Sept. 21
GREAT BRITAIN:
An A-Z guide to the history of executions----For centuries, capital punishment
was part of everyday life, as shown by this alphabetical guide to a very
British way of death. Writing for BBC History Revealed, historian Gavin
Mortimer explores…
A … is for ASPHYXIATION
Hanging was the preferred method of execution in England from early Anglo-
Saxon times, but it was neither efficient nor painless. Deaths were drawn out,
with the condemned hanging until they suffocated. Over time, the method
evolved, and in 1783 ‘new drop’ gallows were first used at London’s Newgate
Prison, whereby the condemned – often many at a time – fell through a trapdoor.
Around a century later came the ‘long drop’, where the prisoner’s height and
weight were used to determine the length and rate of drop, to ensure a swift
death from a broken neck rather than asphyxiation.
B … is for BODY SNATCHERS
A lucrative profession for criminals in 17th- and 18th-century Britain was body
snatching. Freshly interred corpses would be dug up from cemeteries and sold,
in most cases, to medical schools for anatomical study. Oddly, the snatching
itself was not illegal, but dissecting a body was. That changed with the
Anatomy Act of 1832, prompted by the trial of William Burke and his execution
in 1829. He and his partner, William Hare, progressed from removing corpses to
committing murder in their attempt to ensure a supply to sell to Edinburgh
physician Robert Knox. Burke was hanged in front of 25,000 people. His corpse,
fittingly, was dissected.
C … is for CODE
By the 19th century, some 222 crimes were defined as capital offences,
including murder, robbery and impersonating a Chelsea pensioner. Even maiming a
cow or being out at night with a blackened face was punishable by death, with
the age, sex and mental health of the offender being deemed an irrelevance. So
harsh was the penal code that it became known as the ‘Bloody Code’, and it
wasn’t until 1861 that Parliament passed a bill de-capitalising minor crimes.
After then, only four offences carried the death penalty: murder, arson in a
royal dockyard, high treason and piracy with violence.
D… is for DORCHESTER
The English town takes an unexpectedly prominent part in the history of
executions. It was there that Elizabeth Martha Brown became the last woman
publicly executed in Dorset when she met her end in 1856. Her husband John had
struck out at her and she retaliated by burying an axe in his head. Brown was
hanged on 9 August in front of a few thousand onlookers. In the crowd was the
16-year-old Thomas Hardy, who drew on the experience when writing his classic
novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles. He later recalled: “I saw they had put a
cloth over the face [and] how, as the cloth got wet, her features came through
it. That was extraordinary.” Brown’s remains are believed to be among those of
50 executed prisoners found under the former Dorchester Prison, and which may
be reinterred in Poundbury Cemetery.
E… is for EXECUTIONER
The pioneer of the ‘long drop’ in the 1870s was William Marwood, an executioner
who was far more humane than his predecessor. The notorious William Calcraft
had executed more than 450 people over the course of 45 years in the job and
was reputed to enjoy seeing them suffer, sometimes prolonging their death
throes to excite the crowd. The most prolific British executioner of the 20th
century was Albert Pierrepoint, whose father and uncle were also hangmen. As
many as 600 were despatched by him, including hundreds convicted of war crimes.
He considered his work as “sacred” and the “supreme mercy”.
F… is for FINAL WORDS
Facing imminent death affected the condemned in different. ways. Some confessed
their sins and asked for forgiveness; others maintained their innocence. James
MacLaine, the ‘gentleman highwayman’, murmured only “Oh, Jesus” as he stood on
the gallows in 1750. Others may have been eager for the end to be as swift as
possible, such as the famous Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, who urged
the executioner wielding the axe to “Strike, man, strike!”. As for the
highwayman Isaac Atkinson, hanged in 1640, he addressed the crowd: “Gentlemen,
there’s nothing like a merry life, and a short one.”
G … is for GIBBETING
While a gibbet can refer to the actual scaffold used for an execution,
gibbeting was the grisly act of publicly displaying. the dead in human-shaped
cages to serve as a warning. Even more gruesomely, prisoners could be encased
alive in an iron gibbet and suspended from a beam to die of starvation and/or
exposure. Gibbeting, also known as ‘hanging in chains’, was around since
medieval times, but reached a peak in the mid-18th century. It was a fate that
befell the pirate Captain William Kidd, whose body was displayed over the !ames
at Tilbury Point in 1701 to make sailors think twice about turning to piracy.
