60 years ago on this
date, 10 July 1956, Chief Justice Rayner Goddard gave a speech in the House of
Lords, defending the use of the death penalty. Here are some of his quotes:
QUOTE: “The supreme crime should carry the supreme penalty.”
QUOTE: “My
sentiments are more in favour of the victim than they are of the murderer.
There is a tendency nowadays when any matter of criminal law is discussed to
think far more of the criminal than his victim.”
QUOTE: “Is
this the time to remove what rightly or wrongly the police and prison service
believe to be their main protection against attack? We have to remember that
our police are armed with a short baton, the only weapon they have against
these gunmen and other people who do not hesitate to shoot and take the lives
of policemen. If this (Death Penalty Abolition) bill passes I am sure it will
encourage resignation from the police forces and make recruitment more difficult.”
QUOTE: Lord
Goddard recalled a brutal assault on a wife in which the accused said, “If it was not that I would swing for you, I would do you
in.”
He went on, “That is the sort of thing the death penalty prevents. I do
not want to joke in this matter, but would be the effect on such people if they
knew that they would be sent to a sanatorium or some other comfortable place if
they committed murder?”
QUOTE: “I
believe the fear of the rope, as it is generally called among certain classes,
is a very great deterrent.”
QUOTE: “If
this bill passed, judges will not be able to give any greater punishment for
deliberate murder than they can give now for burglary, for breaking into a
church (sacrilege), or for forging a will.”
QUOTE: The Lord
Chief Justice recalled the case when a bandit caught after a chase in London
fired low at a young constable. “He fired low because
he knew what the consequences would be if he murdered the policeman. When he
was arrested his first question was, ‘Is the copper dead?’ That is what he was
afraid of…These instances make me say with all the earnestness I can command:
do not gamble with the lives of the police.” [Speech
in the House of Lords, 10 July 1956]
QUOTE: “Are these people to be
kept alive?”
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