Transcript Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment
The penalty of death for the
commission of a crime.
Capital- means “head”
History of UK Capital
Punishment
In the years after the end of the war in 1945,
there were several notable CP cases.
Either due to
•British media,
• The case's use by the pro- or anti-capital punishment
people
•And the “innocence” of the executed person.
http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/capital_hist.htm
In fact since 1945 three
people have received
posthumous pardons:
Timothy Evans in 1966 and
in 1998 both Mahood
Mattan and Derek Bentley.
After the abolishing of capital
punishment, there have been
several famous cases of
miscarriages of justice which
would have resulted in
executions, if that option had
been available. A good example
of this is the Birmingham Six
case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six
Important Historic Events
• 1808
Samuel Romilly introduced reforms to
abolish CP for crimes
There were more
than 200 CP
offences in the
“Bloody Code”
•1832- 34 abolished for shop lifting
•1861 reduced to 4 crimes – (Murder, Treason,
Arson in dockyards and Piracy with violence.)
1957 Homicide Act
In 1957, the Homicide Act 1957 was passed. This
restricted capital punishment in murder cases to five
types of murder:
• Murder in the course or furtherance of
theft.
• Murder by shooting or causing an
explosion.
• Murder while resisting arrest or during an
escape.
• Murder of a police officer or prison officer.
• Two murders committed on different
occasions.
•1965 abolished for all offences
Unfair?
Capital Punishment
Abolished
The last executions in Britain were of two men on 13
August 1964. Peter Anthony Allen, aged 21, was
hanged in Walton gaol, Liverpool and Gwynne Owen
Evans, aged 24, was hanged in Strangeways,
Manchester. They were both convicted of the murder
of John Alan West, while robbing him in his house on
7 April 1964.
• Parliament then voted to abolish the death penalty
for murder for a five-year experiment in 1965.
• Another vote in 1969 finally made the abolition of the
death penalty for murder "permanent" in Great Britain.
A further vote in 1973 abolished it permanently in
Northern Ireland.
• There have been at least 13 attempts to bring back
hanging for various categories of murder since 1969.
All have failed, and the trend has been towards ever
greater majorities in Parliament for abolition.
• In February 1994, a majority of 197 votes defeated a
proposal to reintroduce the death penalty for the
murder of a police officer on duty.
• Since the abolishing of capital punishment for
murder, the death sentence had remained in force for
treason and piracy with violence. The use of capital
punishment in these two instances was abolished in
1998 under the Crime and Disorder Act.
• On 27 January 1999, the UK Home Secretary (The
Labour MP Jack Straw) signed the 6th protocol of the
European Convention of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
This move formally abolishes the death penalty in the
UK
• Describe the important events leading up
to the abolition of Capital Punishment in
the United kingdom.
(4)KU
Questions
“Capital Punishment is still legal in the united states of America”
Describe in detail two methods of execution used in America. (4) KU
Capital punishment is no longer carried out in the UK. It is, however, still used in
other countries.
Name three countries that still use capital punishment and describe the methods
used in each of the chosen countries
(4) KU
http://www.religioustolerance.org/execut3.htm