As a response to the Fritzl case / changed plea. I just read he will be recommended for life in a secure psychiatric unit and has been placed on suicide watch.

Given he is old already, and life will presumably mean that – why do we worry if he prefers to top himself? Unless we see detention as being a punishment worse than death, and of course assuming (as in this case) that rehabilitation and release is not a viable option, why aren’t genuine lifers left to get on with it if they prefer to?

In fact, why if they ask aren’t they allowed a cup of ‘poison’ like at the recently publicised swiss clinics rather than have to invent a means with knotted bedsheets and slow strangulation?

Ultimately they have served out the rest of their life inside, which serves the purpose of preventing them reoffending and saves the taxpayer a fortune in the meantime.

Personally I think they should just brick him up in his own cellar and leave him to contemplate.

I was discussing this on Monday night with peeps. The popular opinion was that he should just be executed or allowed to hang himself. Of course no one was sure they would actually be able to execute him.

Personally I think life imprisonment is a fitting punishment for him.

if he needs pyscological help (i think he just might!) then society cannot not allow him to take his own life.

Granted what the guy did was horrible and beyond contemplation for us normal people, but that doesn’t mean he has to die. After seeing his daughters testimony he realised what he had done and changed his plea to guilty on all counts, surely that shows some remorse for what he did?

No one has the right to say whether someone deserves to live or die. The man needs help, let him have his councelling, hopefully he’ll be able to make peace with himself before nature takes it’s course.

i dont think they should excecute him, but in the same breath, i think he should be (along with anyone else who kills someone) locked up for life, with no chance of parole.
i dont understand how you can kill someone, and then be out again in 15-20 years (as i understand it).
throw away the key, no chance for appeal.

if he asks to an assisted suicide by pill or whatever, great. its not been pressured on him, and it saves the tax payer a few grand.

One of the problems with the death penalty:

What if they didn’t do it?

you cant allow suicide as a choice because if someone was found guilty incorrectly there’s the chance that even someone of sound mind might take the suicide option as an easier exit than the tortuous appeal process (see long standing miscarriages of justice cases) or even worse someone of unsound mind was found guilty and elected to commit suicide when it was a miscarriage of justice.

In both cases the state would be complicit in their death beyond the option of “free choice” much like the death penalty and as has long been argued miscarriages of justice is almost the only excuse you need against the death penalty.

If you offer no chance of parole then a prisoner has no reason to behave and can cause all kinds of trouble for other people there.

Fritzl may not fall under this theory, but as a general rule you have to give people a reason to not kill again or generally cause problems.

Whether this is right or wrong is a different matter all together…

…is almost the only excuse you need against the death penalty.

That and the complete hypocrisy of it.

Not too sure where I stand on the original question, but I very much disagree with this ->

“along with anyone else who kills someone locked up for life, with no chance of parole”

One I assume you mean intentionally kill someone. But even then everyone deserves at least a second chance (if they keep killing people that would be different).

In my opinion prison serves two purposes one its a punishment and a deterrent but its also so the prisoner can try to pay back their debt to society and start again.

If people dont have a chance to redeem themselves, a second go to do things better than frankly why bother you might as well just shoot them all but then who’s going to shoot the executioner.

I’m not against life prisoners having the option to choose a dignified suicide that inconveniences no-one if they are content that to take that option would be better than to carry on living.

But I also require to be given that option if I was a patient in a hospital or a resident in an old people’s home.

But I’m not. The arguments for free choice and reduction of expenditure are the same.

As things stand with the general law on assisting suicide in this country anyway, just allowing someone who is in custody to take the option of ending their life if they wish looks suspiciously like a form of capital punishment. That is why Blunkett’s comments about having champagne for breakfast when Shipman killed himself were so distateful. The state aims to prevent people taking their own lives and disallows others from helping them. A wholesale change of that position is justifiable. Presenting it as an option only for those people that the state has removed most other meaningful life choices from as punishment for their crimes turns the death into a form of further punishment.

throw away the key, no chance for appeal.

Have you spoken to many murderers?

I understand all the ethical issues and morals around this, and still think we should let him die a horrible slow and painful death.

Where is his human rights if he want
to kill himself … hhhhmmm …? I mean after all it is his choice as he has the right to do whatever he likes with his own life so long as he does not do it to others.

Why should the state prevent him? Does the state own him to do however the state want?

For him I think they should lock him up in his own dungeon.

One of the purposes of locking someone up is to remove their freedom. And if freedom is choice, choosing the easy way out shouldn’t be allowed.

interesting comments, but let me be clear, I’m not advocating (in fact, if you asked me I’m against) the death penalty.

The question was clear. He is in a position where life will mean life, but he’ll need care and supervision by the state (ie you and me or our Austrian equivalents) for who knows how long. He presumably has been assessed as having suicidal tendencies – they’ve put him on suicide watch. But if he wants out, why should we stop him?

Equally, if he doesn’t and prefers to spend the rest of his life inside, so be it too.

Stoner and Bigdummy (as always!) are imho closest to the real reasons. And BD – among my true wishes for my life, would be that by the time I might come to be in that position, the law on assisted suicide will have changed to allow me to shuffle off in a proper and dignified way if I so choose.

In my opinion prison serves two purposes one its a punishment and a deterrent

Wharrabout rehabilitation?