The present article is a translation of the Romanian article Recenzie: Reflecii asupra pedepsei
cu moartea de Arthur Koestler i Albert Camus, by Cecilia Popa, published in PROBATION
junior, vol. IV, no. 1, 2012.
10
ppcecilia@yahoo.com
11
The description of Robert-Francois Damiens execution from 1757 by Voltaire in Histoire du
Parlement de Paris, (The history of the Paris Parliament) cap. 67. (p. 176) Damiens was the valet
of the King Ludovic XVI of France, and on January 5th, 1757 he tried to assassinate the sovereign
with a knife, but he only managed to hurt him. For the deed he was accused of regicide and his
execution remains in the history of the death penalty as one of the most horrific executions.
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in France. The volume synthesizes the death penalty issue all over the world,
using a chart with the world study on the death penalty, containing data provided
by Amnesty International an organization engaged in a relentless struggle
against the death penalty. (p. 10)
The death penalty has always been subjected to allegations for moral, economic,
political, and educational reasons.
In 1976 a reversal of the jurisprudence allowed the reintroduction of the death
penalty in the American law in 38 out of the 50 States and in the Federal
Government. Even today, in the United States executions take place in the
presence of relatives of the victim, which prints a family revenge, inspired by the
Biblical formula eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth (p. 8) or also known as the
retaliation law. At the same time, in many American States today, most
condemned to death are or were juveniles at the time of committing the crime.
Thanks to new techniques in criminal justice, in particular the identification of
DNA, it has been reached to prove the innocence of a significant number of
sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 90 offenders were found innocent thanks to
the DNA identification, after they spent many years on the so-called death row.
Pronouncing a death penalty makes a judicial error to be irreparable.
Introductions to the editions from 1979 and 1957 by Jean Bloch-Michel
France
The death penalty has seen both ardent abolitionists and incurable supporters who
expressed their beliefs through both political campaigns and legal actions. In the
'80s, in France, actions drew attention to the death penaltys abolition. In 1976 it
was created a committee to study violence, crime, and delinquency under the
supervision of the Minister of Justice at that time, Alain Peyrefitte. The Response
to violence report was published, which proposed to abolish the death penalty in
the recommendation 103. Surprisingly or not, the Minister of Justice concluded
that France was not prepared for abolition: I do not think this is the time for
death penaltys abolition (p. 15) because before proposing the death penaltys
abolition to the Parliament, French people must be prepared, not at all
challenged. (p. 16) Many of those who form the public opinion believed that the
death penalty protects them.
Jean Bloch-Michel mentioned that the abolition of capital punishment will
trigger, sooner or later, the abolition of life imprisonment sentence. (p. 17)
England
The author argued that democratic regimes are hiding bits of authoritarian regimes
or germs of the civil liberties destruction. Arthur Koestler, who was under the
threat of a death sentence in 1937 for charges of espionage, started a campaign to
abolish the death penalty throughout England in 1955. Also, during that year he
published the volume Reflections on Hanging.
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There is at least one significant difference between the French law and the British
law. In the case of homicide, in the English law there are no mitigating
circumstances. If the French jury could formulate a sentence that could have went
from prison with suspension to the death penalty, the England Assize Court did
not have this possibility: The defendant was either declared innocent and allowed
to leave the court, being removed from prosecution, or he was found guilty and
had no way to avoiding the death penalty. (p. 21) There was however a third
possibility, namely, the defendant was declared guilty but insane, being moved
from the prison to the hospice. But because of the famous MNaghten norms
(which presented, almost unreachable, conditions under which an individual was
considered insane) it was almost impossible for a person guilty of murder to be
declared insane. Practically, they sought a simplification of justice. The jurors and
the judges had to decide between total innocence and total guilt, meaning life or
death. In his book, Arthur Koestler reacted especially against this simplification,
which decided the fate of a highly complex human being through a simplistic
barbaric justice.
