Capital Punishment

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Capital Punishment
The penalty of death for the commission of a
crime.
Capital- means head
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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.ht
m
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• In fact since 1945 three people have received
  posthumous pardons Timothy Evans in 1966 and in
  1998 both Mahood Mattan and Derek Bentley.

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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
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Important Historic Events

• 1808 Samuel Romilly introduced reforms to
  abolish CP for crimes
• 1832- 34 abolished for shop lifting
• 1861 reduced to 4 crimes (Murder, Treason,
• Arson in dockyards and Piracy with violence.)

There were more than 200 CP offences in the
Bloody Code
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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.

Unfair?

• 1965 abolished for all offences

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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.
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• 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.

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• 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

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• Describe the important events leading up to the
  abolition of Capital Punishment in the United
  kingdom.
  
• 
  (4)KU

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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