Good Riddance or Cowardly?

On Tuesday, Ariel Castro, the man who kept women captive at his home in Cleveland, Ohio, has died after being found hanging in his cell.

He had been sentenced on to life imprisonment without parole plus 1,000 years on 1 August 2013.

The prosecutor who had tried him responded by calling him a "coward" unable to withstand "a small portion" of what he had inflicted on the women he had raped and kept captive for 10 years.

Reports suggest he used his bedsheets to hang himself and was discovered during a routine 30 check. Doctors were unable to resuscitate him.

Such a long sentence, in a country where the death penalty is still legal and used, was always going to be controversial. This comment from Facebook makes it clear:

It is indeed costly to keep someone in prison for their whole lives. However in this case where Castro kept young women as captives, it was a small dose of revenge in the eyes of many.

In the UK, killers such as Harold Shipman and Fred West have committed suicide rather than live out their life sentences. Both cases caused controversy with one group saying good riddance, while others claiming that prisons should do more to prevent such criminals gaining and 'easy way out' from their punishment.

Do you think suicide is an 'easy way out'? Is it a sign of absolute remorse? Do you think it is better or worse for the victims? Do you think prisons need to do more to prevent suicides?

Read more:Here
Papers Divided After Shipman Suicide

One For Ten: Against the Death Penalty

"The death penalty was re-instated in the United States in 1976. Since then for every ten people that have been executed, one person has been released from death row after spending an average of ten years in isolation. They have been released because new evidence has proved that they were innocent."    

A new social media campaign has been launched, with the organisers using easily available technology to produce a series of videos:

'One For Ten' is an online series of campaign films that will be produced and broadcast over five weeks in April and May of 2013. During those five weeks, we will travel the width of the US and interview ten individuals who have been freed from death row. Driving from New York to California, we will film with a different person every few days and produce a new short film for release online every Tuesday and Friday.   

 

This is an interesting campaign which will hopefully encourage people to review their opinions on the death penalty.

 

Is the death penalty a barbaric way of dealing with criminals? Is it worth 1 innocent life being lost for every 10 'deservedly' executed? Do you think that this campaign will have any success?

 

Find out more: www.oneforten.com

Compassion for Death Penalty Prisoner?

Terry Williams was sentenced to death for murdering Amos Norwood, 56, a chemist and church volunteer, whose body was found stabbed, bludgeoned and partially burned in a Philadelphia cemetery in June 1984.

Marc Draper pleaded guilty to murder and implicated Williams in the crime.

He has been granted a rare hearing after it turned out that prosecutors failed to reveal key evidence at his trial; this evidence concerned the motive for the attack. Murder is always wrong, and a criminal offence, but sometimes there are circumstances behind the crime.

His execution is still scheduled for October 3rd 2012, but has a hearing that could reduce that to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The reason for the appeal is that Norwood has sexually abused Williams, alongside many other young boys in their church congregation. The jurory were presented with a 'murder gone wrong' rather than a damaged 18 year old (18yrs 3months) who had undergone abuse and had finally snapped and sought revenge.

The jurory also did not know Williams had been sexually abused by lots of other older men in his neighbourhood, presenting a very damaged young man.

Williams committed a second murder of another child abuser which lead to his death penatly sentence.

Even his victim's wife is asking for his death penalty sentence to be halted.

Retaliation is always wrong, but does this man deserve to die for his crimes? This is a very unusual step just before an execution. Is it right that he was convicted by a jurory who deliberately had facts hidden from them? Do you think these facts matter in the case? 

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/terry-williams-execution_n_1885215.html