Treason charges likely!

[Alfie]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13404744,00.html

This is interesting as treason is the one and only offence left in this country that can carry the death penalty!

I doubt though that any government or judicial system would invoke it.

 

[glojo]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13404744,00.html

This is interesting as treason is the one and only offence left in this country that can carry the death penalty!

I doubt though that any government or judicial system would invoke it.

Good morning Alfie,
Unfortunately this is one of those urban myth 'thingies'

Treason
Treason Felony
Arson in a Naval Dockyard!!

We no longer have the death penalty... Full stop.

This idea is just playing to the crowds. These horrible people have been spouting there words for years and all of a sudden the government decides to act!! Horses and stables come to mind.

Just watch the outcry if someone mentions deportation.

Take care,
John

 

[Alfie]

Good morning Alfie,
Unfortunately this is one of those urban myth 'thingies'

Treason
Treason Felony
Arson in a Naval Dockyard!!

We no longer have the death penalty... Full stop.

This idea is just playing to the crowds. These horrible people have been spouting there words for years and all of a sudden the government decides to act!! Horses and stables come to mind.

Just watch the outcry if someone mentions deportation.

Take care,
John

John,

Good morning. I'm pretty sure we do still have the death penalty for Treason.

I heard it not so long ago on a Radio2 debate about treason relating to one of those former MI5 chaps starting to talk! However, I know you are pretty well versed in these things and will bow to your superior knowledge.

Whats the weather like on the English Riviera?

 

[glojo]

John,

Good morning. I'm pretty sure we do still have the death penalty for Treason.

I heard it not so long ago on a Radio2 debate about treason relating to one of those former MI5 chaps starting to talk! However, I know you are pretty well versed in these things and will bow to your superior knowledge.

Whats the weather like on the English Riviera?

Hi Alfie,
I think it is all to do with 'Human Rights' legislation.

What is Britain doing to bring about worldwide abolition of the death penalty?

The UK has abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
The UK has ratified Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which abolishes the death penalty in most circumstances.
The UK has ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which bans the use of capital punishment;
The UK has ratified Protocol 13 of the ECHR, banning the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, including time of war.
During the UK's Presidency in 1998, the European Union agreed guidelines on the death penalty. These include criteria for making "demarches" (representations) to countries which retain the death penalty.
With our EU partners, the UK makes regular demarches in:
in individual cases which fall below minimum standards for the use of the death penalty (such as executing pregnant women, mentally retarded persons or those aged under eighteen at the time of the commission of the crime);
in situations where a government’s policy on the death penalty is in flux (for example when they are considering lifting a moratorium, or de facto moratorium, on the use of the death penalty);
In 1998, the FCO set up a Death Penalty Panel including expert academic, legal and NGO representatives. The Panel helps the Government draw up strategies towards the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.
The UK co-sponsors the annual EU resolution on the death penalty at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
The FCO is supporting projects aimed at increasing public awareness about the death penalty in various countries, including the US and the Caribbean, through its Human Rights Project Fund.
The FCO makes representations on behalf of any British national who is sentenced to death, anywhere in the world.

Common myths about the death penalty
"The death penalty is a deterrent"
This is not proven. Numerous studies have failed to establish that execution deters better than a long jail sentence. For example, the USA has the highest murder rate in the industrialised world, and rates are highest in Southern States where most executions occur.

"Murderers deserve no mercy"
All persons are entitled to full protection before the law and full observance of their human rights., including the right to a fair trial and the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence. Criminals must be brought to justice. But there are other means of doing this. And, with the death penalty, miscarriages of justice are irreversible.

The international community has agreed that even the worst offenders at the Rwandan and Yugoslav war crimes tribunals cannot face the death penalty. Criminals must be brought to justice. But there are other means of doing this.

"Most countries have the death penalty"
Not so. In 2002, 111 countries had ended capital punishment in law or practice. Only 84 retain it, and many of those have moratoriums*. The international consensus is now moving towards abolition.

"Most people want the death penalty"
Poll after poll finds that the more people know about the death penalty - and possible alternatives to execution - the more public support for the death penalty drops. That is why Britain works to encourage more debate about the death penalty in countries which retain it.

* source: FCO Annual Human Rights Report 2002

The weather here is absolutely brilliant hot, sunny, but not sweltering hot, hot.

