DEATH FOR MURDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1012, 1 July 1930, Page 12

DEATH FOR MURDER

SHOULD HANGING BE ABOLISHED? AUCKLAND OPINIONS QHOULD capital punishment be in Aided in the case of convicted j murderers? The much-vexed question j is opened up in a letter written 1 > The Sun by Mr. X. M. Richmond. Other Aucklanders have also stated their views. Mr. Richmond writes: Sir. — As one who believes capital punish- ! ment to he “both futile and immoral,” j I have tried (since the dismissal of) the technical appeal) to find some sup : port for the circulation of a petition for reprieve in the case now before j the public. The half-hearted ness of ; the response (to say the least of it) | has shown me that this line is appar- | ently useless, and I therefore con- ; elude that tlie public desires this exe- j cution to take place. This being the case, may I submit that this community is in danger of ! two things? In the first place it is in j danger of killing an innocent man. In i regard to the fairness or otherwise of j the trial, those whom I have consulted j consider that it was fair in-so-far as j any such trial can be, but they admit ; that the whole atmosphere was oue 1 of prejudice, which seems inseparable from such trials as at present conducted. In other words they admit that there is a doubt in the matter. In the second place, even if there were no such doubt, we are in danger of acquiescing once more in a barbarous practice which has been abandoned with good results in many countries. Since the experience of these countries practically destroys the case for j capital punishment as a deterrent, the i case against it is, in the main, simply the case against any form of punishment which is purely retributive. If we believe in reformative methods at all, why should we make an exception of the murderer? If we do not believe in reformative methods, ought we not I to say so, and to follow it up by dei stroying those who commit other ' serious crimes? It would be much simpler and less troublesome. “We shall never get rid of the criminal,” says Laurence Housman, “till we cease to separate ourselves from him, till we make his interest our interest, till we share, willingly and consciously, the responsibility of the society which has produced him.” But perhaps this is the hollow sentimentalism of a poet? I wonder. AUCKLAND DOCTORS’ VIEWS ”1 am opposed to the death sentence and r think it should be abolished,” declared a prominent Auckland medical man, who has at various times been associated with condemned men. One reason the doctor advanced for his attitude was that mistakes had been made and, secondly, the facts of a condemned person’s i past history, his up-bringing and what led up to the psychological condition at the time of the crime could never be fully ascertained. Lie expressed the opinion that many murrlerers were mental, and hereditary factors entered largely into a person’s mental condij tion. In the doctor’s opinion the j death sentence would never act as a ! deterrent. i On the whole, and from a scientific j point of view in particular, Dr. Mil- | dred Staley, a member of the Howard j League of Penal Reform, was against | the imposition of the death sentence, j Her reason was that modern methods !of criminology were not applied in j this country to offenders.