New York Appeal Judge Upholds Death Penalty

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28359, 19 August 1957, Page 10

New York Appeal Judge Upholds Death Penalty

Capital punishment ■ was “undoubtedly a deterrent to murdo’”; without it criminals would be less careful, more ready to kill, and the number of murders committed would be “multiplied by many scores.” This view was expressed by Judge Charles W. Froessel,. an Associate Judge of the , Court of Appeals of New York State, who was in Christchurch at the week-end.

However, on the grounds of the general law-abiding nature of most New Zealanders and because “they are not given to wickedness,” Judge Froessel said he did not think the truth of falseness of the deterrent nature of the punishment could be properly shown iin this country.

“Unlike New Zealand the tremendous wealth in the United States stimulates people to form great crime organisations and encourages them to take desperate chances in an attempt to acquire wealth,” he said. From his contact with men who have made crime “their life work, excluding the professional gunmen class who kill for 100 dollars,” Judge Froessel is convinced that the death penalty is a deterrent to killing. “They will say. ‘We don’t want to kill, we know the penalty.’ And with the penalty in the back of their minds they won’t kill unless they are in a tight corner,” he said.

“Given a certain number of lives taken by murder, say 10, with capital punishment 10 would be executed. However, with its abolition criminals would be less careful and more ready 'to kill and in the last analysis many more, scores more, lives would be taken than the 20 taken under capital punishment.” Ideal Punishment Judge Froessel said he felt that life imprisonment would be the ideal punishment as long as it could be certain that the killer would stay away. However, somewhere along the line he might be released before time, not through corruption, but through the tender heartedness of officials and a tendency to forget the serious nature of the crime committed.

“We cannot be sure that the criminal will stay away,” he said. Discussing an argument used against the retention of capital

punishment—the possibility of an error of justice—Judge Froessel said that American justice could not be more concerned with the rights of an accused man. Justice was not a mathematical instrument, but errors were very very rare.

There were many avenues to which an accused' man could go. First, he had to be convicted by a jury, then his case would go before a Court of Appeal and finally to a Governor, a pardoning power, with an appeal, for clemency, he said. Sat in Wellington While he was in Wellington Judge Froessel sat with the Chief Justice (Sir Harold Barrowcloughi on the Supreme Court Bench. Commenting on the Court procedure of New Zealand and the United States he said that it was remarkably the same. “I am sure that a New Zealand judge in the United States would have no difficulties and similarly an American judge would be at home on a New Zealand Bench. Naturally, .there are differences, but they are not basic," he said. Judge Froessel, who arrived in Christchurch from the Hermitage on Saturday, left for Wellington yesterday and will leave Auckland for the United States on Tuesday.