The Death Penalty.

CHURCHILL became very unhappy when he was Home Secretary because he had to sign the warrants of those condemned to death in our courts of law. It has often been noticed that the deaths of millions are a statistic but the death of a single individual is a tragedy. Stalin's purges are a tedious chapter in an history book whereas Romeo and Juliet is something to weep over with seas of tears. As a nation we reserve the right to declare war and cause indirectly many deaths, but we have cast aside the capacity to directly condemn a single man to death for the most heinous of crimes. In my view this is an error. I think it deprives the worst villains of their final possible purpose in society which is to show, by the example of their woeful fate, that such paths of brutality are not to be emulated. By their executions a powerful deterrent exists in the nation at large, for the fear of death exceeds all others, and prevention is better than cure.

   In order for this deterrent to exist there need not even be a single execution in the span of a decade or two decades, but the power must exist, and it must exist as a reserve for cases which so utterly exceed all possible boundaries that it would be a crime rather to maintain such a life than to end it. I recall seeing a picture of the now deceased Yorkshire Ripper wandering at large through the High Street of a town, evidently on his way to an optician, for his eyesight had begun to fail him. Who could see such a thing without amazement, without incredulity, without disgust, that this man's life, which had been responsible for brutally ending the lives of thirteen women, should be tended to and maintained at great expense by the society for which he himself had shown such a monstrous and brazen contempt? The average price of maintaining an inmate in a British prison is estimated to be about £43,000 a year, in other words, more than most British people are able to generate for their own annual income. Why should such humanity be shown to a wretch who already had thrown off his own? Might not the parents of his victims ask with Lear, 'Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all?'

   Naturally there have been made good arguments against the death penalty, which should be duly honoured in its reinstatement. The possibility of a false condemnation is a dreadful one, but a one which can be easily circumvented. The death penalty should only be considered in cases where there is an overwhelming burden of proof. Cases of mass murder, where there is a tripartite body of evidence, biological, visual, and circumstantial, would best qualify. Some say confession should disqualify the death penalty but I think that would only apply more generally to less numerous cases of murder which, though horrifying, are often liable to reasonable doubt and could not therefore qualify. Again, I suggest the death penalty should act more as a deterrent than a punishment. Interestingly, in old Scotch law there was a particular provision for the death penalty in cases of acid attacks, which, although I would not advocate, is a measure of how hideous such an assault has always been considered; so hideous that, even in the violent free for all of the Second World War, it was not something resorted to as merely causing pain without purpose. Howbeit, as regarding the death penalty, it need not even be considered in general except in the most grievous cases, but to have that power in the system of British law would I think greatly reinforce it. By its reinstatement many lives imperilled by the Fates might yet be saved, nor should we grow forgetful of the memory of Sir David Amess. The best method I think would be the same used in the case of terminally ill pets, potent administration of relaxing barbiturates, for it is death and not torture which should be the penalty.