Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / From the Desk -Should Australia Ever Bring Back the Death Penalty?

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From the Desk -Should Australia Ever Bring Back the Death Penalty? · Real Crime with Adam Shand

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  Speaker 1: A Poche Production. Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand.
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Adam Shand. This is my Friday feature
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  Speaker 1: from the desk. As many of you know, I'm guilty
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  Speaker 1: of sparking vigorous debates about crime and punishment on my
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  Speaker 1: Facebook page. I put the link in the comments for
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  Speaker 1: those who want to join in. This week, one of
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  Speaker 1: the touchstone issues was the sentencing of the man who
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  Speaker 1: killed Molly Ticehurst. Molly was just 28 years old. when
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  Speaker 1: she was murdered by her former partner, Daniel Billings, inside
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  Speaker 1: her home at Forbes New South Wales in April 2024.
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  Speaker 1: It was April 2024 when Daniel Billings broke into the
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  Speaker 1: home of his ex-girlfriend, Molly Tyser, stabbing her 15 times.
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  Speaker 1: He had recently been released on bail while facing allegations
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  Speaker 1: of sexual assault and domestic violence against Molly, allegations he denied.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed to have developed an obsession with clearing his name,
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  Speaker 1: leading to the murder. Before this heinous act, he told
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  Speaker 1: a friend that if he was going to do the time,
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  Speaker 1: he might as well do the crime. Well, the crime
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  Speaker 1: is murder and the sentence should be life. The only
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  Speaker 1: thing in his favour, in my opinion, is that he
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  Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to her murder. The NSW Supreme Court has
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  Speaker 1: now indicated that Billings is unlikely to receive a life sentence.
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  Speaker 1: For reasons I don't fully understand or accept, to be honest,
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  Speaker 1: the Crown is not seeking life imprisonment, even though prosecutors
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  Speaker 1: describe his culpability as extreme and say that he should
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  Speaker 1: receive no sentencing leniency on that basis. The court must
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  Speaker 1: still consider possible mitigating factors, including psychiatric evidence about Billings'
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  Speaker 1: mental state. His sentence has not yet been decided, but
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  Speaker 1: the indications are that he will get less than life.
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  Speaker 1: In New South Wales, a life sentence means an offender
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  Speaker 1: spends the rest of their natural life in prison with
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  Speaker 1: no eligibility for parole. I have to ask, if breaking
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  Speaker 1: into a former partner's bedroom and stabbing her 15 times
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  Speaker 1: does not warrant life behind bars, what the hell does?
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  Speaker 1: Does it matter that he claims to have been innocent
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  Speaker 1: of repeatedly raping his victim prior to the murder? How
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  Speaker 1: can there be any mitigation in sentencing for this egregious,
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  Speaker 1: violent act? Billing sentencing hearing began this week, with the
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  Speaker 1: final sentence expected later in September. Molly's murder has begun
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  Speaker 1: a national dialogue on domestic violence and has led to
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  Speaker 1: the tightening of bail conditions in New South Wales. The
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  Speaker 1: fact that the prosecutors are not seeking a life sentence
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  Speaker 1: sends an entirely wrong message to me. In fact, I
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  Speaker 1: would like to see life mean life in all states
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  Speaker 1: of Australia for crimes like this. Many of my Facebook
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  Speaker 1: commenters agreed with this. But a number went a lot further,
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  Speaker 1: saying that men like Billings do not deserve to live.
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  Speaker 1: Bring back capital punishment, they say. He took a life,
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  Speaker 1: therefore he should forfeit his. Each time I discuss crimes
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  Speaker 1: like the killing of Molly Ticehurst, a number of people
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  Speaker 1: call for the reintroduction of capital punishment. The tone of
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  Speaker 1: these comments is often angry, cold and absolute, as if
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  Speaker 1: these people would be willing to personally throw the lever
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  Speaker 1: on the gallows. flip the switch on the lethal injection
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  Speaker 1: or pull the trigger in a firing squad. But if
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  Speaker 1: causing the death of another is such an easy thing
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  Speaker 1: to do, it underlines the savagery that lives in the
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  Speaker 1: human psyche that leads to the awful crime of murder.
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  Speaker 1: I was going through some dusty old papers in my
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  Speaker 1: attic this week and came across my clippings file. from
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  Speaker 1: when I was writing for the Australian newspaper in the
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  Speaker 1: late 1980s. I found a story where I'd interviewed a
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  Speaker 1: retired judge, Sir John Stark, known as Jack, who sentenced
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  Speaker 1: Ronald Ryan to be hanged for the 1965 murder of
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  Speaker 1: Pentridge prison warder George Hodson.
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  Speaker 2: I now ask you, the public, to help. We are
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  Speaker 2: dependent upon you. And cast your mind back to the
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  Speaker 2: early morning.
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  Speaker 1: Of Ryan was the last man to be legally executed
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  Speaker 1: in Australia, and his death fuelled mass public protests against
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  Speaker 1: capital punishment, which was eventually abolished in Victoria in 1975.
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  Speaker 2: The Executive Council met today, and its decision is that
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  Speaker 2: the sentence of death on Ronald Ryan will be carried
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  Speaker 2: into execution on Tuesday, January 31, at 8am in the forenoon.
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  Speaker 2: within the walls or confined yard of Pentridge Jail.
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  Speaker 1: Jack Stark, I believe, wrestled with his conscience over the
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  Speaker 1: Ryan case until the day he died in 1994. He
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  Speaker 1: always wondered whether there was room for reasonable doubt in
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  Speaker 1: the case. The controversy over Ryan's hanging has continued, with
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  Speaker 1: some believing that Hodson was shot by accident by another
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  Speaker 1: warder firing on Ryan and his fellow escapee, Peter Walker.
