Do you think we should bring back capital punishment here in the UK?

Absolutely not. It was scrapped for very good reasons, the main one being that occasionally courts get it wrong. Is it ever right to execute the innocent? Is it OK to execute the wrong person once in a while and just say "oops"?

nobby mentions the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. Absolutely right - they spent years in prison but at least we were able to release them eventually and apologise.

Have you been watching "Rillington Place" on the BBC? The execution of Timothy Evans was one of the high profile cases that added to the pressure for capital punishment to be abolished. His wife and baby daughter were murdered and he was tried for the murder of his daughter, convicted and hanged in 1950. However, it is now known that the police bungled the investigation, and Evans's tendency to make up stories and the fact that he couldn't read - so he couldn't check the statements the police had written down and it looked in court like he had said much that was contradictory - misled the jury.

3 years later, his landlord, John Christie, moved out of his flat and the new tenant found bodies hidden behind the wallpaper in the kitchen. Christie was soon arrested, tried for the murder of his wife, and hanged. He admitted to the murder of Mrs Evans and six other women. All in all, it looks like the hanging of Evans was a ghastly mistake. It didn't help that Christie was a key witness at Evans's trial and of course he lied to protect himself.

We really don't want that happening again. At least Evans has now been pardoned, but that's a fat lot of use when he's dead. Though it did enable his body to be given back to his family for a proper burial. (Executed British prisoners were always buried at the prison and not returned to the family.)

If you really want to be nasty to a murderer, give them a life sentence with a whole life term. Then they have the rest of their life to think about it. Killing them gives them the easy way out. You won't remember Fred West and Harold Shipman but I do. Both committed suicide in prison rather than face a life sentence. I don't blame them - I've been in prison and it wasn't for long but it was enough to convince me I'd hate being there any longer. At least I had a date when it would end.

I can also think of Ian Brady, one of the "Moors murderers" in the 1960s. He's been locked up for nearly 50 years now and occasionally appeals to be allowed to starve himself to death rather than live out the rest of his pointless existence. Which of course is always refused.

No. The death penalty even for those who have committed hideous crimes is a quick way out of their guilt and an easy way out of their punishment. I would far rather they were incarcerated for the rest of their natural lives, and made to do hard labour throughout. That would be fitting punishment in my opinion.

No I dont. The Guildford 4 and Birmingham 6 were found guilty and later proven innocent. They spent decades in prison and for a while were the most hated people in the UK.
Texas has the death penalty and a high rate of violent crime.

An eye for an eye

People who intentionally and maliciously take the lives of others do not deserve to live, especially if the victims were those who can't defend themselves.