Have a nice one,

Take care,
John

 

[Satch]

For better or worse, 27th January 1999 marked the day when Home Secretary of the moment (Jack Straw) formally signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights in Strasbourg thus formally abolishing the death penalty in the UK.

Theoretically available for treason and piracy up to 1998 but it was extremely unlikely that even if anyone had been convicted of these crimes over the preceding 30 years that they would have actually been executed.

Successive Home Secretaries had always reprieved persons sentenced to death in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man where the death sentence for murder could still be passed and the Royal Perogative was observed.

So, all the Press Noise about Treason is just that. The real point is that in certain cases charges of Treason are likely to be easier to prove and make stick in court than are some of the other criminal charges.

 

[Alfie]

For better or worse, 27th January 1999 marked the day when Home Secretary of the moment (Jack Straw) formally signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights in Strasbourg thus formally abolishing the death penalty in the UK.

Theoretically available for treason and piracy up to 1998 but it was extremely unlikely that even if anyone had been convicted of these crimes over the preceding 30 years that they would have actually been executed.

Successive Home Secretaries had always reprieved persons sentenced to death in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man where the death sentence for murder could still be passed and the Royal Perogative was observed.

So, all the Press Noise about Treason is just that. The real point is that in certain cases charges of Treason are likely to be easier to prove and make stick in court than are some of the other criminal charges.

I stand corrected. Thank you gentlemen.

 

[glojo]

I stand corrected. Thank you gentlemen.

You raised a very good point and it gets folks talking.

This Human Rights legislation is what will eventually stop us from deporting undesireables to any country that still has the death penalty. Or will not assure our government that the deported person will not get a death sentence on being deported, unless of course it is the United States

Bye for now,
John

P.S. I'm a wooly anti death penalty right winger (but that's off topic)

 

[Satch]

You raised a very good point and it gets folks talking.

This Human Rights legislation is what will eventually stop us from deporting undesireables to any country that still has the death penalty. Or will not assure our government that the deported person will not get a death sentence on being deported, unless of course it is the United States

Bye for now,
John

P.S. I'm a wooly anti death penalty right winger (but that's off topic)

Last year a senior Chinese official suggested that China executes 10,000 people a year. That is more than the number of judicial executions recorded for the rest of the world combined.

Political interference is possible at every stage of criminal justice proceedings and the courts are under extreme political pressure to pass ever more and heavier sentences, quickly, as part of the 'strike hard' anti-crime campaigns as their version of a free market economy develops.

Capital offences include crimes such as tax fraud, producing counterfeit currency, taking bribes and 'killing a panda.' Mobile execution chambers (converted buses) are extensively used throughout China.

Prisoners are often executed immediately after a sentence is passed.

Anyone want to buy a Rover?

 

[cra_arc]

the ultimate deterant is the threat of ultimate force. regardless of weather you feel it is right or not.

Common myths about the death penalty
"The death penalty is a deterrent"
This is not proven. Numerous studies have failed to establish that execution deters better than a long jail sentence. For example, the USA has the highest murder rate in the industrialised world, and rates are highest in Southern States where most executions occur.

this does not mean it doesnt work !!!!!
all it means is the us still has the highest murder rate.

apparently
you can still get hung in this country for selling a second hand anchor to a minor after the hour of midnight.

under naval law. so ive been told.

 

[glojo]

I hope Alfie does not mind us 'drifting'

Some foreign countries clearly have policies which are not those I would want.

I merely remember many years ago a mentally retarded gentleman that had received a life sentence for rape and the murder of a young lady.

This person admitted the offences and was sentenced to life.

His case was routinely reviewed after ten years and the woman's clothing had DNA of the murderer on it. This DNA proved beyond doubt this man was innocent!! His mother had died a broken person and this man had turned into a mental cabbage. If we had still had the death penalty he would have hung!! Sorry would not somehow have released an innocent corpse.

Just my two penarth on something that is off topic.

Regards,
John

 

[Cronos]

this does not mean it doesnt work !!!!!

I think you'll find it means exactly what it says... that it's 'not proven'.

all it means is the us still has the highest murder rate.

Which would suggest, would it not, that it's not terribly effective as a deterrent.

 

[prprandall51]

All of my opinions that follow concern extreme criminality in cases in which guilt is irrefutable:

I wouldn't propose that the death penalty is a deterrent. For a start, it seems that no criminal has ever walked the earth who believes he / she is likely to get caught. They all believe that they are the one - the supreme criminal - who will evade justice, no matter what form it may take. In matters of "crimes of passion" then the consequences are the last things on the minds of people who commit such acts, anyway. So the death penalty probably wouldn't deter anyone from doing anything.

