The Death Row Row

With the hanging in Singapore yesterday of drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van, there was the predictable howls of outrage by the Australian mainstream media. Though unconcerned by the hangings of non-Australians for the same offence, our media's orgy of angst was such that Nora and I could not even watch the 6pm National Nine News after it descended into nausea-inducing pathos and sanctimony within the opening minute.

Note to Packer: We'll keep turning off and eventually just won't watch your usually workman-like 6pm bulletin at all if you keep letting your employees vent their own biases.

One agrees that imposing the death penalty for anything less than murder seems somewhat extreme. But the people of Singapore judge drug trafficking serious enough to warrant death for offenders and support their government in this, despite efforts by international media to talk this down. And even on the ABC's forums, there was plenty of support for backing Singapore's sovereignty, even if one does not agree with the death penalty.

It was also noted by ABC forum poster Patrick that:

Most of the people on here who are crying for us to interfere in another country's legal system are the same ones who say on other issues (Afghanistan, Iraq et al) that we have no right interefering in other countries.

Come on guys, take a position; do we interefere if something is wrong or do we respect their right to sovereignty? You can't have it both ways.

Also yesterday as part of the media's campaign against other countries' rights to enact laws that suit them (when those laws don't suit the liberal left), one encountered numerous tales of murderer Kenneth Boyd who, early in the day, had drawn the straw to become the 1000th person executed in the US since the 1976 reintroduction of the death penalty and by the end of the day had become that very statistic.

Agence France Presse correspondents in Paris, in a Courier-Mail story linked above, noted Boyd's demise while selling the Amnesty International line that the death penalty is losing ground, with 122 countries or territories abolishing it in law or in practice. What they failed to point out is that many of these countries did not abolish the death penalty because they had 'seen the light' but because they were blackmailed into doing so by liberal first-world nations which tie death penalty abolition into conditions for trade and other international relations.

But in citing only Boyd's death by lethal injection, the correspondents turn a blind eye to Boyd's crime, a premeditated double murder committed in front of his own children.

From About.com:

Boyd, armed with a .357 magnum pistol he had purchased five days earlier, went to pick up his children at the Curry home. He told the boys they were going for pizza, but instead Boyd circled the Curry's neighborhood several times. The pistol was sitting on the seat of the car between Boyd and his children. Christopher Boyd, age 13, moved the pistol under the car seat, away from his father's reach.

Boyd pulled into the Curry home and yelled at Christopher to give him the gun. Christopher, frightened, ran to warn his grandparents

And from WRAL.com:

During the 1988 slayings, Boyd's son Christopher was pinned under his mother's body as Boyd unloaded a .357-caliber Magnum into her. The boy pushed his way under a bed to escape the barrage.

Popular among anti-death penalty types is the claim that executing murderers doesn't achieve anything except revenge. Try telling that to Britain's Linda Bowyer or America's Julio Chavez - oh, sorry, you can't. They were murdered by murderers who escaped.

Bowyer died when:

John Thomas Straffen... strangled 2 little girls but was found insane and sent to Broadmoor. In April 1952 he escaped and strangled Linda Bowyer before being recaptured the following day. He was sentenced to hang for this murder and reprieved after his appeal. Fortunately he has not been released, and is Britain's longest serving prisoner. (Source)

Let's hope he doesn't give them the slip again.

As for American Julio Chavez, his killer was Norman Parker Jr, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Florida in 1967 for a first degree murder committed the previous year (and also carrying a second degree murder conviction in Washington). But he escaped and committed a further murder and rape:

On 07/18/78, Parker and codefendant Robbie Lee Manson were admitted into a Miami home to complete an illegal drug deal with two male occupants of the home. Soon thereafter, the defendants produced firearms and demanded cocaine and money from the two men. They were forced to surrender jewelry, strip naked and lie on a bed. Two other occupants, a female and her boyfriend, were discovered in another room and also were forced to strip naked and surrender jewelry. All four victims were then confined to the same room, on the same bed. Parker then searched the home for additional valuables while Manson stood guard over the four occupants. After a period of time, Parker aimed a revolver at Chavez’s back, whereupon Manson handed him a pillow. Parker then shot Chavez through the pillow. The other three victims heard the muffled shot and nothing further from Chavez. Parker then committed a sexual battery on the female. (Source)

Of course, the more cynical anti-death penalty liberal might suggest Chavez could have been alive today if he weren't mixed up with illegal drugs.

But then so might Nguyen Tuong Van.

And before any bleeding hearts out there suggest the authorities should have better security to stop killers escaping, consider this:

According to Home Office figures, at least 71 people have committed a second murder after being released on licence from their first life sentence in the last 35 years. (Source, as above)

while Britain's Hansard records:

6 Mar 1997 : Column: 698

Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many convicted murderers have killed again after release from prison in the last 10 years; and what is the average sentence that they serve as a result. [18478]

Mr. Maclean: In England and Wales, during the years 1986 to 1995, nine persons released from prison after having served a sentence following conviction for murder are known to have killed again. One of these persons subsequently committed suicide. The other eight were sentenced to life imprisonment.

One down, eight to go.

-- Nick