H … is for HEART THROB
A native of Normandy, Claude Du Vall arrived in England in 1660 to enjoy the
fun of the Restoration period. He became a highwayman to fund his high living,
robbing without compunction, but always with a flash of a charming smile for
his female victims. His “conquests among the ladies” were legendary and he
became something of a celebrity. When he was caught and imprisoned, Du Vall
continued to entertain admirers in his cell before his execution in front of a
large crowd in 1670. “Men he made stand, and women he made fall” ran the
inscription on his gravestone in Covent Garden, London. “The second Conqueror
of the Norman race.”
I … is for IMPALEMENT
Beginning with William Wallace in 1305, the heads of executed traitors would be
impaled on iron spikes above the main gateways of London Bridge. In 1661, a
German visitor to the capital counted 20 heads on display, although that was an
exceptionally high number and a result of the fallout from the British Civil
Wars. In the 18th century, the impaled heads were put on display at Temple Bar,
close to the London Embankment. A brisk trade emerged in renting “spy-glasses
at a halfpenny a look” so sightseers could study the heads in greater detail.
J … is for JOHN LEE
John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee became known as the ‘man they couldn’t hang’. Convicted
of murder in Devon, the 20-yearold was sentenced to death despite a lack of
hard evidence pointing to his guilt. But when he mounted the gallows on 23
February 1885, the executioner pulled the trapdoor lever and nothing happened.
He tried again and then a third time, and still the trapdoor jammed – although
it worked perfectly when Lee wasn’t standing on it. Having been returned to his
cell, Lee’s fate gained so much publicity that his sentence was commuted to
life imprisonment. He was released in 1907 and was thought to have emigrated to
the US, where he died in 1945.
K … is for KNAVESMIRE
Few criminals have been as romanticised as much as Dick Turpin, but far from
being a gallant highwayman, he was a horse thief, house-breaker and smuggler,
assaulting anyone who crossed his path. He turned to highway robbery when his
gang broke up and was caught in 1739, with murder added to his charge sheet.
Turpin went to his death in “an undaunted manner”, bowing to the crowd as he
mounted the gallows at Knavesmire, site of the present-day York Racecourse.
L … is for LADIES
Although it is true to say that significantly more men have been executed than
women, there have been some notable examples. Alice Arden was burned in 1551
for organising the death of her husband, while Mary Carleton’s 1673 crime was
befriending and robbing wealthy gentlemen. In 1809, Margaret Barrington was
hanged for fabricating a certificate in the hope of receiving a soldier’s pay.
The last woman executed in Britain was Ruth Ellis. Condemned for shooting her
abusive lover, the 28-year-old hostess was hanged in 1955. The widespread call
for her reprieve, followed by revulsion, led to a growing argument to abolish
the death penalty in the UK, which was finally achieved in 1969.
M … is for MARTYRS
In 1563, the preacher John Foxe published his Book of Martyrs, detailing the
hundreds of Protestants burned at the stake for their beliefs. Arguably the
most famous was !omas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the
Reformation, who was martyred in 1556 in Oxford. He was one of an estimated 300
heretics burned on Mary I’s orders. Her successor, Elizabeth I, had numerous
Catholics executed for transgressing anti-Roman Catholic decrees and for
plotting against her.
N … is for NEWGATE
One of the most notorious buildings in London for 700 years, Newgate Prison was
located next to the Old Bailey law courts until its demolition in 1904. It
replaced Tyburn as the site of the capital’s gallows in 1783 and public
executions drew large crowds until the practice was stopped in 1868, after
which the condemned were hanged inside Newgate’s forbidding walls and buried
under flagstones. The last of 1,169 prisoners hanged there was George Woolfe,
convicted in 1902 of murdering his girlfriend.
O … is for OLIVER CROMWELL
Charles I never imagined he would be executed, because of his unshakeable
belief that only God could decide the fate of a king. But his Parliamentarian
enemies insisted he should be tried for treason after the Civil War ended.
Oliver Cromwell, a politician who had become a brilliant officer in the
Roundhead army, was one of the most determined that Charles should pay the
ultimate cost and his signature was one of 59 on the death warrant. After his
conviction, Charles was beheaded on January 30 1649 outside Banqueting House in
Whitehall, the last English monarch to be executed.
P … is for PIECEMEAL
In medieval times, the most fiendish villains were executed by ‘piecemeal’.
