DEATH PENALTY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 102, 2 May 1930, Page 9

DEATH PENALTY

BRITISH LAW FAIR

LORD DARLING'S VIEWS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) ■ LONDON, 21st March. ' A Select Committee ■is considering the abolition of capital punishment. Lord Darling, who lias presided over many notable trials, ,gave evidence this week, and declared, from his own experience, that No alteration iv the existing law was needed. • i A man who unlawfully took the life of another, should forfeit his own. With aJI the checks and safeguards,' it was impossible for an innocent man to be hanged. • The guilty murderer who was not hanged but was kept in prison was getAs to women, it was most unpleasant As to women, ti was most unpleasant to have to try them for anything at all, but he could not, much as he wished to, tee any reason why a woman should not be executed as well as a man. "I do not think," said Lord Darling, "when a person has taken the life of another, society should have the burden of keeping him in circumstances better ■than those in which many honest people live. Therefore, I think it right that the State should take his life and have done with "it. . . " • • " '"When I have tried a person for murder Ihe argument has often been put forward. iliat'a man has done wrong automatically, find that you might not do anything to him except perhaps to give him a pension. You never hear it said that a man a Iced automatically when he docs right. "My .experience is that the murderer does 'not belong to the class. of habitual criminal. I do not think that a man who killed his wife would kill anyone else if you let him free, certainly not until he took another wife, and that ,one might not provoke him so much as ■ his first." (Laughter.) ENGLISH LAW FAIR. Lord Darling declared that there was no country in the world where a criminal was so fairly prosecuted as in England. He had a fair and public trial. He could appeal before at least three Judges, and 1 lie proceedings were reviewed by the Home Secretary, who constantly consulted the Judge during the case. "I say, therefore, that in England, with nil these checks and safeguards, it is impossible for an innocent man to be hanged. The only way fat that to be done would bo for a conspiracy of people to swear away a man's life, and I have never known that to be attempted. '•"I have always been : surprised to find that criminals in England are always the ' best friends of .the Judges. . They constantly consult the Judge, sometimes when it is embarrassing for him to give advice, Buch' as whether they should plead guilty or not. The law of. England is" regarded as being so fair that there is no resentment against those who administer it from, (he highest to the lowest." Lord Darling considered that the knowledge that a person was likely to be hanged for murder certainly had a deterrent effect. "There is something in England peculiarly disgraceful about being hanged," he said. "There are now those who, because they object to capital punishment, incite jurors to find accused persons insane when they killed, and I believe that as a consequence such verdicts have been returned, with the result that sane.persons are confined in asylums for the mad. As few evils can be worse than this, I would advise—should such false verdicts become common—that ,the penalty of death be abolished." Asked about the conduct of juries, Lord Darling said: "I have been astonished at the courage of common-place English people in.giving a right verdict, sometimes in face of the most terrifying arguments about how they might feel ten years hence if they gave a wrong verdict." THE CASE OF WOMEN. "1 think it a most unpleasant thing to try a. woman for anything," said Lord Darling, "But there -.are cases where women have committed the most deliberate murders and not infrequently by poisoning. In these- circumstances I am unable to give any reason why a woman should not be executed as a well as a man. I wish I could. I can understand a pardon being bestowed on a woman which would not be bestowed on a man, but you have'this difficulty that a man might get a- woman to kill a person for him. That is not fanciful; it was done in the Middle Ages." ■ . .■■'-■' Sir Gervais Rentoul: "Have you ever found more reluctance to find women guilty than men?" Lord Darling: "I remember two women acquitted, and it is my opinion they would not have been if they had not been .women." Sir Gervais asked whether Lord Darling favoured the retention of the black cap, the presence of the chaplain, and the form of words used by the Judge in passing sentence of death. Lord Darling: "It is a State dress, and I suppose is worn as such because the Jurlgo is exercising the highest duty the State has conferred/upon him. There are often occasions when he puts on the black cap. He does so when he receives the Lord Mayor at the Law Courts." "I have never Been anything happen at the passing of the death sentence," observed Lord Darling, "which, does any harm. I cannot help feeling that it does the great crowds which go to murder trials good to find that the law regards murder as the most serious crime." Asked whether he favoured the publication of reports of murder trials, Lord Darling said that he did not think dwelling on horrors did any good, but it was a difficult thinp: to interfere with the Press. He did not like detailed reports of magisterial proceeding.l!. The jury should, as far as possible, f-'o into the box without having had an opportunity of making up their minds.