I am now of a similar view. I’ve always been against it, because of our adversarial system of law. There seems to rarely be an attempt to get to the truth, but to secure a conviction (or get someone off). I also felt that, unless your police are 100% honest (as if they could be), then there’s always the risk of them ‘being at it’. Not only that, but we then ask 12 ordinary citizens to sit in judgment, whilst no doubt looking at horrific pictures of mutilated children, and then we ask to be dispassionate when considering the evidence.
However, when a minimum sentence of 52 years is passed, you do have to wonder how that is more ‘civilised’ than execution? The boy will never be rehabilitated and, if he’s ever released, he’ll be a minimum age of 60 and he will be so institutionalised as to be impossible to manage.
He’s already attacked prison officers twice, once with ‘home made’ knives and once with boiling water (why does he need boiling water, ffs) and so, on balance, he should be removed from the gene pool.