This was the fate of the notorious outlaw Thomas Dun at Bedford in 1100. A
contemporary account describes how Dun was alive when the executioner first
“chop[ped] off his hands at the wrists, then cut off his arms at the elbows…
next his feet were cut off beneath the ankles, his legs chopped off at the
knees, and his thighs cut off about five inches from his trunk”. The head was
then severed and the pieces hung up around Bedfordshire as a warning to other
outlaws.
Q … is for QUART OF ALE
The gallows on the banks of the Thames witnessed the death of hundreds of
nefarious seamen from Elizabethean times to the 18th century, most of whom had
been convicted of mutiny or piracy. On the day of their death, the prisoners
were transported in a cart across London Bridge from their cells in Marshalsea
Prison. Admiralty tradition held that the condemned were allowed a quart of ale
at a riverside tavern before they arrived at the scaffold in Wapping. The
hanging of pirates drew a good crowd, with the wealthier spectators chartering
boats in the Thames for a front-row view. Because of the nature of their
crimes, pirates were hanged with a shortened rope to ensure a slower death from
strangulation.
R … is for ROBERT PEEL
Twice serving as Prime Minister, Robert Peel was known as a law-reforming Home
Secretary in the 1820s, most famous for creating the Metropolitan Police. But
he also campaigned for a more efficient application of state punishment, in
particular the eradication of certain capital crimes, such as shoplifting,
letter stealing, forgery and burglary. In addition, the practice of leaving
corpses in gibbet irons was abolished by the Hanging in Chains Act of 1834.
Often described as a humane politician, in fact Peel was motivated more by a
need to reduce the bureaucracy of capital punishment.
S … is for SAWNEY BEAN
Scotland’s worst serial killer or a myth as enduring as that of the Loch Ness
Monster? Legend has it that Bean was born in 1530 in Galloway and grew into a
wicked psychopath who, aided by his children, robbed, killed and ate dozens of
travellers. Finally apprehended, Bean and his sons were executed by having
their hands and feet cut off and being left to bleed to death; his wife and
daughters were burned at the stake. Bean’s exploits weren’t publicised until
150 years after his death and some believe the story to be were more fiction
than fact.
T … is for TYBURN
Situated at what today is the corner of Connaught Square, just north of Marble
Arch, Tyburn served as the capital’s hanging spot for centuries. !e first
recorded execution there was of William Longbeard in 1196 and the last was John
Austen in 1783. The condemned were usually executed on a Monday, having been
transported two-and-a-half miles from Newgate Prison to Tyburn in a cart. Once
the prisoner was under the gallows, the noose was fastened around his neck and
the horses kicked to bolt forward. It wasn’t unusual for friends of the
prisoner to pull on his legs as he thrashed to hasten death.
U … is for UNDER PRESSURE
When executions were switched from Tyburn to Newgate they were carried out in
the ‘condemned yard’, formerly known as the ‘press-yard’. !is derived its name
from an old practice inflicted upon prisoners who refused to enter a plea at
the Old Bailey. A board was placed on their horizontal body and weights were
placed on top to put them ‘under pressure’. Usually this persuaded them to
enter a plea, but sometimes they refused and were crushed to death.
V… is for VOCABULARY
A public execution was considered a family day out and these acquired a
vocabulary of their own: people would talk of going to the ‘collar day’ or the
‘hanging fair’, to watch the condemned ‘dance the Paddington frisk’ or do the
‘Newgate Jig’ at the end of the rope. Vendors would arrive with souvenir carts
and refreshments, while entertainment would be provided by minstrels and
jugglers. !e novelist William Thackeray was among 40,000 people present to see
the execution of an infamous murderer in 1840, writing of the presence of
“quiet, fat, family parties of simple honest tradesmen and their wives”.
W … is for WITCHCRAFT
Britain began executing witches in 1563 and continued until parliamentary acts
outlawed the practice in 1736. During that time, hundreds, possibly thousands,
of ‘witches’ were burned or hanged. Most were old women convicted on absurdly
weak evidence. Having a cat, or even a hairy lip, could lead one to the stake,
after a confession had been tortured out of the accused. Puritans were largely
responsible for the slaughter, which they later exported to North America,
notably in Salem in the 1690s.
