SIR,—The first page of the current Spectator is a strange
amalgam of enlightened wisdom forcibly expressed and an almost hysterical waspish rancour. With all you say so well on the general question of capital punishment, I believe that a steadily growing public opinion will be in entire and emphatic agreement. But I cannot see any case at all for the passionate assurance with which you state that there can be no slightest doubt that in the particular case under discussion a reprieve should have been granted. This was a deliberate murder, committed of set purpose and admitted to have been deliberately committed, with a fatally reckless disregard for the danger to others. The too readily accepted version of the personal story behind the murder might have been given a very different complexion if the evidence of the other person chiefly concerned had been available; but he was murdered. If capital punishment is ever justifiable I do not see how the Home Secretary can be blamed for holding that it was justifiable here. But that very fact throws into relief the futility of defending it as the sole effective deterrent to murder. For the murderess must have realised, indeed obviously did realise, that her convic- tion would be inevitable and that there was no valid ground for a reprieve.—Yours faithfully,
JOHN W. HARVEY
Claremont Road, Headingley, Leeds, 6
Previous page
