DEATH PENALTY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 71, Issue 6, 18 October 1950, Page 4

DEATH PENALTY

EVIDENCE BEFORE COMMITTEE * PATHOLOGIST’S OPINION (P.A.) WELLINGTON. This Day.In the view of Dr. P. P. Lynch, a pathologist, leniency and human consideration were exercised to the full, in the period that the death penalty was imposed, during the time he had practised.

He said this to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Capital Punishment, which continued its sitting in Wellington this morning. Dr. Lynch said that it was fair to say that, only in casesin which there were no mitigating circumstances or in which there were elements of unusual brutality and design, was the law allowed to take its couree.*

"If it were decided by Parliament to reimpose the death penalty for murder, then, in my view, the consideration which was formerly given to these- cases might well be made a model and standard for the future,” said Dr. Lynch. He added that no inference of any statistical value could be drawn from the year-to-year figures for homicide, as they were too small to have any significance. During the past 20 years there had not been more than 20 homicides in any one year. “These figures, from the statistical point of view, are so small, the variations so great, and the factors so complex, that no useful conclusions can be drawn from them,” he said. A true assessment of the deterrent value of capital punishment could be made, he thought, only by analysis of Individual crimes. That analysis should include the consideration of all the circumstances, including the personal and social record of the convicted person, the presence of motive and the accused person’s conduct and conversation before and immediately after arrest. “If such an analysis is made of the homicides over the past 15 years, then I think some valuable points may declare themselves,” continued Dr. Lynch. “It it should appear from an analysis that some of the murders of recent years would not have happened if there had been in the murderer’s mind a fear of the extreme penalty, then I think that a case for capital punishment for murder has been made. I realise that this involves a certain amount of guesswork as to what goes on. in a person’s mind. Some inferences as to those thoughts, however, can be made from a pe v son’s subsequent actions, ’ said Dr Lynch.

Specific Cases Considered

He then detailed a number of murder cases which had impressed them selves on his mind so strongly that he thought it proper to bring them to the notice of the committee. The cases related to the trial and conviction of William Albertus Ivan Stuck, William Eric Cooper, Napoleon Brown and Francis Patrick O’Rourke.- In Stuck’s case, he had a strong impression that, had the discovery of hi* crime been likely to result in the extreme penalty,, the murder would not have been committed. It was a coldblooded and deliberate murder. There were elements of brutality and •reliberation and planning in Cooper’s case, and in Brown’s case he felt more convinced than in any of the others that if there had been the penalty of death, the accused would have taken a different path. In O’Rdurlce’s case, also, he had the same impression that, had the venture been likely to end in execution, he would have hesitated before embarking upon it. “The supreme punishment for taking away life with malice is a measure of the State’s concern to protect and uphold the integrity of the lives of its individual citizens,” continued Er. Lynch. “It seems to me that only in those philosophies, which regard the worth of the individual as being less than that of the State, is a more lenient view taken of murder than has been the custom for many centuries in British countries.” A lessening of regard for human life was the chief mark of the decay of our civilization and the first step in our decline into paganism, concluded Dr. Lynch. Dr. Theodore G. Gray, for 20 years Director-General of Mental Hospitals, and a member of the Prisons Board for an even longer period, said that in his opinion it was necessary to reinstate the capital punishment. “I have in my capacity as Director-Gen-eral of Mental Hospitals been asked to examine and report upon prisoners lying under sentence of death, and I have always been ■ impressed by -the great care and consideration which have been exercised in deciding whether the capital sentence should be carried out,” he said.