SparklyKid - // That's precisely my point, there is no such thing as 'without a shadow of a doubt
Unbelievable, Lee Rigby ring a bell ????????????????????? //
You have to look at the wider picture, which goes beyond the apparent circumstances.
In the case of Lee Rigby, there is clearly a case for psychological instability, which as I have said, rules out execution.
And AOG puts forward the premise that all murders are mentally unfit to stand trial.
So no, there is not hard and fast 'He did it, he's guilty, execute him … ' - there is far too much potential for extenuating circumstances which may not come out at the trial.
You may be too young to remember, or know of the Rillington Place murders, where Timothy Evans was executed after conviction on the evidence of the person who quite probably (it remains unproven) murdered the wife and child for which Evans was hung.
When Christie was himself executed for other murders, Evans' body was exhumed from the prison grave and re-buried in consecrated ground - scant comfort for a man who was wrongly convicted and executed.
There will always be that potential for later evidence to be produced, which is a good reason to keep convicted killers alive.