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  Speaker 1: In light of these calls for the return of capital punishment,
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  Speaker 1: It was interesting to revisit the feelings of the judge
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  Speaker 1: who condemned Ryan and the impact that it had on him.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder how we would feel in the same position.
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  Speaker 1: It's easy to talk about it, but to have the
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  Speaker 1: life of another in our hands is an awesome responsibility.
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  Speaker 1: So just how popular is this notion of executing people
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  Speaker 1: in Australia? The most recent strong national measure I can
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  Speaker 1: find is the 2022 Australian Election Study. It found that 37%
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  Speaker 1: of Australians voted agreed or strongly agreed that the death
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  Speaker 1: penalty should be reintroduced for murder. That was down from 43%
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  Speaker 1: in 2019 and dramatically lower than 60% in 1987. The
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  Speaker 1: question does not appear to have been included in the
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  Speaker 1: 2025 survey. So the best available evidence suggests that bringing
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  Speaker 1: it back is a minority position nationally, although more than
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  Speaker 1: one in three still supports it. I did a live
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  Speaker 1: show with the eminent criminal barrister, Philip Dunn KC, at
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  Speaker 1: Jamshed Wines in Preston, Melbourne, last weekend. And I asked
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  Speaker 1: him whether he would support the return of the death penalty.
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  Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, he opposed. He said there was always room
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  Speaker 1: for doubt in capital cases, he said. In fact, all cases.
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  Speaker 1: What he calls the rational alternative theory usually exists. Criminal
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  Speaker 1: convictions in our system are proved beyond reasonable doubt, not
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  Speaker 1: beyond all doubt. there's always room for that scintilla of
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  Speaker 1: evidence that opens the possibility of a miscarriage of justice.
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  Speaker 1: Once the death warrant is carried out, that scintilla, that
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  Speaker 1: tiny spark, is extinguished. Take the case of Colin Campbell
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  Speaker 1: Eadie Ross. He was an Australian wine bar owner who
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  Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted and executed for the murder of a
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  Speaker 1: child in 1921, a killing that later became known as
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  Speaker 1: the Gun Alley Murder. There was clear evidence of his innocence.
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  Speaker 1: hairs that were found in his bed were said to
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  Speaker 1: be that of the victim, when they were clearly not.
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  Speaker 1: The so-called expert who examined the hairs contradicted himself, saying
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  Speaker 1: that the hair could have come from Ross's girlfriend, but
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  Speaker 1: ultimately he concluded they came from the victim, 12-year-old Alma Turchki.
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  Speaker 1: This was enough to convict the defendant. Ross was, by
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  Speaker 1: all accounts, a sketchy character who was known to police
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  Speaker 1: for his violent and threatening behaviour, but that didn't make
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  Speaker 1: him a murderer. He went to the gallows at Melbourne
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  Speaker 1: Jail on April 24, 1922, protesting his innocence in a
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  Speaker 1: final speech. He said, I'm now face to face with
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  Speaker 1: my maker and I swear by almighty God that I
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  Speaker 1: am an innocent man. I never saw the child. I
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  Speaker 1: never committed the crime and I don't know who did.
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  Speaker 1: I never confessed to anyone. I ask God to forgive
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  Speaker 1: those who've sworn my life away and I pray God
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  Speaker 1: to have mercy on my poor darling mother and my family.
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  Speaker 1: The hanging was a horrific affair. A four-stranded rope, rather
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  Speaker 1: than the usual three-stranded European hemp was used, and it
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  Speaker 1: didn't run freely through the noose. And Ross did not
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  Speaker 1: die instantly because his spinal cord was fractured, not severed.
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  Speaker 1: It was reported the condemned man continued with rasping breaths
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  Speaker 1: and convulsed on the rope. Three times he bent his
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  Speaker 1: knees and flexed his arms before being slowly strangled to death.
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  Speaker 1: Ross had written to his family the day before his
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  Speaker 1: execution that, the day is coming when my innocence will
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  Speaker 1: be proved. It took more than 80 years. After his execution,
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  Speaker 1: efforts were made to clear Ross, but it was not
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  Speaker 1: until the 1990s that the hair samples were re-examined using
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  Speaker 1: modern scientific techniques and it was proved they came from
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  Speaker 1: two different people. An appeal for mercy was made to
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  Speaker 1: Victoria's Chief Justice in 2006 and on May 27 2008
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  Speaker 1: the Governor of Victoria pardoned Ross. It was an Australian
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  Speaker 1: legal first. It's easy to believe in this era of
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  Speaker 1: modern forensic science that such a miscarriage of justice would
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  Speaker 1: not be possible. But even the best scientists will admit
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  Speaker 1: they're not infallible. Their opinions are based on probability, not
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  Speaker 1: absolute certainty. And DNA science, which tends to sway juries
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  Speaker 1: to convict or acquit, is open to misinterpretation or indeed manipulation.
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  Speaker 1: So what do I think? Part of my primitive, atavistic
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  Speaker 1: human psyche urges me to agree with the calls for murderers,
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  Speaker 1: child rapists and terrorists to die. But it comes from
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  Speaker 1: instinct rather than logical thought. this desire to avenge awful acts.
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  Speaker 1: But like Jack Stark, the judge who condemned Ryan to hang,
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  Speaker 1: who ruled that decision for the rest of his days,
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  Speaker 1: how would it really sit with me afterwards? Stark had
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  Speaker 1: no choice. He had to follow the law. But we
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  Speaker 1: have a choice today. This is Adam Shan for Real
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