X … is for X–RATED
Every condemned prisoner hoped for a swift execution, but it didn’t always go
according to plan. The politician Lord William Russell, convicted of plotting
against King Charles II in 1683, paid his executioner toensure a quick death,
but the axeman required four blows to do the job. After the first, Russell
reportedly cried out: “You dog, did I give you 10 guineas to use me so
inhumanely?”. Two years later, the Duke of Monmouth’s head wouldn’tbudge after
five axe blows, so the beheading was finished with a knife. The executioner on
both occasions was Jack Ketch.
Y … is for YOUNGEST
It is believed that the youngest criminal to be hanged was John Dean, convicted
of burning down 2 houses in Windsor in February 1629. He was said to be either
8 or 9 years of age when he went to the gallows. The youngest girl to be
executed was 11-year-old Alice Glaston, but the crime she committed in
Shropshire in 1546 wasn’t recorded. A small number of young teenagers were
hanged in the 18th century, but gradually public opinion turned strongly
against the practice. There is no record of any child under the age of 14 going
to the gallows in the 19th century, although 14-year-old John Bell was hanged
at Maidstone in 1831 for killing 2 boys. The Children’s Act of 1908 set 16 as
the minimum age for execution, but no one under 18 was hanged in the 20th
century.
Z … is for ZACHARY HOWARD
A wealthy landowner who fought for the Royalist army in the Civil War, Zachary
Howard was left penniless by the Parliamentarians’ victory. So he became a
highway robber with a difference; he targeted only known supporters of Oliver
Cromwell. When Howard was finally caught and sentenced to death in 1652,
Cromwell insisted on attending his execution in the hope of watching Howard beg
for his life. Instead he received a smile and a curse.
(source: Gavin Mortimer is a bestselling writer, historian and television
consultant----historyextra.com)
BANGLADESH:
Convicts languish in jails as death references pile up
Inzamul Huq, a student of class at Tongi in Gazipur district, was kidnapped on
October 17, 2007, and was killed the same day. The additional district and
session judge court of Gazipur sentenced three persons in connection with the
killing. After the court order, the jail authorities kept th6e convicted
persons in the condemned cell. Since the court order, the convicted persons
have been languishing in the condemned cell, but the death references are yet
to be disposed of by the High Court (HC). Like them, 1,715 other convicts are
languishing in condemned cells across the country because hundreds of death
reference cases are awaiting disposal by the HC.
Sources said although death reference cases have been increasing in recent
years, the authorities concerned have not increased the number of HC benches
for quick disposal of the cases.
The HC usually disposes of death reference cases serially year by year. As per
the system, the court is at present disposing of the death reference cases of
2014.
The convicts are sent to the condemned cells soon after being sentenced to
death by lower courts. The convicts then face the agony of uncertainty over
their fate till the disposal of the death references and their appeals, a
Supreme Court (SC) official said, requesting anonymity.
According to SC sources, 737 death reference cases are now pending before the
HC for disposal. This figure of death references are higher compared to the
last 16 years.
A total of 32 death references are now pending before the Appellate Division
for final approval, the sources added.
Considering the immense suffering of prisoners convicted by trial courts,
former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha had assigned four HC benches to
expedite the trial proceedings of death references. But now only three benches
dispose of death reference cases due to lack of sufficient number of HC judges.
A former law minister emphasised the need for increasing the number of High
Court benches for dealing with death references cases, considering its
importance for death row convicts.
He said there are some important death references pending before the HC for
disposal. All these cases should be disposed of quickly. The death reference
cases should be heard continuously once the hearing begins. New judges should
also be appointed to increase the number of HC benches to deal with death
references, he added.
According to HC sources, 117 death-row convicts had filed appeals against their
death penalties before the HC in 2011, while 100 and 315 condemned convicts had
moved the court seeking acquittal orders in 2012 and 2013, respectively. As
many as 205 such convicts had appealed against their death sentences in 2014,
while the same number of appellants had moved the HC in 2015.
The sources also said 477 death reference cases were pending before the HC in
2015 and the HC benches disposed of 58 cases.
In 2016, the number of such cases was 580 and the HC benches disposed of only
45 cases. In 2017, a total of 706 death reference cases were pending before the
HC for disposal and the HC benches disposed of 66 death reference cases, while
it was 711 in 2018 and the HC benches disposed of 83 death reference cases.
Till July this year, the number of death reference cases stood at 737, while
the HC benches disposed of 59 death reference cases by this time, sources
added.
Sources also said the 737 pending death reference cases deal with over 1,715
convicts.
