crime might drop and we'd also prevent a whole new generations of chavs! Win-Win!
Oh and the death penalty has been proven not too be a deterrent so why lower ourselves to their level by commiting (state-sanctioned) murder. Were not animals, even if they are!
"Which makes for a better deterrent in the UK Navy: a sailor being taken down below and given his lashes, or an assembly being called and all the other sailors being shown what happens to them if they break the maritime laws?"
Given that when lashing was still allowed it was used on every ship almost every week, it would seem that it wasn't much use as a deterrent really.
The problem with deterrent sentencing is that no one goes about breaking the law/rules thinking that they're going to be caught. If you think you're going to get away with it, what matters the punishment?
To everyone who thinks this is a clear-cut and obvious case let me just run through a few thoughts - Note that I do not necessarily think that Steven Price is innocent or guilty but based on the 'Facts' as presented in this Article alone, I believe that there are still other possibilities available.
1) Steven Price admitted to guilt - this is possibly one of the most compelling arguments in favor of his Guilt, however as other folk have pointed out mentally ill people admit to guilt for crimes they have not committed quite often - and if nothing else Steven Price does not seem to be.... well lets say.... mentally stable....
Also if the crime was committed by one of the other people there, like say his Girlfriend/Partner then I would also have to consider the possibility that he may be 'In love' (whatever that means ;-) and is trying to protect her.
2) Steven Price posed with the body.... After the attack - there is no suggestion in this article that the Pictures were taken while the attack was taking place in which case this only provides evidence that Steven Price was involved after the death, it also indicates that there was at least one other person present at the time.
3) DNA etc evidence on the "knife the screw driver and the mobile phone" (Carpet, Bag etc) again this only links the accused to the disposal of these items which only 'proves' that he was involved in the disposal of the body - which has already been established.
4) Witness evidence from Karen and Irene Duncan. lets see now this sounds a bit harder to refute but they are sisters and may be prepared to lie to protect each other - Also they are fairly obviously involved in the murder and it is not outside the bounds of possibility that they are lying to protect themselves and or each other. Think about it a: "'frenzied and sustained knife assault' amounting to at least 80 separate blows." is no means feat and would be likely to be fairly tiring if carried out by a single person - it is possible that two people (two sisters perhaps?) or maybe even three people participated in the attack.
If I was on the Jury would I convict on the strength of all this evidence?
Yes I think the evidence does sound like it could be considered 'Beyond reasonable doubt.' and I probably would convict.
However would I also consider the evidence to be certain enough to sentence Steven Price to death? I think not as despite the obvious nature of this case there are other possible explanations for the 'evidence' given in this Article.
I may caused enough stirring for the moment I think I will get my coat and stand back out of the wind of public opinion for a bit.
How about sentancing being what they say?
If he gets life (as someone else pointed out) he will actually be allowed out again before his "Life" is over - so that's not a LIFE sentance then is it?
I agree that people like this have gone outside our society and the agreements we have made to each other in that society, but killing is wrong and the "law cannot contradict itself" comment made sense.
If we actually locked them up for as long as we say we are going to it MIGHT just act as more of a deterant.
People who KNOW they are going to be in a concrete box for 20 years if they do something are going to think somewhat harder about it than if they know they'll get told 20 years, but only serve 1-2 of them, surely?
...and the website report is probably pulled from the 'papers (El Reg being a tech site and not a news agency), who have a pretty poor track record of documenting *any* evidence for the defence. The odd occasion that they do is usually after conviction, when they've set off on a "Crusade For Justice" or some other headline-grabbing way of saying "we're pretty sure this bloke's innocent and we reckon that saying it will sell a few extra copies".
Having said that, my vote's for execution by firing squad. With flamethrowers.
Can't let anyone accuse *me* of being anywhere to the left of Attlia the Hun now, can I?
"But then you're basing your opinion upon a report published on a website. If you were a member of the jury, you may find that there is a great deal more evidence than is presented here..."
