so what do you think....?

[wilsbrough]

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/china_court_approves_brit_s_death_sentence

Just wondered what my fellow brothers thought about this? I am not saying that the guy was innocent, but there are many other factors to take in regarding this case, and from what i hear asking if the man was mentally ill as opposed to having a medical evaluation sounds a little wrong to me, any thoughts? Right or wrong? Did he deserve to die when you read all the facts? He clearly was a little soft in the head, did you see his 'Music video'?

Andy.....

[RobertBfrom aust]

Is it not strange just how many druggies and even murderers are said to be sick in some way after being caught , do not see to many people being upset at the number of people disposed of in other parts of the world including the U.S.A , Singapore and in other countries we do not even hear about , Brown is only crowing to cover up his other financial woes and jobless figures , regards Ying and Robert .

[Willy The Londoner]

I am with Robert on this one.  

He was not soft in the head enough to get to Urimqi which is not the easiest places to get to and it would have meant at least one change of flight maybe 2.

Urimqi at the time of his arrest was not a good place to be as borne out a little later when several hundred innocent people, going about their everyday business were slaughtered in street attacks.  Some perpetrators probably high on drugs.

 As I see it no one is saying he was innocent just that he was mentally wrong in the head.   Was he was he not.  

It matters not as far as I am concerned.  It is strange how they always find some excuse for someone's bad behaviour.  Was Hitler wrong in the head?   Would he have still been hung if he had survived the war?  Of course he would.   Bigger crime but same principal.

What this man did could have brought misery to more families than effected by 9/11.  4 kgs is a lot of heroin and China did not bring in the law just to deal with him it has been there as long of the PLA.

To have reprieved him would have opened the flood gates to foreigners bringing in the shit by the bucketful.    Sad as it is for his family it will make any other think twice before setting out on this path as the publicity has gone world wide.

Willy

[Vince G]

I have to say something here. I was talking about this last night with a friend. Although I think a execution is real harsh, it shows they aren't playing.

We were talking about the airline bomber and how he will get a lawyer (for free) that will come up with "He has a mental condition" or some other excuse and he'll get a slap on the wrist. This is when I told about this drug smuggler. He knew what he was doing. They came up with the same excuse  for this guy.

"As for his possible mental illness which has been much talked about, there apparently has been no previous medical record."
The embassy statement said there was strong support in China for the death penalty for drug smugglers.
"The amount of heroin he brought into China was 4,030g, enough to cause 26,800 deaths, threatening numerous families," it said

The US courts are being to lenient to such people.

[wilsbrough]

I do not approve of the drugs trade and have had a few friends who's lives have ben ruined by heroin, and in some cases i think people deserve the sentences they get, like the UK girl caught with heroin strapped to her body in Indonesia i think it was, the one who became 'pregnant' to escape the death penalty. She should have been left to rot there as far as i'm concerned.

The thing is, i'm not condoning the death penalty, in fact i support it, i think it should be re-introduced in the UK as there are murderers, rapists, and paedophiles that do not deserve to live, but i also think that you need to be 200% certain of that person guilt, i know this guy was guilty of having the drugs in his bags, but did he put them there? Is he mentally ill? I just feel there were too many unanswered questions left out before the execution was carried out.

In the reports i have read, reading this guys letters, he was clearly delusional, and hearing the prosecution did not carry out tests regarding his mental health, would that not have been the best route to take before the execution? If they find nothing, then fine give him the punishment he deserves, but If he is mentally ill and was duped into taking the drugs into China, then is he not now another victim of the drugs trade, whilst the real criminals who orchestrated it still free walking the streets, shipping the stuff to other countries?

Andy...

[ttwjr32]

did they ever try to figure out were it came from
 and who else was also involved?

[Arnold]

I'm totally with Vince on this too . I wish the US would start doing the same with those Guy's and not waste anybody's time and our Tax Dollar's and get it done quickly not over several year's . Just think of Richard Ramirez ... death Penalty and he is still around enjoying live in Prison . US Court's suck big time .

[David5o]

My feeling about this is, he was not mentally disturbed enough from planning and making a long distance trip to China and to what is not an easy area to reach. He was Guilty of importing A class drugs (Heroin) so to my mind, no great loss, except maybe to his family. But then, where was this caring family when he informed them he was planning a trip to China, them knowing about his mental disturbance and all???  Just don't come together for me!!!

What is really annoying me these days, is that every time they say a Britain is involved in this or that overseas, and then when they eventually give out his/her name 9 times out of ten, it's obvious his not British at all, ...but yet another immigrant that's managed to get a British passport!!! This has got to be giving Britain a bad name and reputation around the world.....

David.....

[maxx]

I'm going to have to agree with everybody else.There was no mental health issues the guy knew what he was doing.He took the chance he got caught.

