Observations on the Criminal Law of England: 7 (The Abolition Classics) - Couverture souple

Hood, Jeff; Romilly, Samuel

Couverture souple

ISBN 13 : 9798235593428

Editeur : Complicit Press, 2026

Synopsis

In 1810, England had more than two hundred capital offenses on its statute books. Stealing five shillings from a shop was a hanging offense. So was stealing forty shillings from a house. And almost nobody was hanged for either. Of more than eighteen hundred people committed for trial in London for theft from a dwelling in seven years, eight were executed. The law said death. The practice said transportation. Nobody would say why.

Sir Samuel Romilly went to the House of Commons to argue that this was not mercy. It was a lottery.

His case is the one that matters most for anyone looking at an American execution chamber today. A law nobody enforces is not a humane compromise; it is arbitrary power wearing the language of law. Where the selection of who dies is made by unwritten criteria, in private, by officials who never state their reasons, there is no rule at all, only a preference. And a preference cannot be just, because justice means treating like cases alike, and you cannot do that without a public standard for what makes cases alike.

Romilly aimed that argument at William Paley, the philosopher who had defended the English system as ingenious: cast a wide net of capital statutes, then use discretion to pull out the few who really deserve it. This volume contains the demolition of that argument, along with Romilly's account of the innocent, of juries who lied about the value of stolen goods to keep men off the gallows, and of the judge who alone decides who lives.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a theologian and spiritual advisor to death row inmates nationwide. He has accompanied over a dozen men to their executions and was the first spiritual advisor to be present for a nitrogen hypoxia execution. Rev. Hood has been profiled widely, including in the Rolling Stone documentary The Spiritual Advisor. He is the Founder of the Execution Intervention Project.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Complicit Press
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 13: 9798235593428
• Reliure: Tapa blanda
• Nombre de pages: 52
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Allemagne