QUOTE: “There is one other consideration which I believe should never be
overlooked. If the criminal law of this country is to be respected, it must be
in accordance with public opinion, and public opinion must support it. That
goes very nearly to the root of this question of capital punishment. I cannot
believe or the public opinion (or would I rather call it the public conscience)
of this country will tolerate that persons who deliberately condemn others to
painful and, it may be, lingering deaths should be allow to live…”
[Speech in the House of Lords, 28 April 1948]
AUTHOR: Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard (10 April 1877 - 29 May 1971) was Lord
Chief Justice of England and Wales from 1946 to 1958 and known for his strict
sentencing and conservative views. He was nicknamed the 'Tiger' and
"Justice-in-a-jiffy" for his no-nonsense manner. He once dismissed
six appeals in one hour in 1957.
In 1948 backbench pressure in the House of Commons forced through an
amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to the effect that capital punishment
should be suspended for five years and all death sentences automatically
commuted to life imprisonment. The Bill also sought to abolish judicial
corporal punishment in both its then forms, the cat-o'-nine-tails and the
birch. Goddard attacked the Bill in the House of Lords, making his maiden
speech, saying he agreed with the abolition of, the "cat", but not
birching, which he regarded as an effective punishment for young offenders. He
also disagreed with the automatic commutation of death sentences, believing
that it was contrary to the Bill of Rights.
In a debate, he once referred to a case he had tried of an agricultural
labourer who had assaulted a jeweller; Goddard gave him a short two months'
imprisonment and twelve strokes of the birch because "I was not then
depriving the country of the services of a good agricultural labourer over the
harvest". The suspension of capital punishment was reversed by 181 to 28,
and a further amendment to retain the birch was also passed (though the Lords
were later forced to give way on this issue). As the crime rate continued to
rise, Goddard became convinced that the Criminal Justice Act 1948 was
responsible as it was a 'Gangster's Charter'. He held a strong belief that
punishment had to be punitive in order to be effective, a view also shared at
the time by Lord Denning.
After retiring as Lord Chief Justice, Goddard continued to intervene
occasionally in Lords debates and public speeches to put forward his views in
favour of judicial corporal punishment. On 12 December 1960 he said in the
House of Lords that the law was too much biased in favour of the criminal, as
he was to assert to David Yallop nearly ten years later. Goddard also expressed
his opposition to the legalisation of homosexual acts on 24 May 1965. His
last-ever speech in the House of Lords was in April 1968 at the age of 91,
praising the City of London's law courts.
However, despite stating his opposition to Bentley's execution, Goddard
still expressed his strong support for the death penalty and asserted that the
law was biased in favour of the criminal, as he did almost ten years before.
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