According to the sources, the authorities have started working on completing
the “paper books” of all the pending cases of 2014. A “paper book” contains all
documents, including case details, charge-sheet and seizure list, testimonies
of witnesses and cross examinations as well as the trial court’s verdict. After
completion of the necessary work, the Chief Justice assigns an HC bench for
disposal of the matter.
Former National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chairman Mizanur Rahman said
long delays in disposal of cases violated human rights. “A large number of
prisoners convicted by trial courts are suffering mentally due to uncertainty
over their fate. The cases should be taken care of as quickly as possible so
that the litigants get justice in time,” he added.
Former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president advocate Khandaker Mahbub
Hossain,said crime had increased in recent years and that was why the lower
courts awarded death penalty in sensitive cases. He also said more HC benches
with skilled judges were needed to dispose of the death reference cases
considering their importance.
(source: theindependentbd.com)
MALAYSIA:
Country's biggest drug bust: 12 tonnes of cocaine worth RM2.4bil seized in
Penang
In the biggest drug haul ever seen in Malaysia, police seized 12 tonnes of
cocaine worth RM2.4bil here.
The cocaine, which was mixed with 60 tonnes of charcoal, is believed to be from
an international drug syndicate using Penang as a transit point.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Bador said this was the biggest
haul in local history, which was a huge cause for concern.
"The operation was carried out under Ops Eagle which was launched on Sept 10
here.
"The drugs were found in three containers filled with 60 sacks of coal at the
Butterworth port on Sept 10.
"The containers are believed to have arrived at the port on Aug 16. They used
advanced technology to make sure the drugs cannot be detected.
"Even the canine unit could not detect the drugs.
"Normal drug detecting technology would not be able detect it. (But) our
chemistry department has advanced technology that was able to detect the
cocaine among the coal.
"The cocaine is valued at RM200,000 per kilo," he said at a press conference
held at the Bayan Baru police station here.
IGP Abdul Hamid said a 29-year-old suspect believed to be in charge of
arrangements (for the shipment) has been remanded for 14 days, which ends on
Sept 23.
"The case is being investigated under section 39B Dangerous Drugs Act 1952,
which carries the death penalty.
This drug bust surpassed the previous record on Aug 20 this year when police
seized 500kg of ketamin and over 3.23 tonnes of cocaine worth over half a
billion ringgit in Shah Alam.
(source: thestar.com.my)
SINGAPORE:
Court reserves judgment on Prosecution’s appeal against man who escaped gallows
3 appeals had arose from a single decision of the High Court, following a joint
trial of 2 accused persons, which sees one of them being sent to the gallows
for drug trafficking and the other spending 10 years behind bars for abetment
of drug possession.
In a first, five lawyers had also been assigned to represent 40-year-old
warehouse assistant Moad Fadzir bin Mustaffa in his appeal against his
conviction and death sentence.
The Court of Appeal – comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Judge of Appeal
Judith Prakash and Judge of Appeal Tay Yong Kwang – heard the 3 appeals
together in succession on Friday (20th September) for nearly three hours, and
reserved judgment in two of them – Moad’s appeal as well as the Prosecution’s
appeal, seeking to have 50-year-old Zuraimy bin Musa convicted of the original
capital charge and sent to the gallows as well.
The offence in question took place on the night of 11th April 2016, when Moad
and Zuraimy went to Toa Payoh in a car. There, an Indian man threw a white
plastic bag through the front window onto Moad’s lap. In return, Moad handed
the Indian man a bundle of cash, while Zuraimy tied the plastic bag and placed
it in Moad’s sling bag.
Both men were subsequently arrested separately by officers from the Central
Narcotics Bureau. The officers retrieved the white plastic bag from Moad’s
sling bag, which was analysed and found to contain not less than 36.93g of
diamorphine.
After a trial lasting 8 days, Justice Choo Han Teck delivered his judgment in
February this year, finding Moad guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced him
to death. In respect of Zuraimy, Justice Choo reduced his charge to one of
abetment of drug possession and handed him the maximum sentence of 10 years’
imprisonment.
Moad, whose defence team was led by Mr Peter Fernando, made the argument that
his contemporaneous statement recorded after his arrest, should not have been
admitted as it was involuntary made. The contemporaneous statements formed a
key plank of the Prosecution’s case against both Moad and Zuraimy.
Mr Fernando pointed that the investigating officer (“IO”) recording the
statement had told Moad that he would call up Moad’s mother for an interview.
In Moad’s mind, this appeared to be a “threat” to him that his mother would be
arrested.