The 1957 Law regarding the homicides, approved by the House of Lords, brought
a transformation in the criminal law, by emphasizing a more humane approach to
sentences. In other words, in England the death penalty felt into disuse. At that
time, in France the situation was different, as Jean Bloch-Michel indicated: given
the indifference of the public opinion and those in power, it might be said that it is
a problem that interest no one; but the silence is especially theirs, of the
authorities; it would be enough to torn someone in pieces for everyone to hear the
ugly noise of executions. (p. 23)
The death penalty still exists only because we cover our eyes and ears in order to
know nothing about it. (p. 23-24)
Reflections on Hanging by Arthur Koestler
The death penalty is an issue that is not just about statistics or statistical average,
but morality and feelings. (p. 27)
The legacy of the past
The devil in the box
Executioners were perceived as todays movie stars. Their presence had a sort of
macabre kindness, such as an old family joke that only abolitionists and others
humorless do not know to appreciate it. (p. 30) Lord Chief Justice12 claimed, in
the 1960s, that it was normal for the judge to have his head wrapped in black
when pronouncing the death penalty because it was a sign of mourning. One of
the executioners also claimed that maintaining the traditional aspects of the
process was something sacred.
12
The Magistrate with the highest rank in England; a public function shared with the Lord
Chancellor and for some other duties with the Minister of the Interior. (p. 30)
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Arthur Koestler claimed that British people had a greater degree of discipline and
respect for the law, which is why the death penalty was a necessary evil in those
times. But a series of investigations of the Parliamentary Commission and the
Royal Commission in 1930 and 1948 showed that the irreplaceable faith in the
death penalty in Britain was just a superstition. Like any other superstition, it
manifests as the devil in the box. Vainly the lid is kept being closed by the force
of facts and statistics, the devil would jump out again pushing the box lid with the
unconscious and irrational force of traditional beliefs. (p. 34)
The Bloody Code13
The most important British jurist of the nineteenth century, Sir James Stephen,
argued that that law was the clumsiest, careless, and cruel law that ever disgraced
a civilized country. (p. 35) On the English territory, the hangings and places
intended for them were so frequent, that in the first published guide for travelers
these places were listed as landmarks. (Ibidem) Moreover, almost for a century
and a half, the days of executions were the equivalent of the national holidays, but
were more common than those holidays. Some workers, such as those who were
responsible for the delivery of goods, were not operating on a given day if during
that day an execution took place.
The events of public executions were more than national shame: they were
outbursts of collective madness, whose distant echoes resound even today when at
the prison gate an execution is advertised. [...] The scenes carried out with those
occasions gained unexpected aspects of spiritual and violent agitation. People
were fighting with each other. In 1807, 40,000 people came to witness the
executions of Holloway and Haggerty. The crowd was filled with such frenzy that
when the show ended, on that spot remained nearly 100 dead. (p. 35-36)
Public executions in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were true public
spectacles where all social classes attended. The ladies of the aristocracy queued
to visit the offenders cells. A good place was booked at exorbitant prices; people
came from the uttermost parts of the country to witness a splendid hanging. And
all this happened in the sensitive period of Romanticism.
In many cases the executioners were drunk during the executions, and because of
this they had to try two or three times to hang someone. Sometimes, the victim
was brought back to their senses by cutting a notch in the heel to let the blood
shed, and then hanged again. In other cases, the executioner and his assistants had
to cling on the victims legs to increase weight. [...] But there were also cases of
victims who returned to their senses on the dissection table. (p. 37)
Similar horrible scenes also took place after the executions were consumed, when
mothers brought their sick children to the scaffold in order to heal them by the
touch of those executed. Moreover, body parts of those killed were used in
preparing medicines for different symptoms, such as toothache.
13
In the early nineteenth century, in England, the criminal law was known as the Bloody Code.
The Code was unique in the world because it mandated the death penalty for around 220 230
offenses and crimes. (p. 34)
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The age of criminal liability in the 18th century was at the age of seven. For a
child to be executed it had to be at least 14, but if someone would have proven a
clear evidence of propensity to evil (p. 38), a child was liable to death by
hanging. Chief Justice claimed that such execution had to take place because the
example given by such punishment will serve to stop other children from
committing similar crimes. (Ibidem) A particular case mentions of a situation of
two children sentenced to death. One of them was illiterate and the other one was
mentally retarded and their education was reduced to what they had learned from
gangster movies and cartoons that appeared in newspapers. (p. 39) But,
according to an official, the movies and the comics with gangsters were
essentially unrelated to the trial. (Ibidem)
An individual who did not turn 21 years old is not considered mature enough to
sign a contract or a will, however, he is considered mature enough to be taken
responsible for a crime and be executed for it. (p. 40)
Catherine the Great said that people are guided by temperance, not by being
excessively harsh (p. 41), and her well known Instructions, intended to abolish
the death penalty, revolutionized Russian criminal justice system.
