ABOLISHING DEATH SENTENCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18498, 20 February 1930, Page 9

ABOLISHING DEATH SENTENCE.

Select Committee’s Inquiry.

CONFLICTING VIEWS PRESENTED.

(United P-ess Association—By Electrlo Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received February 19, 7.15 pjn.) LONDON, February 18. Women are thronging the public sessions of the Select Committee on Capital Punishment, which is giving serious thought to the problem of the alteration of the murder law. The Governor of Maidstone Prison said % that from long experience of murders, he was firmly convinced that many murders were so diabolical, and so cunningly planned, that the perpetrators certainly should be executed, as they were a menace to any community —even the prison community. Contrariwise, those who murder from jealousy, under great emotional stress, might well be imprisoned. The hanging of women should be abolished. The enlargement of the legal definition of manslaughter might include cases now classed as murder, for which death was the only penalty. Lord Darling said he was convinced that death was a justifiable punishment for wilful murder. Mr Justice Avory declared that abolition would lead to a disastrous increase of murders. Lord Buckmaster contended that savage punishment does not prevent many murders.