However, this lack of deterrent value in the death penalty doesn't matter because what the death penalty does is give us the potential to rid ourselves of a whole load of people who we don't want. (Did I word that too bluntly?)

What is the point of keeping Dennis Neilson alive? Or the Yorkshire Ripper? I bet there are a thousand psychiatrists ready to rise to the challenge of "rehabilitating" them into society - but I don't want them living next to me or my family, thank you very much, and no assurance from a quack that they have "seen the error of their ways" is going to be good enough for me.

My thinking is that individuals have rights and that they are very important. These include the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial.

But society has rights, too. The right to be able to go about your business without being stabbed 7 times for objecting to someone throwing chips at you, the right to stand at a bus stop without being hacked to death with an axe just for being black, the right to travel on a tube train without being blown up, and on and on and on....

When the rights of the individual overpower the rights of society, it indicates to me that we have lost the plot and gone too far. If we can find the "chip" knifer (above) and be sure it is him, what do we want to hang on to him for? If it's so we can rehabilitate him, then I think we are wasting our time.

Democracy defends people's right to their own thoughts. It demands that people are not required to subscribe to the beliefs of others in order to exist. In that case, why do we object to somebody killing somebody else? Why shouldn't murderers be free to murder others?

The answer, (time for an IMHO here) is because society isn't actually free, it is bound by complex laws that support cohabitation. Up till now, the rights of the individual were a subset of - and embedded within - the rights of society. In the last few years we have turned everything on its head by putting the individual first and society.... well, not even second to be frank, it's disappeared off the list altogether.

When we catch a murderer, we try to rehabilitate them. But, surely, they have already opted out of our society model? So, why do we force our own society-oriented indoctrination on them? It is actually an oxymoron of the current situation that we say that the prisoner has rights but then we spend the next 10 years of their life trying to re-mould them to a shape that *we* feel is satisfactory for them to be allowed back into the very society they chose (through their actions) to unsubscribe from.

So, as far as I can see, they don't really have such enormous rights after all. We just can't stomach pulling the trigger so we ponce around playing God in a different way, instead (several IMHOs here).

Philip

 

[Shude]

The last person qualified to carry out a death penalty in the UK died sometime in the 1980s, no-one else has been trained for these duties. There won't be any death penalties I'm afraid.

 

[prprandall51]

The last person qualified to carry out a death penalty in the UK died sometime in the 1980s, no-one else has been trained for these duties. There won't be any death penalties I'm afraid.

That's because they haven't advertised for a replacement

 

[Benzowner]

Philip, Well said. I would also add that the rights of the convicted individual are more often than not put above the rights of his or her victim. It appears to me, and I may be and am often wrong, but the rights of individuals seemed to be introduced by the minority, not the majority which is against, in some ways, democracy.

As regards getting someone to pull the trigger in the execution, what about using the next guilty person on the list. They have killed once so would not have any giult in doing it again

 

[glojo]

What is the point of keeping Dennis Neilson alive? Or the Yorkshire Ripper? I bet there are a thousand psychiatrists ready to rise to the challenge of "rehabilitating" them into society - but I don't want them living next to me or my family, thank you very much, and no assurance from a quack that they have "seen the error of their ways" is going to be good enough for me.

Hi Philip,
Whilst I agree with 95% of your post, I simply refer back to my example. The woman died a horrible death and was abused terribly before that. Am I right in thinking that you feel the culprit should be hung\gassed\electrocuted?

Again refering back to my very real example the convicted person admitted the offence, pleaded guilty and went to prison for life. I have no idea what previous convictions he had, I have no idea what sort of person he was. The reports merely state he was mentally retarded, and most importantly though he was innocent. Innocent beyond doubt, not innocent on a technocality. Killing an innocent person is to high a price to pay.

No matter what the circumstances.

Sentence someone to life and life should mean life. I feel however we have been here before!

Boy is it getting hot, toooo hot,

Regards,
John

 

[Alfie]

You raised a very good point and it gets folks talking.

