Liverpool shooting: Murder arrest over Olivia Pratt-Korbel's death
A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a nine-year-old girl was fatally shot in her own home.
Olivia Pratt-Korbel was hit in the chest as her mother struggled with a gunman at the door of their house in Dovecot, Liverpool, on Monday.
If the eight o'clock walk were to be brought back, then I suspect a list of offers to pull the lever would not be a short list.
5 comments:
As it is he might on past performance, get an inappropriately short sentence.
Imagine the self-control that the police have to exercise. Even taking him his meals would be tempting. But he has to appear in court, so it has to be hands off.
Tammly - I agree, especially as in a sense it wasn't wholly deliberate.
Sam - although he may end up somewhere where it isn't hands off unless he is kept apart.
I remember when wokeists (as they then weren't called) reckoned that a clinching argument against hanging was to demand "Would you be prepared to be the hangman?" I used to reply "Yes".
Similarly for anti-nuke people: "Would you be prepared to press the button?" "Yes."
To be fair I do acknowledge two anti-capital punishment arguments. One is quite good - you can't undo it if it turned out he was innocent after all. But the other is mine and I find it absolutely compelling. The sort of people who are opposed to capital punishment often can't be trusted to be honest citizens if put on a jury. Rather than find a defendant guilty when the evidence is compelling they'd obstruct a guilty verdict. So murderers would go free. So it would probably be better not to have the capital punishment sentence available so at least the brutes would be found guilty and locked up.
That argument would be even stronger, of course, if a "life sentence" meant what it says on the tin. Mind you, even then I'd have to trust that few people would produce a dishonest vote of "not guilty" because they disapproved of life sentences.
dearieme - yes, the inability to undo it if he turns out to be innocent is a strong argument. The level of proof has to be very strong. Your second argument is certainly compelling and could apply to a lesser degree if life meant life. Some citizens on a jury couldn't be trusted not to obstruct a guilty verdict even then.
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