The death penalty by hanging was considered a panacea against all crimes within
the meaning of the Bloody Code. Thus, England, considered one of the oldest
democracies in Europe, stood out not through the violent effects of foreign
invasion but by its own legislative invasion in its own citizens lives.
The causes of the Bloody Code
There were three causes of the bloody code:
- The industrial revolution in England
- The British disgust towards authority
- The custom of English legal system the precedent, which canceled any
new idea or new approach.
If during medieval time, the death penalty was provided for offenses such as
murder, treason, voluntary arson, and rape, reaching at the beginning of the
eighteenth century for the death penalty to be administered for a total of 50
offenses, the Bloody Code, as noted previously, foresaw executions for
approximately 230 offenses.
The industrial revolution meant that cities were growing fast, without
administration and without security. The old order was disintegrating and social
chaos erupted. The sudden expansion of extreme poverty [...] coincided with
unprecedented accumulation of wealth, which appeared as a challenge in addition
to committing crimes. All foreign visitors agreed that they had never seen such
wealth and splendor as in the homes and shops of London, and in the same time
so many crooks, thieves, and robbers. (p. 43) This revolution lasted a century and
ended in 1829 when the modern police was created.
But the English were afraid of a police that could limit their freedom and,
consequently, they chose the executioner, the familiar figure at the expense of the
new and foreign one. Here is an argument of the defenders of the death penalty
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if the execution by hanging is abolished, the police will need to use arms to fight
against criminals who will not be afraid anymore. (p. 44)
An example of the third cause of the bloody code is given as follows: because of a
gang of thieves from 1775 who robbed a number of owners in Hampshire and
used to cover their faces to avoid being recognized, the Parliament enacted a law
by which any person armed or disguised is guilty of a crime punishable by death
penalty. The thieves gang disappeared quickly from Hampshire but the law
remained in force for almost a century, until 1873. The purpose of this law
expanded, allowing judges to apply it for a wide range of situations. And so, that
precedent created the basis for other convictions. From this singular case, 350
more cases of criminals were sentenced to die. This situation showed the
unlimited power a magistrate could have.
The oracles
The English judiciary system is not based on a code, but on the application of the
so called Common Law, which is the custom or the habit. (p. 45) The Judges
decisions were registered and received precedent value.
However, the English law did not accept torture as a mean to obtaining
confessions, as did the Roman Law or the Canon Law. In England, to carve out
was simply a more severe form of execution, not an investigation process. While
in other countries from the continent the procedure was inquisitorial, in England
the procedure was accusatory. (p. 46)
But even if torture was not used, England was far from being compassionate.
The aversion toward written law left the English judiciary system at the hands of
the oracles, the wig wearers who judged strictly on the basis of the precedent.
The law was not only applied by them but also made by them. (Ibidem)
Any legislative attempt brought by their opponents or by third parties, who
repealed the death penalty, at least for some crimes, was categorically rejected
because as Lord Chief said we do not want to witness the change of laws in
England. (p. 47) Lord Chief also added that the death penalty law was voted in
the most glorious period of our history and there is no reason to risk it by
exposing it to some experiments. (Ibidem) So, hanging publicly a seven-year-old
child was not reason enough.
The public revolt
Between 1808 and 1837 a decisive fight was worn in order to repeal the Bloody
Code. The reformist movement had always faced the argument that only the
death penalty has an exemplary meaning. (p. 48)
In 1811 the petitions in this regard triggered a surprising evolution of the death
penalty issue. On behalf of the public, reformists required changes in sentences. In
1819 there were already over 12,000 petitions coming from different entities such
as the guildsmen in London, bankers, juries etc. Therefore, the Parliament created
the Select Committee, which prepared a report that included for the first time a
statistic of crime and punishment in England and the amendments to the
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provisions of criminal law for the past three centuries. (p. 49) The report
incorporated the view of various social actors such as the merchants, guards,
priests, but not the judges.
