what makes Lucy Litby It differs from the other killers in that its motive is still unclear and it does not look like its role. When I first heard of the verdict and saw her picture, I couldn’t believe she was guilty. She looked very ordinary. very interested. It was only when I read about the strange pattern of deaths in her ward, and what Nurse Lucy must have been, and how this sweet girl did it, that I thought: “Hang her, shoot her or fry her. Just get her off my planet.”
For the record, I used to be for the death penalty but now I’m against it. I have become an opponent of violence in all its forms and a cynic of the justice system. just last month, Andrew Malkinson A false accusation of rape was dropped after 17 years in prison. He discovered that the State, in its benevolence, had offered compensation but might require some of the money to cover food and lodging in the prison. (Malkinson challenged this Essene rule and prevailed.)
However, I’m still sympathetic to the instincts surrounding invitations The death penalty, and warned against attempts to reject or suppress it. The killing of an innocent, vulnerable child enrages ordinary people – and it should happen. Letty injected air into her patients’ bloodstreams. I forced them to feed them milk and poisoned them with insulin. If I had been a bereaved parent at trial, I would have jumped into the dock and strangled her in front of the judge.
To discourage guards, our system is kept deliberately vulgar; The evidence was assessed calmly, and the verdict was passed without fanfare. We are often reminded that it is about justice, not revenge.
Such a distancing would be acceptable if, after a fair trial, the convict felt the sharp shock of the appropriate punishment. But many sentences are very short; Some of the most heinous criminals have been let out to abuse again. One can imagine Letby being sent to an institution with delightful murals on the walls, where she is stationary innocence pleas – Ignore a real confession you’ve written on a sticky note – you might indulge in group therapy. The system is so pathetically weak that she threatened not to attend her sentencing.
When the United Kingdom first suspended the death penalty in 1965, many hoped that violence would spill over from the highest echelon of justice into society, making us more civilized. Instead, crime has risen and today, as predators prey on our sanctity, a country without death penalty is like a lion tamer without a whip.
Attitudes towards the gallows became a textbook example of the divide between the common people, who wished to restore it, and the ruling class, which turned opposition to it into a true test of humanity and intelligence. The consensus is that hanging is barbaric. Supporters must be savage.
Conservative politicians have learned to bite their tongue. Priti Patel was arguing for the death penalty; As I got up through the cabinet, she felt compelled to assure us that she had changed her mind, perhaps thanks to a famous Q&A encounter where Ian Hislop tutored her on several miscarriages of justice. Last week, GB News asked her if, of all cases, Letby’s case warranted the death penalty. All she could say was that justice must be done and her “sympathies” were with the families.
Come on pretty. We can guess what you were really thinking. Most of us, when we see someone’s harm, want to know that the harm was done to the offender. If this is not true, why do people celebrate when they hear Russian soldiers killed in action? Or cheer up when a shopkeeper punches a thief?
These events, of course, exist in different moral categories than the death penalty: the Ukrainian soldier defends his country; The shopkeeper does what the police fail to do and protects his property. But society’s instinct to fight back when punched is undoubtedly present, occasionally spewing off the radar of correct opinion. I have heard many people say with glee: “Can you imagine what Litby would go through in prison? She would be better off dead.”
This is really annoying. The Christian in me insists that I rise beyond any temptation to cruelty, trust in God’s judgment and turn the other cheek. But even if religions seek to regulate behavior toward love and forgiveness, they begin by acknowledging the reality and power of emotions such as anger and hate. They treat people as they really are.
By contrast, the modern world, rejecting the doctrine of original sin, often operates in ignorance of people’s capacity for evil.
This may help explain why NHS managers fail to act When death rates are mysteriously high, or when social workers miss warning signs of child abuse. Ironically, liberal inertia—the refusal to see evil, to invoke it or even to acknowledge the concept—may one day lead to an irresistible demand for the death penalty. There will be a case in which the murder is so heinous, and the police so incompetent, that the public demand that revenge be their own.
Letby must be particularly irksome to those who clung to the 1960s view that society was primarily responsible for crime. She was not poor. There is no evidence of childhood trauma. Perhaps she was a narcissist who wanted to put herself at the center of all things, because if a child lived under her watch, she was thanked for saving him; If the infant dies, she has thoughts and prayers. The most flattering way to describe her actions is indeed “evil,” which is another idea we’ve spent decades trying to forget. It means that there are crimes beyond comprehension and people we can’t fix.
