DAVID PENBERTHY

THERE are some crimes so heinous that they remain scarred forever into the public’s collective memory. In the past decade or so there are three cases, in particular, that repulsed our nation: the murders of Jill Meagher, Daniel Morcombe and Stephanie Scott.

The killings of Ms Meagher and young Daniel were made worse by the maddening fact that they were wholly avoidable. If not for the galling and repeated failure of the courts to go even close to applying maximum sentences for multiple past offences by their killers – a problem which, in the case of Ms Meagher’s killer, was compounded by bail and parole bungles – a fine young woman and an adorable young boy would still be alive today.

The trial into the murder of schoolteacher Ms Scott concluded last week. While her killer, Vincent Stanford, received a life sentence, there are questions that should still be asked about that appalling case. One of them goes to the fact that his identical twin, Marcus, happily walked from prison last month, having served a paltry 15 months for conspiring to cover up Ms Scott’s murder by burning her driver’s licence and selling her engagement ring.

The sale of that ring was particularly cruel, given the heartrending fact that Ms Scott was due to be married just six days after she was raped and killed. She was robbed of those plans by Vincent Stanford, and his brother, the person who helped cover up her murder, walks among us today, a free man.

There is a bipartisan consensus across Australia’s political divide – both federally and at the state level – that the death penalty is one issue that does not merit consideration. I have never been a supporter. I can understand the arguments against it – the spectre of judicial error and the broader, philosophical question as to what it achieves, other than satisfy a sense of public vengeance.

But when I think about the killers of these three people, I struggle to see the arguments for keeping them alive. I’m not sure why they deserve to be housed at public expense, have access to things like television, an exercise yard, a ping-pong table, and a psychiatrist who pops in every so often to confirm that their dysfunctional minds are still not working. I’m not sure why they deserve to be fed three meals a day.

I accept that, in each of these cases, the prospect of the death penalty is not something that would have stopped such beastly attackers and made them alter their path of behaviour.

But in my gut, I think so what? I reckon there is a very strong argument in favour of satisfying that sense of public vengeance by robbing these animals of their useless lives.

I don’t think it will ever hap- pen in Australia. One of the biggest problems in implementing such a dramatic plan would be the argument around the question of degree – that is, determining which crimes are so appalling that they should attract the ultimate penalty.

BUT it puzzles me that an issue which rages in front bars, at family barbecues and, in the comments section and letters pages of the media whenever crimes such as these are discussed, can be snuffed out before it even begins by a snobbish political consensus. If the public is going to be denied the right to exercise its majority belief that some crimes should be punishable by death, we should at least be paid the courtesy of our parliaments responding to mainstream sentiment over the inadequacy of sentencing for the worst crimes of violence.

The human impact of these crimes is bad enough. It is compounded by the fact that the impact often seems to be ignored by the judiciary.

A few weeks ago I watched an extraordinary documentary on the ABC about Ms Meagher’s murder. It was peppered with many miserable facts about that case.

One of the most confronting was that two of the police officers on her case were so distraught that they never returned to work again. It was their last day in policing, ever. People who did not know the woman at all. Imagine the impact on those who did.

The most infuriating factor in that case was that her killer, Adrian Bayley, had repeatedly received non-custodial sentences or soft sentences for a crime as appalling as rape. I cannot understand how he had already been found guilty of six rapes before he attacked Ms Meagher, and was ever allowed to reenter society. It emerged that he had done it 12 times.

For all our supposed modern enlightenment about the rights of women, and the now-mainstream understanding that rape can only be described as a crime of violence, it seems that the courts have somehow missed the memo when it comes to zero tolerance towards such a despicable crime. Their ineptitude killed Jill Meagher.

None of this should be about winning votes but I reckon the first party that announces it was quadrupling sentences, and bringing in vastly higher minimum terms, for the worst categories of crime, could almost govern in perpetuity.

Our parliaments seem too busy engaged in slanging matches about the mechanics of the plebiscite on gay marriage, the merits of renewable energy, or insultingly meaningless crap such as the fact that someone from the Government accidentally backed an Opposition amendment, to focus on something that every average person cares about – massively.

“I reckon there is a very strong argument in favour of satisfying that sense of public vengeance by robbing these animals of their useless lives”