The Death Penalty

a Criminal Justice Bill. Sir Hartley Shawcross Attorney-General, moved that the House should disagree with the Lords' amendment to delete Clause I (suspension of the death penalty for murder). He urged the merits of the Government's proposal to recognize two categories of murder?the capital and non-capital. He thought that juries would have no difficulty in deciding whether a murder came into one of the five classes for which capital punishment was reserved : (1) Those committed in connection with robbery, burglary, or house breaking (gangster offences); wounding by three or more persons acting together; offences committed with explosive or destructive substances; rape, indecent assault and sodomy; (2) murder of a police officer, or a civilian who was assisting a police officer in the execution of the law; (3) poisoning when the poison had been systematically administered; (4) the murder of a prison officer; and (5) second murders. Mr. Winston Churchill said that the Government's clause would weaken the jury's sense of responsibility and introduce distinctions that would puzzle and baffle them, while its inconsistencies and absurdities would tend to bring the law into disrepute. The most frequent-types of murder, such as wounding, stabbing, and drowning, and the most wicked murders, would not carry the death penalty. Sir John Anderson thought the new clause was unsatisfactory because it sought to substitute a rigid and elaborate statutory code for the existing flexible, well-tried system. He thought that the words ' express malice' would give rise to serious difficulty. The only possible and sensible course for those who believed that the capital sentence was