EXECUTION OF WOMEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

EXECUTION OF WOMEN

BRITISH ATTITUDE,

POLICY CHANGE UNLIKELY,

MERCY PLEA OF NO AVAIL,

Refusal by the British Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, to advise the reprieve of a woman poisoner, who was recommended to mercy by the jury at her trial, has once more focused public attention on the question of "Should a woman hang?" There is, however, no likelihood of any official move towards the adoption by the Home Office of a policy which would mean the automatic reprieve of every woman sentenced to death.

The case of Nurse Dorothea Nancy Waddingham, 3G, or, to_ give her her correct name, Dorothea Nancy Leech, the mother of five children, raised much discussion..

Greed and avarice were responsible for j the crime which she expiated on the scaffold at Winson Green Gaol, Birmingham —the poisonkig by morphia of Miss Ada Louisa Baguley, a 50-year-old cripple, who had been a patient at a home for aged people, which she ran ill Devon Drive, Nottingham. Apparently in this case the presumption was that Nurse Waddingham was recommended to mercy because of aversion to the hanging of women, but that in itself is ' not considered sufficient reason to justify a reprieve. A long succession of Home Secretaries have accepted the view that it would bo neither desirable nor possible to lay down hard-and-fast rules as to the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. The following viewpoint, first expressed long ago in th • House of Commons by Sir William Harcourt, and afterwards endorsed by Lord Gladstone, still holds good: The exercise of the prerogative of mercy does not depend on principles of strict law or justice, still less does it depend on sentiment in any way. It is a question of policy and judgment in each case, and, in my opinion a capital execution which, in its circumstances, creates horror and compassion for the culprit rather than a sense of indignation at his crime, is a great evil. As soon as a convicted murderer is taken to prison, the governor must notify the Home Office. Copy of Judge's I^otes. The judge also writes to the Home Secretary, and encloses a copy of his notes of the case. The judge always expresses his own view of the ca6e, but usually he waits until the condemned person's appeal has been heard. The Home Secretary further obtains from the police and every other possible source the fullest possible information about the prisoner's history and character. He also considers any facts which may not have been inadmissible in evidence at the trial. Every consideration —the motive, the degree of premeditation, the amount of provocation, the state of mind of the prisoner, and physical and mental condition—is taken into account. In cases in which it is obvious that the capital sentence should not be carried out, a reprieve is announced as soon as the appeal has been • decided—and in exceptional cases before the appeal. Always om the desk of the Home Secretary is a card, in the first column of which is written the names of prisoners under sentence of death. Other columns are filled up -to record the name of the judge who tried the case, ■the date of the appeal, the result of the appeal, and the date fixed fov "ie execution. A red line is drawn over the entries once the case is finally disposed of. Days and days of anxious consideration are often given to a case before a decision is reached. Element of Provocation. It lias been the policy in recent years to deal leniently with women convicted of killing their infant children in the despair of poverty. No woman convicted of this class of murder is kept in penal servitude longer than three years. Oil the other hand, mercy is never extended to baby farmers convicted of. wholesale murders.

The death sentence is never carried out in the case of the survivor of a death pact, ai»d sometimes .a short term, of imprisonment is considered sufficient penalty. Many of the most difficult cases to decide are those in which provocation ivae an element in the murder. In these instances a general principle, laid down by Sir William Harcourt, still holds good. It runs: "Tf a person under extreme provocation is so driven to despair that the mind may be regarded as temporarily unhinged, and the ordinary restraints of the man's moral nature are relaxed, there is room for much comnassion and a justification for leniency. But when there is evidence of a settled purpose of revenge, deliberately planned, and coolly carried out. it is extremely unsafe to give way to such considerations." The King's signature is not necessary to stay an execution. The Home Secretary signs the order for a respite ''until further orderi" which is issued to the sheriff charged with the execution of the sentence. A reprieve is subsequently prepared, signed by the Kins, countersigned, and then sent to the Clerk of Assize so that tlie court can make an order that the prisoner bo kept in penal servitude.