Following the conviction of Joshua Davies for the murder of his ex girlfriend Rebecca Aylward we get her mother calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty.
The mother of schoolgirl Rebecca Aylward, who was murdered by her former boyfriend, said the killer ought to face the death penalty.
One can only imagine the pain this woman is going through. Pain I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. However, my sympathy aside, she is wrong. Justice needs to be dispassionate, unsullied by emotion. The victims are the last people who should decide the fate of the accused. I would feel the same as Ms Oatley if it was one of my nearest and dearest who had been brutally taken from me. It is a natural, human reaction.
Despite her emotive call for Davies to hang, she is still wrong. Had the death penalty been in place – or this crime occurred at a time when it was still in force, Davies would not have gone to the gallows as he is a minor. Even during the dark days of executing innocents for crimes they didn’t commit, we didn’t hang children – even if they were guilty. Well, not unless you go back a century or so and I don’t suppose that anyone wants to return to the bloody code when children between 7 and 14 could be executed for evidence of malice – do they?
That said, Davies should never go free. He will, though, and he will be in his late twenties or early thirties when he does. That is not justice.
She’s not just calling for another child to be illed in order to mae her feel better, she’s calling for other parents to be made to feel the same pain that she is going through.
You’re right, victims are, understandably, way too emotional to think things through
killed in order to make, that should be.
eyboard is nacered
That’s what the edit button is for 😉
Whatever one’s views on the death penalty, the murderer in this case deserves to hang. The sentence he was given was a joke. The judge may as well have gone to the cemetary and pissed on the girl’s grave.
So, how young should we go? Ten? That is the age of criminal responsibility. Frankly, those states that indulge in the death penalty are engaging in barbarism, but to execute children takes that to a whole new level of evil. One whole point about not executing criminals is that it separates them from us – we don’t behave in the same way as they do.
But, yes, we agree that this sentence is nothing like enough. A full life tariff without parole would have been appropriate.
I didn’t say that the state should execute him. The arguments against the death penalty, in general and also when it comes to people of his age, are separate from the assertion I am making, which is that he deserves to die for his despicable crime.
Many arguments can be made against executing him, but amongst them you cannot include that he doesn’t deserve it. The criminal law in my view should not be confused with morality. My judgement is on the grounds of morality. Morally speaking, he deserves to have his skull caved in with a big rock and his body thrown to wild dogs, but I am not advocating this to be done.
Point taken.
There will always be monsters like this – the two Bulger killers for example. Society tends to take the line that they can be redeemed. Maybe, maybe not. I suspect the latter,frankly as the nature of the crimes suggests something deeply disturbed in their psyche. They may well deserve to be killed, but irrespective of that not being an option, how do we make sure there are no repeat offences? The only practicable answer is a full life tariff without parole.
What we don’t know – well, I don’t anyway – is whether the judge had that option available to him.
I doubt that the judge can do so with someone younger than 18. Even if they did, the case would go up to the bleeding hearts of the Appeal Court and they’d slap it down.
I am totally opposed to the death penalty as an instrument of a state’s judicial system. However, I can fully understand how a close family member might choose to take matters into their own hands. Were I on a jury trying such a case, my inclination would be not to find the family member guilty.
The horrible problem with the death-penalty for murder is …
What do you do when you get it WRONG?
As opposed to Treason or Piracy, which, in my opinion, are much easier to prove conclusively…….