Exactly. And other posters are basing their decision to hang the guy *purely on the basis of this article*. Would you really be happy having your guilt determined by a jury that included that bunch?
No ta.
Whenever the government loses 25m personal records or says it's going to build a database on everyone in the UK, El Reg readers are usually pretty sensible. But give them the prospect of a good hanging and the old animalism comes out - an instinct barely distinguishable from the one that drove these guys to commit murder. Roll up, roll up, come see a man die. Don't worry, the government's said it's OK, so bring your mobiles and make sure you get a picture of the guy's tongue turning blue and the bit where he shits himself right at the end.
The government should not have the power of life and death over individual citizens, period. Nor should it have the power to say who can reproduce and who can't (which is why no civilised country uses chemical castration as a punishment either). The only thing worse than an unregulated gene pool is one regulated by the government. An ideal government-regulated gene pool would consist entirely of a cross between Ed Balls and Gordon Brown.
Or a great deal that further complicates things (as you say were only seeing whats in a website report after all).
The simple and eternal problem with having a death penalty is that no matter how hard you try to make it infallible, a screw up will happen and an innocent will die.
A second issue is that of actually applying it, in a number of American states that have the death penalty you cannot be on a Jury which can give the death penalty if you don't agree with it. This combined with the fact that people who believe in the death penalty have been shown to be much more likely to convict than people who do not is inherently flawed.
In other states anyone can be on a Jury that can give the death penalty, the flaw here is that their are people such as myself who will not authorise murder by the state. This means if I (or someone like me) is on that Jury we will find the defendant innocent (even if we believe he is guilty). This again is inherently flawed, as your chances of conviction (and of getting the death penalty) are based on a randomly decided Jury not your crimes.
Personally I think the death penalty is an easy way out. IMHO pre-meditated murderers should receive whole life sentences under extremely austere conditions. A quick humane death is no punishment at all, really.
Either way. The current average 14 years (served) for murder in one of Her Majesty's Holiday Camps is a complete joke.
Oh, and the same sentence for attempted murderers, too. Just because they were lucky enough *not* to kill their victim shouldn't mean they should get the pathetic 9 years in the slammer that scum like this:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7159705.stm
receive, just so they can come out and get it right next time.
Bottom line. Try to kill, succeed or not, and you should spend the rest of your life in a 7' cell, 23 hours a day, with 4 others of like mind.
Try this simple exercise. Go to the bbc news site, and search for "miscarriage of justice". See how many news articles you get. I would have thought that the Sally Clark case alone would have been enough to put the capital punishment debate to bed once and for all, but sadly, it would appear not.
If someone is found guilty of murder (or any other crime that may punnishable by judicial murder)and the person is later found to be innocent who pays for the crime The Judge,The Jury,The Defence Lawyer(for not getting all the facts before The Jury)The Politician(who drafted The Law),The Prosecuting Lawer,or "The Hangman"?
P.S.
""Which mads for a better deterrent in the UK Navy: a sailor being taken down below and given his lashes, or an assembly being called and all the other sailors being shown what happens to them if they break the maritime laws?""
Have you been watching too many "B" movies? They no longer use Flogging in The Royal Navy it was abbolised officialy in the 1960's AAFAIK hadden't been used for several decades before that not even in the mutinies in the British Armed Forces at the end of the Second World War in the Far East.
"But then you're basing your opinion upon a report published on a website. If you were a member of the jury, you may find that there is a great deal more evidence than is presented here..."
Mark -That is precisely the point that I am making (well trying to make).
Whilst a large number of people here are screaming that Steven Price deserves the death penalty and that this is an obvious open and shut case - there could easily be other Factors that may make this case less obvious.
While I would accept that on the evidence presented here alone there MAY be a case for imprisonment I cannot accept (merely on the evidence presented in this article) that there is a clear cut case here that justifies execution (as many are claiming).