ABSTRACT
Chapter 12 brings the history of capital punishment to a close. The anomalies of the Homicide Act 1957 were so indefensible that even the Lord Chief Justice and his judicial colleagues withdrew their support, and were heard favouring abolition over the status quo. The number of executions each year dropped into single figures; yet public opinion remained staunchly retentionist. When in 1964, Labour returned to office, after 13 years in Opposition, it seemed only a matter of time before abolition was successful. Even then, the government had to accept suspending the death penalty for five years rather than outright abolition. The penalty for murder would now be the indeterminate sentence of life imprisonment, which gave the Home Secretary full discretion to determine the prisoner’s date of release. This did not sit well with the judges, who tried in the House of Lords, first to allow the trial judge to give a fixed sentence for murder, and secondly, to give courts a power to recommend a minimum period during which the prisoner should not be released. They were successful with the second amendment, and the Commons did not demur. It is clear that judges were uneasy with the executive having the premier role in the sentencing and release of murderers, which the indeterminate life sentence made possible. Judges still wished to have some say in marking the tariff for murder, some chance to air their denunciatory view of punishment. In 1969, Parliament finally agreed to abolish the death penalty. No longer would the gallows cast its long shadow over the entire penal system, in the way it had done until that date. Unfortunately for penal reformers, the final removal of the gallows coincided with a marked turn against the rehabilitative ideal.
