Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7 1909. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4500, 7 December 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7 1909.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

This above all—to thine own self be true % ind \t must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

The reprieve of the young man Roberts and the commutation of the death penalty for imprisonment for life, raises the whole question of capital punishment, and it also raises another important question : That of the very frequent pleading of insanity in murder cases. In America the public are acquainted with what is recognised as “ brain-storms,” and many a murderer gets off on tne plea of brain-storm ; but we sincerely trust that we are not going to recognise brain-storms here to the extent of setting the dangerous criminal free. Take the case of the murderer Roberts. He went to the house of his unfortunate victim and deliberately murdered her. Without warning and, so far as we can judge, without provocation, she was ushered into eternity. There were no signs of insanity in any of his proceedings. If he was mad at the time of the diabolical crime there was considerable method in his madness, but, as The Dominion remarked :

“The evidence given at the trials in the lower and upper Courts did not indicate that the prisoner was insane, unless the act of murder is in itself a proof of insanity. Further evidence of a convincing kind may have been brought before the Executive, but the circumstances of the crime were so plain, and the state of prisoner were so fully set forth in the evidence, that the Executive’s action calls for explanation. If this case is to stand as a precedent for the future, it seems to us on the evidence disclosed that capital punishment, in this particular class of murder case, might as well be abolished.” We are not now concerned so much about the question whether capital punishment should be abolished in all cases, as we are about the remission of the death penalty in the case of Roberts. It seems to us that the public will have to watch the procedure cf law when its course is likely to be misdirected by the plea of insanity. When a doctor recently murdered a settlers wife in the South the plea of insanity was set up. and although he was sentenced to death he was reprieved and sent to a lunatic asylum. He soon recovered there and is said to be as well as ever he was. We shall soon hear that Roberts is well again and, perhaps, we shall hear of attempts being made soon to get both of them liberated.

Too little attention is paid to such cases as these. Settlers lives will not be safe if men get off too easy after committing cold blooded unprovoked murders Many persons would give full fling to their violent passion for blood or revenge were it not for the hangman’s rope held before them.

A great responsibility will rest upon the authorities if the death penalty be ignored or abolished without its first of all being thoroughly considered by the public and discussed in the Press. There seems to be a desire to avert a public discussion of the question, and the policy seems to be to let it gradually die a natural death. We think that a proper understanding should be come to, and the time is now opportune for the Press and Parliament to consider whether it be any good to maintain the death penalty on the Statute Book.

In England and Wales 3,000 murders were committed between the years 188 61905. Not one half of the murderers were found, and only 551 person were convicted and only 323 were executed. Hence some persons contend that capital punishment does not prevent murder, but capital punishment is not solely intended for the prevention of crime, but is also a vindication of Justice by Society ;

'and death is acknowlfdged to be the just penalty for wilful murder. There are other very cogent reasons for the death penalty, and it behoves the people of New Zealand to vigilantly watch the present dangerous undercurrent for the practical abolition of it and the all too ready acceptance of the plea of insanity.