And soon the public opinion stopped challenging the bloody code.
Hanging is not enough
Another famous English jurist, this time from the seventeenth century, remained
associated with the Piously Butchery by wheel and rope supporting it with
biblical quotes. The heart and the entrails of a man needed to be torn from the
living body of the hanged one. Any argument for removing cruelty during the
executions was fined with the idea of destroying the Constitutions foundation.
Another form of execution dating since 1296, such as burning someone alive, did
not include the barbarian torture, and so it was considered meaningless of an
exemplary value. And it was repealed in 1816.
In 1948 corporal punishment was abolished because, according to the Atkins
inquiry Committee on corporal punishment, we do not have the assurance that
corporal punishment has a tremendous effect in terms of its exemplary, as claimed
by those in favor of its application. (p. 55) However, one form of corporal
punishment still remained in use, such as whipping, administered by a chief
guardian who knows the job because by applying a humiliating punishment, the
offender would be deprived of all hopes for reformation. (Ibidem)
The judges and the rights of the accused
Only by 1836, those who were accused by a crime, punishable by death penalty,
were allowed to be defended by a lawyer. (p. 56) Until then, it was considered
that the lawyer presence would undermine the confidence that he [the offender]
can have in the absolute impartiality of the judge (Ibidem), moreover, the
presence of a counsel was quite unnecessary as long as the judge was seen as the
best friend of the accused. (Ibidem)
For 70 years the judges opposed categorically the creation of a Court of Criminal
Appeal. Only in 1907 this institution was created. Before that, there was no
institution to which a death sentenced could have made an appeal. The only hope
an offender had, in this situation, was to receive royal clemency.
The doctrine of maximum roughness
When the social progress started to surpass the law, and the harshness of
punishments appeared to public opinion as disproportionate, the jurors began to
falter before providing a verdict. (p. 58)
Cesare Beccaria, head of the judiciary reform in the Age of Enlightenment in
Europe, argued that the purpose of punishment is to protect society, and when this
punishment does not serve its purpose, the legal barbarism becomes no more than
common barbarism: the same ferocious spirit that drives the hand of the
legislator, also leads the hand of parricides or assassins. (p. 59)
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Koestler argued that the harshness breeds impunity and thus the moderate
punishments are more effective in preventing crime than the excessive ones,
because they are applied without delay and without hesitation. (Ibidem)
Moreover, people are scared to give excessive punishments to their peers amid
inhuman laws. He also accused the monopoly of judges in England, nowhere else
present, comparing them with the alchemists in the Middle Ages who lived
hidden in a mysterious universe composed of secret formulas, with their spirit
back to the past, refractory to external changes, wanting to know nothing but their
inaccessible world. (p. 60)
Social changes always lead to one of these two alternatives: harsher laws or
milder laws. And England chose a bloody Code. Judges became victims of their
own professional deformation (p. 61) because they knew too little about human
nature and about the killers profile, so their behaviors became inhuman.
From a psychiatric point of view, the horrors of the Bloody Code such as
hanging children and the orgies that took place during the public executions were
nothing more but symptoms of a disease known as hysterical anxiety. (Ibidem)
Thieves and cops
This fourth power of magistrates had a considerable support from the
representatives of the Church.
Those who opposed the abolition of the death penalty were the first ones in line to
suffer if laws were to be tamed, because they believed that if laws would change,
their already poorly paid work would become more difficult. They believed in
death penalty because of its power of example and repression, and of its easiness
in implementation.
During a survey held in 1856, concluded with the purpose of determining whether
executions should be public or not, a retired police inspector argued that I do not
think there is a way that could equally execute in secret and satisfy the public. (p.