CJ Menon and Justice Prakash thought that, given that drug apparatus had been
found in Moad’s flat where his mother was also residing in at that point, it
would have been reasonable for the IO to take that course of action so as to
identify who might have been involved in the drug transactions.
Mr Fernando further argued that the statements could not be relied on to find
that Moad had actual knowledge that the white plastic bag contained
diamorphine, as Moad was under the effects of cough mixture and sleeping pills
when the statements were recorded. There were claims at certain points that
Moad had instead consumed diamorphine or methamphetamine which led to his state
of dopiness.
In this connection, Moad was diagnosed with mild oploid drug withdrawal a few
days after his arrest. There were also several factors which, as Mr Fernando
suggested, pointed to improprieties in the recording of the statement, such as
the IO taking 1 hour to record 20 simple answers from Moad in response to his
20 questions, the fact that Moad was left in the car alone for 25 minutes after
the first statement was recorded, and that the IO had made a note at the end of
the statement that Moad was in a normal state of condition.
This last factor aroused CJ Menon’s concern as he had never come across any
case where an investigating officer had included such observations when
recording statements.
Mr Fernando also raised the point that, in the event that the statements were
admissible and accepted as facts, Moad was merely keeping the drugs for Zuraimy
and intended to return it to him, and therefore should have been guilty of drug
possession simpliciter.
In this regard, Moad had claimed that one “Abang” told him to pick up one “Lan”
and go to Toa Payoh to collect the drugs. Moad claimed that Zuraimy was “Lan”,
but he eventually claimed that “Abang” was Zuraimy when faced with the phone
records at trial. Justice Choo had concluded that this was an attempt by Moad
to shield Zuraimy.
Both the Prosecution and Moad had attempted to rely on this fact to bolster
their respective cases, but CJ Menon thought that it did not make sense, given
that Moad had already implicated Zuraimy in his contemporaneous statement but
maintained that “Abang” was a different person then.
The Prosecution made very brief oral arguments in their appeal for Zuraimy to
be convicted of the original capital charge, that Zuraimy actually knew the
nature and quantity of the drugs which Moad was found in possession of, which
made it sufficient for there to be a common intention between them.
In their written submissions, the Prosecution had also raised a point of law
that the presumption of trafficking could be relied on against Zuraimy, given
that he was deemed to be in possession of the drugs by virtue of his consent
under section 18(4) of the Misuse of Drugs Act which, according to the
Prosecution, was not a presumption unlike the presumptions of possession and
knowledge under sections 18(1) and 18(2) of the MDA respectively.
In response, Mr Eugene Thuraisingam argued that there was no finding that
Zuraimy actually knew the nature and quantity of the drugs. All that Justice
Choo had said was that Zuraimy “may have known the quantity and the nature of
the drugs”, and even if so, there was no evidence that Zuraimy knew that Moad
obtained the drugs for the purposes of trafficking.
Zuraimy’s appeal focused only on the maximum sentence of 10 years’
imprisonment, which was argued by Mr Chooi Jing Yen. Justice Choo had imposed
the maximum sentence in view of Zuraimy’s antecedents (the present offence was
committed a year after his release from prison for drug offences) and the huge
amount of drugs involved.
CJ Menon pointed out that in the context of drug possession, it may not be
entirely apposite to rely on the principle that the maximum punishment should
be reserved for the worst type of cases; given that the drugs involved has
crossed the threshold of capital punishment for drug trafficking.
(source: theonlinecitizen.com)
INDIA:
Do we need death penalty in India? Many judges agree, find
researchers----Project 39A, a part of National Law University, Delhi, recently
organised a panel discussion on ‘Judicial Attitudes to Death Penalty in India
and Bangladesh’ in Bengaluru.
The global discourse has been moving away from death penalty for years –
according to Amnesty International, there was a 31% decline in the number of
executions recorded worldwide from 2017 to 2018; and by last year end, 142
countries had abolished capital punishment in law or practice, and 106, for all
crimes. However, India is not yet in that list.
On Thursday, Project 39A, a part of National Law University, Delhi, organised a
panel discussion on ‘Judicial Attitudes to Death Penalty in India and
Bangladesh’ in Bengaluru. The initiative describes itself as being named after
section 39A of the Indian Constitution that “furthers the intertwined values of
equal justice and equal opportunity by removing economic and social barriers”;
and provides free legal aid to those on death row in India.
