Have your say on government e-petitions

Penalty for murder should not be rigidly fixed at statutory life imprisonment. There should be different degrees of murder with different penalties

Submitted on Sunday 7th August 2011

Published on Friday 12th August 2011

Current status: Closed

Closed: Sunday 12th August 2012

Signatures: 5

Tagged with

Crime ~ death penalty ~ Individuals ~ Law

Petition Action

Penalty for murder should not be rigidly fixed at statutory life imprisonment. There should be different degrees of murder with different penalties

Additional Information

There are different degrees of killing of a human being, which can range from killings out of mercy, accident, self-defence, negligence, diminished responsibility, provocation, insanity, intentional killing to evil killing in aggravated circumstances. The penalty of murder should therefore range from community service (especially for mercy killings) to the death penalty for killing individuals in aggravated circumstances proved by overwhelming scientific forensic evidence. At present the penalty for murder (require the mental element of malice aforethought) is fixed at statutory live imprisonment. This may not always be appropriate in the light of the circumstances of the crime adjudged to be murder. For example under English Law, the medical condition of the victim is no excuse to murder in Law. The perpetrator ‘takes the victim as he found him’ (i.e. in good of poor health), so a terminally ill person can murdered. Also drunkenness is no defence to crimes, like murder.


You can't sign this petition because it is now closed. But you can still comment on it here at Repetition.me!

Have your say on this petition!

comments powered by Disqus

repetition.me is a Good Stuff website

3.142.212.225 Tue, 24 Dec 2024 00:21:06 +0000