INNOCENT NEVER HANGED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21010, 26 April 1930, Page 15

INNOCENT NEVER HANGED.

FAIR TRIALS IN ENGLAND. LORD DARLING’S VIEWS. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT INVESTIGATION. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON. March 21. A Select Committee is considering the abolition of capital punishment. Lord Darling, who has presided over many notable trials, gave evidence this week, and declared, from his own experience, that' No alteration in the existing law was needed; A man who unlawfully took the life of another should forfeit his own; With all the cheeks and safeguards, it was. impossible for an innocent man to be hanged; The guilty murderer who was not hanged hut was kept in prison was getting treatment he did not deserve. As to women, it was most unpleasant to have to try them for anything at all, but he could not, mlich as he wished, see any reason why a woman should not be executed as well as a man. " I do not think,” said Lord Darling, “ when a person has taken the life of another, society should have the burden of keeping him in circumstances better than those in which many honest people live. Therefore, 1 think it right that the State should take his life and have done 'with it. ' . “ When I have tried a person for murder the argument has often been pnt forward that a man has done wrong automatically. and that you might not do anything to him except perhaps to give hun a pension. You never hear it said that a man acted automatically when he does Mv experience is that the murderer does not belong to the class of habitual criminal. I do not think that a man who killed his wife would kill, anyone else if you let him free, certainly not until he took another. wife, and that one might not provoke him so much as nis first.” —(Laughter.) ENGLISH LAW FAIR. Lord Darling declared that there was no country in the world where a criminal was so fairly prosecuted as. m England, He had a fair and public trial. He could appeal before at least three judges.-and the proceedings were reviewed by the Hotne Secretary, who constantly consulted the judge during the case. , “1 say, therefore, that in England, with all these checks and safeguards, it is impossible for an innocent man to be hanged. The only way for that to be done would k for a conspiracy of peoplfi to swear away a man’s life, andl nave never known that to he attempted. “I have always been surprised to find that criminals in England are always the best friends of the judges. They constantly consult the. judge, sometimes when it is embarrassing lor him to give advice, such as whether they should plead guilty or not. The law of England is regarded as being so fair that there is no resentment against those who administer it from the highest to the lowest. Lord Darling considered that the knowledge that a person was likely to be hanged for murder certainly had a detOTSPt effect, “There is something_ in England peculiarly disgraceful about being hanged,” he said, " There are now those who. because they object to capital punishment, incite jurors to find accused persons insane when they killed, and 1 believe that as a consequence such verdicts have been returned, with the result that sane persons are confined in asylums for tke mad. As few evils can be worse ton this, I would advise —should such false verdicts become common —tbat tbs penalty of death he abolished.” . Asked about the conduct of juries. Lord Darling said: “I have been astonished at the courage of common-place English people in giving a right verdict, sometimes in face of the most terrifying arguments about how they might feel 10 years hence if they gave a wrong verdict. THE CASE OF WOMEN. “ I think it a most unpleasant thing to try a woman for anything,” said Lord Darling. “ But there are cases where women have committed the most deliberate murders and not infrequently by poisoning. In these circumstances' I am unable to give any reasoh Wliy 4 WOIMII should not be executed as well as a man. I wish I could. I can .understand a pardon being bestowed on a woman which would not be bestowed on a man, but you have this difficulty, that a man might get a woman to kill a person for him. That is not fanciful; it was done in the Middle Ages.” Sir Gervais Rentoul: Have you ever found more reluctance to find women guilty than men? Lord Danins: I remember two women acquitted, and it is ray opinion they would not have been if they had not been women. _ Sir Gervais asked whether Lord Dariing favoured the retention of the black cap, the presence of the chaplain, and the form of words used by the judge in passing sentence of death. Lord Darling: It is a State dress, and I suppose is worn as such because fhe judge is exercising the highest duty the State has conferred upon him. There are often occasions when he puts on. the black cap. He does so when he received the Lord Mayor at the Law Courts. “I have never seen anything happen at the passing of the death sentence.” observed Lord Darling, “which does any harm. I cannot help feeling that it does the great crowds wliicli go to murder trials good to find that the law regards murder as the most serious crime.” Asked whether he favoured the publication of reports of murder trials, Lord Darling said that he did not think dwelling on horrors did any good, but it was a difficult thing to interfere with the press. He did not like detailed reports of magisterial proceedings. The jury should, as far as possible, go into the box without having had an opportunity of making up their minds.