ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a critical analysis of the Ruth Ellis appeal which took place in 2003, 48 years after her execution. It seeks to arrive at a deeper understanding of how it came to be that a case that caused considerable controversy even in 1955. Ruth Ellis shot her lover David Blakely on Easter Sunday in 1955. The transcripts from the trial and appeal of Ruth Ellis provide a critical analysis of this issue. The purpose of the analysis is to uncover continuities and changes in subject positions available to women who have killed over the past five decades. An appeal was not sought after the trial and Ruth Ellis was executed on 13 July 1955, three weeks after being sentenced to death. Ellis appeal ruling serves as an illustrative example of Nicolson's claim that what the law giveth, the law taketh away'.
