MANDATORY death sentences? Fuck off Singapore.

The BBQ Pit
204

This thread has gone off on all sorts of tangents I see, and I’d like to make my personal position clear again, just for the record.

I don’t like drugs. I especially don’t like heroin, because I have seen many of my friends over the years fuck up badly, both lifestyle-wise and health-wise. I’m really not sure if I would like to see drug-use legalised, although I do believe that a ‘register of addicts’ who were able to obtain subsistence quantities of heroin for personal use might go some way towards alleviating some of the problems that many communities experience with crime/street dealing and the like.

I am in no way attempting to minimize the culpability of Van Nguyen’s actions. There is no excuse for what he did, which was attempting to import drugs into Australia. He is guilty as charged and convicted.

My gripe is with the imposition of the death sentence, and in particular, a MANDATORY death sentence. And this raises the question of what the purpose of the punishment is.

Historically, crime sanctions have been imposed for three reasons: Deterrence, Retribution, and Rehabilitation. In most civilised nations, the judiciary are entrusted with the ability to determine which factor/s will influence the sentence they bring down. That’s why we have judges. They are especially educated and experienced to examine the evidence and the circumstances of the crime and then impose a sentence that is appropriate for that particular criminal and that particular crime. It is not an exact science, of course, and sometimes judges and juries get it wrong. Sometimes they impose overly lenient sanctions upon convicted criminals (who then go on to repeat their offenses) or they call for severe penalties (when the criminal has committed a reasonably petty crime).

And, as has been recently shown in the US situation, sometimes the ultimate punishment, the death penalty, has been wrongly applied to a person who is innocent of the crime.

But, anyway, apart from all of that rambling…

If the Singaporean judiciary thought that Nguyen warranted retribution for trafficking drugs through their country, then a long prison sentence would be adequate.

If the Singaporean judiciary, after hearing all the evidence and stuff in the case considered Nguyen a possible candidate for being rehabilitated, then a long prison sentence would have been adequate as well. By the way, most of the info coming out of Singapore now is that Van would have been rehabilitated wonderfully.

However, there was no role for the judges in this case. They had no input whatsover. Regardless of their opinions about the nature of the crime and the criminal, the Singaporean government has decreed that Nguyen be put to death.

Which means that Van Nguyen is being hanged tomorrow morning solely to **deter ** others from doing what he did.

Which means that the next time someone is caught transporting drugs (which will happen, either next week, or next month…) that Van’s death will have been totally pointless.

Which also means that the judicial system in Singapore is a complete farce. Why have judges if they are allowed no jurisdiction??
For those who laugh and claim there is nothing really much I can do about this, you may be right. However, tomorrow morning, at 6.00 am Singapore Time, I will be ringing my Utilities provider (Gas) to cancel my account (TXU for those Victorians and South Aussie’s who are interested) and also cancelling my Mobile Phone subscription (Optus, again for those who are interested) because they are majority owned by Singaporean companies. I will probably be crying as I do so.

It may not be much at all, just my own pathetic little boycott, but there are many others here in Australia (and indeed across the world) who are as outraged by the actions of Singapore as I am.
I still feel sick. I just wish the whole fucken mess would go away. Roll on execution time for Truong Van Nguyen so this can all be over.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

205

Guess the state department shouldn’t have let itself be pressured to remove their circular on US marriages with Saudi nationals. SAUDI ARABIA — MARRIAGE TO SAUDIS

206

Rune, with all due respects, this has naff-all to do with my OP.

If you feel vehement enough about it, perhaps you should start your own thread.

I’d contribute my own Humble Opinion as well, for good measure!!

:smiley:

207

I’m going to bed now. It’s 10.30 here.

It’s 7.30pm in Singapore, and Van is probably in bed too.

I can’t imagine how he will be sleeping tonight, or if he will sleep at all. I cannot comprehend knowing that in the pre-dawn light of 6.00 am, there will be a rope tied around his neck, and the earth will drop from his feet.

And he will die. Hopefully he will die instantly. There is no guarantee of that of course.

In my local paper the other day, there was a letter from a woman who’s husband had committed suicide by hanging. She expressed her distress especially at having to find her husband’s body after the event. Death by hanging is not nice, and it would behove the Singaporean government officials who have decreed this to be present when Van Nguyen takes his punishment.

I bet you they don’t though.

Again, fuck you Singapore. If you’re prepared to dole out the punishment, then at least have the courage to witness the event.