64)
The Committee recommended that executions should not be public, but these
executions continued to be performed publically for another 12 years. The
Committee's decision based on that survey considered that, statistically speaking,
the assumption according to which the abolition of death penalty would lead to an
increase in armed criminals was not valid. The number of crimes committed with
illegal weapons was not correlated with the number of executions. In Belgium,
where the death penalty was abolished at the time, armed criminals were fewer
than in France where capital punishment was in force.
Interesting is also the fact that ones decision to be part of one side or the other of
this discussion was related to someones position. Before he became Interior
Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare fought for abolition; as soon as he took receipt of the
portfolio he opposed it. Soon after he had ended the portfolio he returned to being
an opponent of the death penalty, addressing the subject in a very moving book.
(p. 69) Therefore, a public position was reason enough to have a stricter attitude
and be more refractory to external influences.
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A social problem becomes a serious illness because no one dares to talk about it
openly the death penalty is a necessary evil that legitimizes murder because it
is necessary, but of which no one speaks about because it is wrong. (p. 120)
And when imagination sleeps, words are emptied of meaning: deaf people take
note about the conviction of a man without paying him attention; but if the
machine is showed to them, if they touch the machines wood and iron, if they
hear the noise of the falling head, the public imagination, suddenly awakened
from sleep, will repudiate both this type of expression and the death penalty. (p.
121)
Albert Camus did not believe that man is a social animal, but was convinced that
man cannot live outside society, so establishing a punishment was due to the
societys responsibility, but on a rational and efficient scale. Like Arthur Koestler,
Albert Camus also believed that capital punishment does nothing more than
dirtying the society, more so as its supporters could not justify it rationally.
The last public execution in France took place in 1939, when authorities pointed
that advertising a public execution in the press did nothing more but delight the
sadistic instincts among readers. (p. 124) The executions were moved behind
closed doors. What kind of power of example can have the stealthily killing at
night in the courtyard of a prison?, Camus asked himself. (Ibidem) During the
National Assembly in 1791, a representative of the people argued that for
controlling people it takes a frightening spectacle. (Ibidem) Moreover,
proponents of the death penalty had as a singular argument for this punishment,
the power of example. But how could it give an example if it did take place
behind closed doors?
And what crime is more heinous than the murder committed for public delight,
which remains imperfect for the show? The blood leaves the vessels in the
severed carotid. Muscles contract, their fibrillation is intoxicating; the intestines
curl and the heart beating is irregular, incomplete, fascinating; the mouth grips at
moments in a terrifying grimace; it is true that on this decapitated head, with
immobile eyes, with dilated pupils they dont watch, fortunately, but they are not
troubled either, they have no cadaver opalescence and they do not move; their
transparency is alive, but their fixation is of death; all these can take minutes, even
hours to individuals without disabilities: death is not immediate... (p. 126) It is
said that Charlotte Cordaz's face blushed by the palm of the executioner after
beheading. (Ibidem) The sociologist Tarde argued that it is better to kill without
torture than to torture without killing. (p. 129)
By masking these executions, the state confirms that it does not really believe in
their power of example (p. 128), and that these executions are taking place due to
tradition and routine. A law is applied mot--mot, and our inmates die imitatively
based on a theory in which executioners do not believe. (p. 129)
Furthermore, moving these executions behind closed doors could have triggered
the delay of abolishing the death penalty If you remove the atrocity of this
show, if you perform executions inside prisons, you will quell the excessive
public outrage from recent years and you will strengthen the death penalty,
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because now it has no reason to be carried out and becomes more hideous; either
you kill publicly or admit that you do not feel authorized to kill. (Ibidem)
Camus also asked to consider a paradox about the death penalty, which is that the
society is at least naive to believe in the power of example of such punishment, as
long as it does not stop the actual crimes.
The law will always be less complex than the nature itself. The power of example
that the capital punishment proclaimed (and still proclaims) was statistically
unfounded. Koestler wrote that in England while pickpockets were executed,
others thieves showed their mastery in the crowd surrounding the scaffold on
which their fellow criminals were hanged; out of 250 criminals who were
hanged, 170 previously witnessed one or two executions; in 1886, out of 167
sentenced to death who were initially imprisoned in Bristol penitentiary, 164
witnessed at least one execution before. (p. 131)
Any form of passion, such as love, honor or revenge defeats pain, and so, death. If
we want that capital punishment to be a truly scarecrow, human nature should be
different, more exactly, to be as stable and calm as the law itself. (p. 132)
Any criminal will declare his innocence before a trial and will be afraid of death
only after trial. Camus said that for the law to scare, it should not allow any
mitigating circumstance. The survival instinct is essential as is the death instinct.