[Danny]

Here is a useful summary of arguments against capital punishment:

The most important one is the virtual certainty that genuinely innocent people will be executed and that there is no possible way of compensating them for this miscarriage of justice. There is also another significant but much less realised danger here. The person convicted of the murder may have actually killed the victim and may even admit having done so but does not agree that the killing was murder. Often the only people who know what really happened are the accused and the deceased. It then comes down to the skill of the prosecution and defence lawyers as to whether there will be a conviction for murder or for manslaughter. It is thus highly probable that people are convicted of murder when they should really have only been convicted of manslaughter. Have a look at the cases of James McNicol and Edith Thompson and see what you think.

A second reason, that is often overlooked, is the hell the innocent family and friends of criminals must also go through in the time leading up to and during the execution and which will often cause them serious trauma for years afterwards. It is often very difficult for people to come to terms with the fact that their loved one could be guilty of a serious crime and no doubt even more difficult to come to terms with their death in this form. However strongly you may support capital punishment, two wrongs do not make one right. One cannot and should not deny the suffering of the victim's family in a murder case but the suffering of the murderer's family is surely valid too.

There must always be the concern that the state can administer the death penalty justly, most countries have a very poor record on this.  In America, a prisoner can be on death row for many years (on average 11 years {2004 figure}) awaiting the outcome of numerous appeals and their chances of escaping execution are better if they are wealthy and/or white rather than poor and/or black irrespective of the actual crimes they have committed which may have been largely forgotten by the time the final decision is taken. Although racism is claimed in the administration of the death penalty in America, statistics show that white prisoners are more liable to be sentenced to death on conviction for first degree murder and are also less likely to have their sentences commuted than black defendants.

It must be remembered that criminals are real people too who have life and with it the capacity to feel pain, fear and the loss of their loved ones, and all the other emotions that the rest of us are capable of feeling.  It is easier to put this thought on one side when discussing the most awful multiple murderers but less so when discussing, say, an 18 year old girl convicted of drug trafficking.  (Singapore hanged two girls for this crime in 1995 who were both only 18 at the time of their offences and China shot an 18 year old girl for the same offence in 1998.)

There is no such thing as a humane method of putting a person to death irrespective of what the state may claim (see later). Every form of execution causes the prisoner suffering, some methods perhaps cause less than others, but be in no doubt that being executed is a terrifying and gruesome ordeal for the criminal. What is also often overlooked is the mental suffering that the criminal suffers in the time leading up to the execution.  How would you feel knowing that you were going to die tomorrow morning at 8.00 a.m.?

There may be a brutalising effect upon society by carrying out executions - this was apparent in this country during the 17th and 18th centuries when people turned out to enjoy the spectacle of public hanging.  They still do today in those countries where executions are carried out in public.  It is hard to prove this one way or the other - people stop and look at car crashes but it doesn't make them go and have an accident to see what it is like.  It would seem that there is a natural voyeurism in most people.

The death penalty is the bluntest of "blunt instruments," it removes the individual's humanity and with it any chance of rehabilitation and their giving something back to society.  In the case of the worst criminals, this may be acceptable but is more questionable in the case of less awful crimes.

[David S]

I'm not a big fan of the mental illness loop-hole.  Some guy goes and runs his car into a crowd of people or shots a bunch of strangers at random and they say he's not responsible for his actions because he's sick in the head.  Well DUUH!!! no sane person would do those things, so of course he's sick in the head!! I still say they deserve to be punished.

Life isn't fair.  Most of the time the right thing gets done, for those few occasions where there are exceptions I think they are tragic.  But like they say in the old west movies.  We'll let you work it out with your maker.  Alluding to the fact that perhaps the judgment here on this planet is not the last time they might be accountable for their actions.

[Willy The Londoner]

This particular man was not told of his impending execution until 24 hours before he was executed.  The news of his possible execution only came to be news about 7 days earlier.

What has happened in the previous 2 years since he was found carrying a dangerous drug?   Had his family forgotten him until now.  Will this Sunday's newspaper all have' My Life with my executed father' or 'My Cousin the Chinese Drug Scapegoat' headlines having sold their stories for thousands.  

Max Clifford must be rubbing his hands again.

You can in English law say what you like about a dead person true or untrue, as they cannot be libelled after they are dead.

Willy

[rockycoon]

Wonder what the penility is for smuggling Viagra....lol

If he was that stupid to get talked into herion smuggling, what's to stop an idiot like that from being talked into strapping a bomb to his ass and blowing others up?

[Danny]

We have a saying here: "what goes around, comes around". The way you treat the most unworthy of people has a way of changing you. We should aim to treat people better than they deserve, not only because this is the right thing to do, but because of what it does for the society as a whole.

I've edited this post to remove an inflammatory sentence.

[Peter]

I can only think of that you have to live according to the laws in the country you are visiting.
I know that going to prison in Russia, Ukraine and some other eastern Europe countries is like having a death punishment. There is a 90 % chance to get tuberculosis that have no treatment so you will die anyway after 5 years or coughing..