1. My point wasn't simply that the majority of countries supported abolition of the death penalty, but that it was the more "advanced" nations that tended to support abolition, and the more "backward" ones that didn't. I agree that not so long ago many countries used the death penalty like we use fines today, but most countries have moved beyond that now.

And just as majority approval doesn't make a thing right of itself, neither does historical precedent.


2/3. Insanity is hard to diagnose, and for that very reason the courts have to apply an objective test - to prevent the dispepnsation of justice from being hijacked by individual prejudices or by pressure groups.


4.
If [Hitler'd] instead only executed a relative handful of certified lunatics do you really think the rest of the world would have cared?
A "handful" - probably not. Systematic liquidation of 100,000 "insane" or "physically handicapped" and the sterilisation of 300,000 more? Then, yes. No-one would have gone to war over it, but they'd have ostracised him. The USA gave up sterilising people after they'd done it to only 30,000 people, so there's some evidence that it was seen as unacceptable practice back then.


5. I cannot dispute that death is the only certain way to prevent Fritzl from endangering others. But is absolute certainty absolutely necessary? For all practical purposes, spending the rest of his life behind bars or in a secure mental-health facility will have the same effect.