Death penalty should return, say readers

Herald Sun ^ | 1st October 2009

[naturalman1975]

HERALD Sun readers have overwhelmingly called for the death penalty after this week's conviction of double murderer Leigh Robinson.

In a heraldsun.com.au poll almost 78 per cent of almost 3000 respondents voted for capital punishment. The other 22 per cent opposed it.

Others believed Robinson should never have been released from prison.

Leigh Robinson's stepson, Daniel, joined the call by declaring Robinson should hang. "He's done it before and he'll do it again. There is no delicate way of saying this," Daniel said.

"This man must hang. He must not ever be given the chance of getting out into society again, simply because he will kill if he is ever granted his freedom."

A Supreme Court jury on Tuesday convicted Robinson of murdering Frankston mother Tracey Greenbury on April 28 last year.

The jury had not been told Robinson, 61, had viciously murdered his former girlfriend, Valerie Dunn, 40 years earlier and had been sentenced to death.

The penalty was later commuted to 30 years jail, of which he served just 15.

[naturalman1975]

Like most Australian governments, the odds of the Victorian government listening to mere people rather than their ideology is remote.

[antiunion person]

California has the death penalty but more convicts die from old age than by injection. If a country or state is going to have the death penalty, I wish they would enforce it. It may just deter crime like it’s supposed to do.

[Nosterrex]

“Mercy to criminals is cruelty to all.” I’m not certain who was the first to make this statement, but it has been repeated by many. I’m not only for the death penalty, but I would like to see it expanded to include pedophiles and child rape.

[LearsFool]

"He's done it before and he'll do it again."

Criminal penalties are not for preventing future crimes. They're for punishing past crimes, i.e. balancing the scales of justice, squaring the books, etc.

The question then becomes how to balance the scales when a life is taken by murder. What do we put in the other side of the scale? Our punishment for murder tells how highly we value life.

[depressed in 06]

Is this another Polanski story?