208

kambucta:

Nguyen attempted to import drugs to Australia through Singapore. As the government of Singapore has jurisdiction over its own territory, Nguyen subjected himself to its jurisdiction in this matter by committing a crime against their law in their territory. It’s not just the Prime Minister or the court who’s decreed the man will be executed–it’s the law in that particular country. And, for your information, Singapore does have a legislature. It appears in your rants…er, post above that you’re not aware of that.

209

kambuckta said: “Historically, crime sanctions have been imposed for three reasons: Deterrence, Retribution, and Rehabilitation.” But there is a fourth reason - disposal. As most instances of the DP are done in Singapore in secret, this fourth reason would seem more important there than the lip-service done to “deterrance”.

Mandatory sentences exist elsewhere in the world for offences, but this one attracts ire because it is the for the ultimate punishment, the extinction of life.

I urge again – don’t just have a weepie while you’re changing your telephone account from one dodgily-connected multi-national corporate to another who’ll likely piss you off for something else in another wee while. Get active, support groups like Amnesty International, lobby your government to move their arse and actually oppose what their friends and allies are doing to people in the name of justice, rather than simply react as part the media-driven wave of public indignation.

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I think you’ve misread her post. It’s the legislature she’s upset with - for imposing mandatory sentences when sentencing should be the job of the judiciary.

211

But muling drugs to pay your drug-dealer brother’s legal fees? That’s** peachy-keen**.

212

Ah, but there are undoubtedly other drug runners who HAVE been deterred by Nguyen’s execution. And that is precisely the point.

Brutal? Undoubtedly. Effective? Quite.

213

From here:

214

They’ll try to limit the risk of being caught in Singapore, yes. But the fact that Singapore has been hanging drug traffickers for some time now makes mockery of the “deterrant” case. Effective? No.

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We have been jailing murderers since before this country was founded. People still do it. We will never win. I propose we end this War on Murder now because we know that some people just won’t listen and are going to do it anyway.

Effective. No.

216

The effectiveness of the DP was in question here, not jail, Shagnasty. DP supporters talk of the deterrent value. That value is questionable because, as you say, folk will still go out and do the dumbest things. Should we keep on hanging them anyway? No. Lock them up? That’s another discussion entirely.

217

Originally posted by Johnny LA

Can you say lack of proper control groups? Those types of studies have little meaning. You can’t really compare the same society over time because of many other changing factors. You also can’t directly compare other societies to each other for the same reasons. That type of analysis is extremely difficult to do well and I question the honesty or the agenda of anyone that trots this out on either side.

Common sense will tell you that there must be someone, somewhere that has been deterred by the death penalty especially for the deliberate types of crimes that it is used for. That would put the effect at >0 even if it just deters a few people and saves a handful of lives.

I don’t buy this “brutalization” crap. That is a contruct made up for the author’s own fanatsies. Executions aren’t televised and they aren’t done that frequently even if you look at Texas. What type of person would hear about an execution for a serious crime and be more likely to commit that crime himself? I guess it would be the same guy that hears about all these people in jail and figures that kidnapping must be Ok too.

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Mr Nguyen is dead.

:frowning:

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If I could ask a serious question, why do you feel sick about it? I mean, I can understand you thinking that the man shouldn’t have been executed, but why are you taking this personally? I mean, you don’t know him, you’re not a family member, he’s not an innocent man put to death…he even confessed his guilt, so there’s no suspicion he was punished for a crime he didn’t commit, and his death likely was quick and painless. The method of hanging used in Singapore breaks the neck and snaps the spinal cord, so that the hanged man dies instantly.

So why are you physically upset by his death, when, I’d imagine, you wouldn’t be so upset if he had been hit by a bus, which would undoubtedly be a more painful death, and one less deserved.

220

Getting hit by a bus is one thing. Being told “you’re going to be hit by a bus at specific point x in future” is quite another. I wouldn’t call this painless.

BTW, are you totally sure it’s instant? Hanging is supposed to snap the spinal cord, but doesn’t always go to plan.

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Already? I thought there’d be a couple more hours left.

Sad. Just sad. Hopefully he died instantly.

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It should be, assuming the hangman is competant, and they do enough hanging over there that he should be. There are two ways to hang someone…“short drop” hanging, which was used in the bad old days, and in things like suicides or lynchings, wherein the person is strangled on the rope, and dies slowly and painfully, sometimes taking up to half an hour to die, and “long drop” hanging, which Mr. Nguyen suffered, which, like I said, causes a broken neck and snapped spinal cord.

And when I said painless, I meant physically painless. I’m sure knowing he was going to be hanged caused Mr. Nguyen mental distress.

223

Thank fuck it’s all over.

God Bless Singapore.