Therefore, the desire to kill sometimes coincides with the desire to die the
preservation instinct is replaced, in various proportions, by the instinct of
destruction. In a sense, you kill in order to die. (p. 133)
The statistics for this issue during the 20th century showed that there was no
correlation between the death penalty and crime, the only connection was the law.
Basically, the offender is cut in half not so much for the crime he committed, but
for all the crimes that could have been committed and were not, and that may be
committed and will not. (p. 135)
If it is important to frequently demonstrate to the people the power a death
penalty has, than the executions must be frequent; but that means that crimes must
be frequent as well, which will only prove that the death penalty does not impress
to the extent that it should do, hence it is both useless and necessary. (Ibidem)
And if it useless but necessary, then the state hides it. Therefore, the death penalty
is a law that knows the crime that it triggers, in order to turn on the machinery of
death, and ignore the one that prevents it.
Like Koestler, Camus also concluded that the death penalty is a form of revenge
because sanctioning without preventing is called, indeed, revenge. (p. 138)
Even if we agree that the murder of a victim is compensated through the death of
his or her offender, the difference between death penalty and homicide is similar
to the difference between a prison and a concentration camp. Moreover, the
capital punishment is a premeditated death, and a premeditated murder is
considered more serious than a violent, but unpremeditated, crime.
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Guilt is not established with great rigor in a test tube. A second tube will show
the opposite, and the personal equation will preserve its importance in this deadly
math. And today as yesterday it persists the risk of error. (p. 152)
Camus argued that the processes held at the Court of Assize are influenced by
unpredictability: defendant's history, his attitude, his diction, incidents evaluation
during the hearing, etc. And all these influenced the final decision of the jury. In
1832, the justice reform in France allocated jurors the possibility to grant
undetermined extenuating circumstances, therefore it mattered the way the jury
assessed these circumstances. Death penalty cases are no longer accurately
provided by the law, but by the jury, which [...] makes an assessment based on the
trial. (p. 153)
The Greeks believed that a crime let unpunished would contaminate the fortress.
Camus argued that convicting and harshly punishing an innocent man would also
contaminate a society in an equal manner.
The author mentioned that in the French law the death penalty was classified
based on different crimes, but he also argued that the justice ruled by humans is
not at all as classified as this particular penalty. Why? Because it does know it
can be untrue. Camus asked why justice, in these circumstances, does not show
modesty and does not leave enough space for maneuvers around sentences, so a
possible mistake could be repaired? (p. 154) he continued saying that there are
no righteous people, only hearts more or less unjust, and without absolute
innocence there is no supreme justice. (p. 157)
Camus also considered that the supreme penalty was in fact a religious sanction,
and this religious spectrum allowed corrections in the afterlife. But the capital
punishment as a social construct cannot do that.
Furthermore, the emperor Julian used to avoid giving administrative tasks to
Christians because their belief did not agree with killing other people, and so were
reluctant to administer a death sentence. But later on, Christians came to accept
the death penalty, justifying it through the rehabilitation that happens because of
the immortality of the soul.
As mentioned previously, in social terms the death penalty does nothing but
eliminate a temporary problem, while it permanently crushes the human belief in
life by giving death absolute power. (p. 161)
Proclaiming that an individual must categorically be removed from society,
because he is absolutely wrong, is similar in saying that a society is absolutely
good (p. 162), which is literally false. Moreover, the blood, like alcohol, will
eventually get addictive, like the friendly wine, and bloody laws draw bloody
manners. (p. 163)
Albert Camus reflections are concluded with his belief that societies will not
know peace until they will take death out of their laws.