The panel discussion was based on studies conducted by interviewing former
judges in India and Bangladesh as well as research carried out by the UK-based
Death Penalty Project on public opinion on death penalty. It was found in both
the Bangladesh and India that most judges favoured retention of capital
punishment because they believed it was a deterrent, despite lack of empirical
evidence to support the same.
What the studies found
60 former Supreme Court judges were interviewed for the study in India, while
30 retired district and sessions court judges were interviewed in Bangladesh.
“While all judges recognised the crisis in the criminal justice system, they
should high confidence in death penalty for deterrence,” said Dr Anup
Surendranath, Assistant Professor at NLU.
The “crisis” here refers to rampant custodial torture of the accused,
malpractices like planting of evidence by investigating authorities, and how
the poor and underprivileged are often the ones who get trapped in the system.
“The Bangladeshi judges we interviewed expressed frustration with the criminal
justice system – especially with police and public prosecutors where they said
corruption was rampant,” Dr Muhammad Mahbubur Rahman, a professor in the
Department of Law, Dhaka University said.
Experts said that this disproved Marshall’s hypothesis, developed by Thurgood
Marshall, an associate justice who was in the United States Supreme Court from
1961 to 1991. He said that people’s support for death penalty had to do with
their lack of knowledge about it. “However, here we had people who knew the
criminal justice system in and out, and yet were favouring capital punishment,”
Dr Anup observed.
Some judges even justified the use of custodial torture of the accused by
police and investigating officials – the same proportion in India and
Bangladesh incidentally, pointed out Professor Carolyn. In Bangladesh, six of
the 30 judges interviewed justified it; in India, the number was 12 out of 60
judges.
Life and death depend on judge’s discretion
The studies also found that whether an accused will get death penalty will
depend entirely on the judge’s discretion. For instance, Dr Rahman revealed
that of the 237 death sentences given by 28 of the 30 judges interviewed, 1
single judge awarded 100 of the death penalties. “61% of the death penalties
were given by just 3 judges,” he noted. Findings were similar in India.
This is in violation of the principle that death penalty should only be given
in the rarest of rare cases. Referring to Bachan Singh v State of Punjab case
here, where Supreme Court said that life imprisonment should be the norm, and
death, an exception, the panellists argued that India was seeing a breakdown of
the rarest of rare doctrine.
The doctrine lays down mitigating and aggravating factors for awarding death.
Circumstances that would mitigate death penalty are factors like extreme
emotional and mental disturbance of the accused, the accused being very young
or very old, the possibility of him/her being rehabilitated and so on.
However, panellist Supreme Court Justice (retd.) V Gopala Gowda noted that
instead of the above factors, it is the background of the judge, his/her
mindset and personal inclinations are what influence their decision to award
death in a case. “Without knowledge of human rights discourses, it is left to
their discretion,” he said.
Public opinion on death penalty
Carolyn Hoyle, professor of criminology at Oxford University; further pointed
out that while public opinion should not have a bearing on the decision to give
a death sentence, it has been found that many judges refer to the “collective
conscience” of the people to justify it.
Death Penalty Project co-founder Saul Lehrfreund shared that in their dialogue
with retentionist countries, many governments had justified death penalty on
grounds that the public was in favour of it. Unlike the judges though,
Marshall’s hypothesis was found to apply in public opinion surveys taken by the
UK-based organisation in several retentionist countries.
“In China, out of the 4,500 people surveyed, only 3% said they had a lot of
interest in death penalty. In Malaysia, of the 1500 people interviewed, only 6%
claimed to be well-informed on the issue,” Saul said. “Public support for death
penalty is predicated on the assumption that there aren’t any wrongful
convictions and that the system works.”
Per Marshall’s hypothesis, public opinion in favour of death penalty was found
to reduce significantly when people were made aware of the flaws in the
criminal justice system, and that innocent people could be sent to the gallows
in wrongful convictions, surveys showed. “In China, the opinion in favour of
death penalty reduced from 58% to 25% when they were given this information. In
Malaysia, it dropped from 91% to 33%, and in Trinidad, from 89% to 35%,” Saul
said.
When a question was raised in the audience on whether abolishing death penalty
would impinge on victim rights, the panellists agreed that people had been
found to accept the next severe punishment - life imprisonment - fairly easily
when countries have done away with capital punishment. “We cannot retain victim
rights by taking away accused rights. It’s a false dichotomy,” Professor
Carolyn said.
(source: The News Minute)
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