This Human Rights legislation is what will eventually stop us from deporting undesireables to any country that still has the death penalty. Or will not assure our government that the deported person will not get a death sentence on being deported, unless of course it is the United States

Bye for now,
John

P.S. I'm a wooly anti death penalty right winger (but that's off topic)

For what its worth I agree almost entirely with what Phillip has said. The death penalty does work. It stops that person from ever ever doing it again. This would have been very effective in many cases over the years where an offender has been let out for 'good behaviour' after serving on average 1/3rd of their sentence, only to re-offend.

I am a believer in the death penalty as are the majority of the population. The pathetic human rights crap we have to put with these days is preventing our subscribed society from dealing with offenders properly. The victim has no rights whilst the convict has every right.

As for no-one being trained to perform the executions, I'll apply if there is an advertisement. I could quite happily blow away the likes of Neilson, Sutcliff, Venebles (and his mate), Brady and anyone else of the same ilk.

We have to start to properly protect the community of good decent citizens against the murderers, rapists and child molestors of this world by taking them out of our society for good. Not for a few years for GOOD.

These are my humble opinions which I expect some, possibly many to disagree with.

 

[glojo]

These are my humble opinions which I expect some, possibly many to disagree with.

Tis your thread and you are without doubt you are saying exactly what the large majority of the British public want. (oh to live in a democratic soceity)

All I am saying is what happens when you hang the wrong person?

Everyone either says it will only apply where there is no doubt of guilt..... My example clearly highlights there was no doubt of guilt.

Then do you believe it is okay to hang a completely innocent person?

I am 10,000% against our disgraceful judicial system that clearly puts the rights of the accused way above the rights of the innocent. Life imprisonment should mean absolute life in prison.

I do NOT believe in the right to silence and I do NOT believe in the right of someone getting away with a crime on a technicality.

Be it speeding, or murder!!!!.

I do NOT believe in giving the Police carte blanche powers to flout any laws, but for arguements sake a warrant that has a spelling error, or typing error should not then make the evidence gathered inadmissable! If a police officer gathers evidence by unlawful means, then simply punish the officer for whatever they have done wrong! Let the evidence be put before the courts and let twelve good persons hear or see the evidence.... rant mode.... rant mode.

Take care,
John

 

[Alfie]

Tis your thread and you are without doubt you are saying exactly what the large majority of the British public want. (oh to live in a democratic soceity)

All I am saying is what happens when you hang the wrong person?

Everyone either says it will only apply where there is no doubt of guilt..... My example clearly highlights there was no doubt of guilt.

Then do you believe it is okay to hang a completely innocent person?

I am 10,000% against our disgraceful judicial system that clearly puts the rights of the accused way above the rights of the innocent. Life imprisonment should mean absolute life in prison.

I do NOT believe in the right to silence and I do NOT believe in the right of someone getting away with a crime on a technicality.

Be it speeding, or murder!!!!.

I do NOT believe in giving the Police carte blanche powers to flout any laws, but for arguements sake a warrant that has a spelling error, or typing error should not then make the evidence gathered inadmissable! If a police officer gathers evidence by unlawful means, then simply punish the officer for whatever they have done wrong! Let the evidence be put before the courts and let twelve good persons hear or see the evidence.... rant mode.... rant mode.

Take care,
John

Innocent people are killed all the time on the roads by someone somewhere either doing something stupid or causing something to happen. Unfortunately your example is a little flawed in that had a proper psychiatric test been performed it would have shown that the person was unfit to admit to a crime.

Mistakes are made in many many aspects of our society and inevitably innocent people will get killed just like they did on the trains recently. Just like they do every day in Iraq. So why oh why do we spare certain individuals who commit such awful crimes? It beggars belief.

If someone killed, rapped or abused a member of my family or close friend, I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in this pathetic limp wristed touchy feely lefty government/judicial system to do anything about it. The bloke would most likely say he had an unfortunate upbringing himself and couldnt help it. Get a few months inside and then out free. Not in my world he wouldnt. He would be found, tortured for hours, genitals removed, forehead tatooed with either the words paedophile, rapist or murderer then paralysed He could live his life like that until he died. Not that I would ever do any of this you understand.

I think i'll leave it at that. I've said enough on this subject.

 

[Shude]

As for no-one being trained to perform the executions, I'll apply if there is an advertisement. I could quite happily blow away the likes of Neilson, Sutcliff, Venebles (and his mate), Brady and anyone else of the same ilk.

I believe the problem is that it has been made illegal to train someone to perform those tasks