Dont kill Cain, let live in him a sign of reprobation, also seen by the peoples
eyes, this is the lesson we must learn from the Old Testament. (p. 167)
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The first article specified that all of those who commit the same type of
crime to be punished in the same way, regardless of their social status;
The second article suggested that the same procedure should be used
during the execution, regardless of the offense;
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The third article mentioned that the family of the offender should not be
stigmatized as long as the criminal acted alone;
The fourth article specified that those who blame the relatives of those
who committed crimes are to be punished;
The fifth article stated that the offenders property should not be
confiscated;
And the sixth article indicated that the families could bury the bodies of
those executed without having to detail in the citys register the way they
died.
On January 21, 1790, this decree was voted, not before Dr. Guillotin proposed for
the first time the guillotine as a tool for execution, a machine yet to be invented at
the time.
The draft of the Criminal Code, including these changes, was brought to debate on
May 30, 1791. On June 1, 1791, the Assembly decided to maintain the death
penalty by beheading, although this decision was not free from controversies,
such as the fact that this type of execution could easily transform into torture if
not executed properly. This death penalty was adopted along with punishments
such as forced labor, detention in a maximum-security prison, simple detention,
pillory, civil degradation, wrist amputation, deportation, and red iron marking.
In the early 1792 an executioner from Paris sent a memorandum to the Minister of
Justice in which he stated that for an execution to happen according to the law
and lack any horrible events, it would require a highly skilled executioner and an
offender who complies with the procedure. (p. 186)
On March 20, 1792, the Assembly adopted the use of guillotine to execute
offenders, and on April 25, 1792, it took place the first public execution by
guillotine. These public executions ceased in 1939.
In 1810 the Napoleon Criminal Code reintroduced the usage of torture during
imprisonment, but reduced the number of crimes punishable by death, from 32 to
27. By 1832 the punishments such as wrist amputation, red iron marking, and
exposure at the pillory were taken out of the law.
For a short period of time in 1866, prisoners were forced to wear a straitjacket.
But it was soon forbidden, after a former detainee wrote his memoirs and
mentioned about this method of torture.
If in 1793 the law stipulated the presence of one executioner in every department
of the French judiciary system, by 1832 the number of executioners was reduced
drastically. A decision from March 9, 1849 stated the presence of only one chief
executioner in every Court of Appeal and one deputy executioner in every
department of the Court. (p. 193) And by 1870, the decree from November 25
reduced the existence of executioners to just one chief executioner and five deputy
executioners throughout France.
The Napoleons Code referred to 27 offences punishable by death, but the
revision of the code, which took place in 1832, reduced these offences to 16. By
1848, when the Article 5 of the Constitution was amended, the death penalty for
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civilians was abolished in France. Only in the military justice code the death
penalty was still applicable for those convicted of desertion.
The second world war brought the death penalty through a decree from July 29,
1939, referring that it should be applied for civilian or military attempts against
the state security, in both peace and war times. (p. 195) This decree led to the
adoption of other laws providing the death penalty for other crimes. And the
period before Liberation and the one that followed it were marked by a sharp and
pronounced increase in the death penalty. (p. 197)
Immediately after the war, the exceptional tribunals, the courts, and the high
court became operational and issued numerous condemnations. Over 2,640 death
sentences were pronounced, out of which 768 resulted in executions. This
situation also led to an increased application of the death penalty for crimes in the
common law.
Jean Bloch-Michel pointed out that the number of offenses should not only be
correlated with the increase in the population number or with that of alcoholism,
but also with the increased number of suicides in France. If in 1830 the number of
suicides was 2,084, it reached to about 10,000 in the early twentieth century.
Based on these reflections, we can conclude that abolishing the death penalty is a
matter of political, economic, and social developments, without which a nation is
not eager to deal with, voluntarily.
Just as torture was seen as the maximum limit on the punishment scale, but it got
lowered to the death penalty without torture. Likewise, the scale will be lowered
again to the life imprisonment with hard labor. Those who make this proposal
know that in few years, against life imprisonment will be vigorous protests like it
happens today against death penalty, and they will require a lowering of the
maximum limit, once again. (p. 201)
Although these reflections are correlated to the 17th, 18th, 19th, and the 20th
centuries, they are the legacy on which we still execute in the twenty-first century.
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