Sir, - Many people have been angered by the plea bargaining that appears to have occurred in the trial of the convicted killers of Garda McCabe. However, the current furore over the outcome of the trial has as much to do with a growing public concern about the appalling level of murder in Ireland today and current sentencing policy as it has to with concerns about how the outcome was decided.The death penalty for murder was abolished throughout Europe (for all practical purposes) for a number of reasons which are still the basis for opposition to its use in other parts of the world.
Firstly, the brutal violence of judicial execution was itself deemed to be inconsistent with the practices of a civilised society.
Secondly, and most persuasively for many people, wrongful convictions that resulted in execution could never be redressed. The third argument, used mostly in the United States and for which there is a substantial body of evidence, is that the death penalty is used in a discriminatory way against the poor and those belonging to racial minorities.While fully supporting its abolition for all of these reasons, I would suggest that in Ireland subsequent sentencing policy for murder has resulted in the blurring of the fundamental difference between this crime and all others. Murder, to use an image from a previous century, cuts the thread between the victim and the world, often in circumstances where that person dies in a state of terror and agony. There is no redress for that person or the hope of recovery that victims of other crimes may secure in the future.Yet, despite the unique nature of the crime, a murderer serves a term of imprisonment like any other convicted criminal, is released on licence like any other prisoner, and returns to live in society like any other parolee. In effect, the sentence for murder, unlike the crime itself, is different only in degree. As if to support this proposition it is often suggested that the murder rate in Ireland is about average in the European context, i.e. within normal statistical bounds. But it is this process of normalisation that is the fundamental problem.Garda representatives were always concerned about the abolition of the death penalty for the murder of their members and the current furore over the outcome of the McCabe trial indicates the extreme disquiet that people now feel about the erosion of a fundamental benchmark in dealing with murder.Even more sinister is the way that gangland criminals systematically use murder and the threat of murder against their victims, in circumstances where both are aware that even if caught and convicted the killer will almost certainly be freed well within his lifetime. Such a policy is disabling to society, the police and the potential victims of such criminals.It is clear that a wholly different approach to sentencing policy for murder needs to be considered that would encompass the following:(a) A minimum sentence of 40 years without parole for all convictions for murder, so that gangland killers in particular know that, on conviction, there is every possibility they may die in prison and never return to society.(b) The separate imprisonment of murderers in facilities that are geographically distant from all other institutions, to emphasise the distinct nature of their crime.(c) The construction and operation of prison facilities that do not replicate the appalling conditions that pertain in our penal system at present, to house such long-term prisoners in a relatively humane manner. - Yours, etc.,Ciaran Byrne, Skerries Road, Balbriggan, Co Dublin.