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Public Opinion and the French Capital Punishment Debate of 1908

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 June 2014

James M. Donovan
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Extract

Academics have traditionally associated capital punishment most closely with authoritarian regimes. They have assumed an incompatibility between the death penalty and the presumably humane values of modern liberal democracy. However, recent scholarship on the United States by David Garland has suggested that a considerable degree of direct democratic control over a justice system actually tends to favor the retention and application of the death penalty. The reason why the United States has retained capital punishment after it has been abolished in other Western nations is not because public opinion is more supportive of the death penalty in America than in Europe or in Canada. Rather, it is because popular control over the justice system is greater in the United States than in other countries and this strengthens the influence of America's retentionist majority. However, the experience of the United States in this regard has not been unique. The same link between democratic control and retention of the death penalty can be seen in the history of the effort to abolish capital punishment in France. In 1908, a bill in the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the French Parliament) to abolish capital punishment was defeated, in large part because of strong opposition from the public. In 1981, majority public opinion in France still favored retention of the death penalty, but in that year, the nation's Parliament defied popular sentiment and outlawed the ultimate punishment. Historians have so far provided little insight into why abolition succeeded in 1981 when it failed in 1908. The explanation for the different outcome appears to have been the greater degree of influence public opinion exerted over the nation's justice system at the turn of the twentieth century than at its end.

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Law and History Review , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , August 2014 , pp. 575 - 609
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2014 

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50. Ibid., 92.

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56. Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 230–32; and Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics, 268.

57. Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, July 3, 1908, 35.

58. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 6–7, 11, 13–14, 22–24, 27, 32, 35, 37, 44, 48–50, 52–53; July 8, 1908, 62; November 4, 1908, 66, 68–71, 73, 76, 82, 84, 88, 91–93, 96–102, 105, 109, 113–14, 116–17, 119, 125–27, 131, 133, 136–43, 147–48, 158, 160–63, 166, 170–71; November 11, 1908, 180, 185, 187, 189–90, 192, 197–211, 213–15, 217, 221; November 18, 1908, 225–30, 232–33, 235, 241–42, 244–46, 252–53, 256; December 7, 1908, 273, 278, 280, 286–91, 294, 300–01, 317–18, 325, 339–41.

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62. Ibid., December 7, 1908, 291.

63. Ibid., December 7, 1908, 285.

64. Ibid., July 3, 1906, 31.

65. Ibid., December 7, 1908, 284.

66. Ibid., December 7, 1908, 285.

67. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 31.

68. Ibid., November 18, 1908, 235.

69. Ibid., November 18, 1908, 240.

70. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 37; November, 4, 1908, 96–101, 136–40, 161–62; November 11, 1908, 211; November 18, 1908, 226–28.

71. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 139.

72. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 142–43.

73. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 138; November 11, 1908, 203–10.

74. Ibid., November 11, 1908, 210.

75. Savey–Casard, La peine de mort, 87–88.

76. Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, July 3, 1908, 28–29, 47, 52, 54–55; November 4, 1908, 72–74, 82, 109, 112, 127–28, 146–47, 152, 154, 157; November 11, 1908, 217–18; November 18, 1908, 240–41, 256–57; December 7, 1908, 292–93, 297, 301–04.

77. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 28; November 4, 1908, 112, 128, 147.

78. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 112; November 11, 1908, 188–90; December 7, 1908, 288–89.

79. Ibid., November 11, 188–90. The quote is on 189.

80. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 55; November 4, 1908, 72, 152; November 11, 1908, 218; November 18, 1908, 257; December 7, 1908, 292.

81. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 152.

82. Ibid., November 11, 1908, 218.

83. Ibid., December 7, 1908, 292.

84. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 55.

85. Zeldin, Theodore, France 1848–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 1: 360.

86. Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, November 11, 1908, 196.

87. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 3, 5, 34–36; July 8, 1908, 56; November 4, 1908, 102–3, 105; November 11, 1908, 185, 192, 196, 221; November 18, 1908, 230; December 7, 1908, 290, 314, 341.

88. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 5; July 8, 1908, 56; November 4, 1908, 102–3, 105, 146, 159; November 11, 1908, 192; December 7, 1908, 314.

89. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 103, 105, 146; December 7, 1908, 314.

90. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 36; November 4, 1908, 103.

91. Ibid., July 3, 1908, 41–42; November 4, 1908, 103, 146; December 7, 1908, 314, 342.

92. Ibid., July 8, 1908, 56; December 7, 1908, 290, 314.

93. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 118, 167; November 11, 1908, 180, 208–09, 216; December 7, 1908, 296, 317, 326, 328.

94. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 118; Nov. 11, 1908, 180–81; December 7, 1908, 317, 326.

95. Ibid., November 11, 1908, 193, 211, 214, 216, 219; November 18, 1908, 250, 263; December 7, 1908, 295–96.

96. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 126; November 18, 1908, 235, 238–39.

97. Ibid., December 8, 1908, 348–49.

98. Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 240–41; Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics, 299–300; and Le Quang Sang, La loi et le bourreau, 111.

99. Badinter, “Autour du débat,” 8; Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics, 268–74; Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 218–19, 223–27, 240; and Le Quang Sang, La loi et le bourreau, 159–73; and Wright, Between the Guillotine and Liberty, 171–72.

100. Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, November 11, 1908, 216.

101. Le Petit Parisien, November 5, 1907.

102. Le Quang Sang, La loi et le bourreau, 72–73.

103. Le Quang Sang lists no less than 130 of these in the years 1907–8. Ibid., 242–47.

104. Donovan, James M., “The Changing Composition of Juries in France, 1791–1913,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History: Selected Papers of the Annual Meeting 23 (1996): 262Google Scholar.

105. Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, July 3, 1908, 17–18; November 4, 1908, 77, 117.

106. Ibid., November 18, 1908, 262.

107. Ibid., November 4, 1908, 143.

108. Wright, Between the Guillotine and Liberty, 171.

109. Le Quang Sang, La loi et le bourreau, 50–52, 64, 242.

110. The formal abolition of the death penalty for infanticide in 1901 made very little difference to the number or proportion of persons convicted of capital crimes who were sentenced to death, as juries from the start rarely sentenced to the guillotine persons they found guilty of infanticide. From 1832 through 1890, only seventy-six persons were sentenced to death for the crime, and none were after 1890. Donovan, James M., “Infanticide and the Juries in France, 1825–1913,” Journal of Family History 16 (1991): 165Google Scholar.

111. Wolf, John B., France 1814–1919: The Rise of a Liberal-Democratic Society (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 366Google Scholar.

112. The annual average number of convictions for capital crimes peaked at 371 in the years 1851–60, fell to 326 in 1861–70, rose slightly to 342 in 1871–80, dropped to 270 in 1881–90, then to 195 in 1891–1900, and to only 123 in 1901–5. Compte général, 1851–60, Table 6, p. 13; 1861–70, Table 6, p. 15; 1871–73, Table 6, p. 17; 1874–85, Table 7, p. 25; 1886–1905, Table 7, p. 19.

113. Compte général, 1905–8, Table 12, p. 26.

114. Le Quang Sang, La loi et le bourreau, 242–47.

115. Ibid., 48–49; and Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 220.

116. Donovan, James M., Juries and the Transformation of Criminal Justice in France in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 13–14Google Scholar, 40–41, 58–60, 121–22; and idem, “Magistrates and Juries in France, 1791–1952,” French Historical Studies 22 (1999): 386–87Google Scholar.

117. Le Naour cites two examples from newspapers. In one case, the président of the cour d'assises of the department of the Gironde said “your sentiment is mine” to the jurors who delivered to him their antiabolitionist statement (“Pour le maintien de la peine de mort,” La Presse, March 1, 1907, 1). In the other case, the président of the court of Aix-en-Provence received a delegation of jurors who came to protest the pardon of four men of Marseille whom the court had sentenced to death. The judge reportedly said to the jurors: “I do not know, gentlemen, if in the annals of our Court of Appeals one could find confirmation of letters of pardon accorded to four persons condemned to death. I also ask if in the annals of crime one could note so many crimes as those which trouble the second city [Marseille] of France” (H. Montclar “La peine de mort: Doit-on la supprimer? Faut-il la maintenir,” Le Petit Parisien, March 28, 1907), 1. In either case, the judge spoke after receiving the petitions of jurors. Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 220.

118. Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, November 4, 1908, 77–78.

119. Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 221.

120. Of the 188 persons juries sentenced to death from 1895 through 1905, 114 (60.6%) had committed either assassinat or meurtre accompanied by theft, 20 (8%), had killed in the commission of a rape, and 12 (6.4%) had committed parricide. The other 42 capital offenses (22.3%) were committed for miscellaneous reasons. Compte général, 1895–1905, Table 12, p. 26.

121. “A Travers Paris,” Le Figaro, March 28, 1907, 1; “A Travers Paris,” Ibid., June 2, 1907, 1; and “Chronique des Tribunaux,” Le Gaulois, May 2, 1907, 3.

122. According to figures compiled by Le Quang Sang, juries of the cour d'assises of the Seine department (Paris) issued sixteen pro-death penalty petitions in the years 1907–8, far more than the juries in any other department. La loi et le bourreau, 57, 243–46.

123. “Pour le maintien de la peine de mort,”Le Siècle, May 19, 1907, 3; “Gazette des Tribunaux,” Le Figaro, Augut 1, 1907, 4; “Gazette des Tribunaux,” Ibid., August 15, 1907, 4; “Gazette des Tribunaux,” Ibid., September 1, 1907; “Gazette des Tribunaux,” Ibid., November 1, 1907, 5; “Tribunaux,”l'Aurore, October 16, 1907; 2, and “Le jury et la peine de mort,” l'Echo de Paris, September 28, 4, “Chronique des Tribunaux,” Ibid.,November 16, 1907, 4; “La peine de mort et le jury,” Ibid., October 1, 1908, 2.

124. “Le jury et la peine de mort,” l'Echo de Paris, September 28, 1907, 4.

125. “Tribunaux,” l'Aurore, October 16, 1907, 2.

126. “Gazette des Tribunaux,” Le Figaro, November 1, 1907, 3.

127. “Chronique des Tribunaux,” l'Echo de Paris, November 16, 1907, 4.

128. “Le peine de mort et le jury,” Ibid., October 1, 1908, 2.

129. Ouoted in Lacassagne, Peine de mort et criminalité, 159.

130. Quoted by deputy Georges Berry in Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, November 4, 1908, 103.

131. Schnapper, Bernard, “Le Jury français,” in The Trial Jury in England, France, Germany, 1700–1900, ed. Schioppa, Antonio Padoa, (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1987), 213Google Scholar.

132. Whitman, James Q., Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 144Google Scholar.

133. Code pénal, 1791, Aricle XIII.

134. Vouin, Robert and Léaute, Jacques, Droit pénal et criminologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956), 467Google Scholar.

135. Savey–Casard, La peine de mort, 109–11.

136. Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 215.

137. Ibid., 216.

138. In 1898, 222 people were tried for the capital crimes of premeditated murder, poisoning, and parricide, and 230 were tried for second degree or unpremeditated meurtre. In 1907, the number of persons tried for the three capital crimes had increased slightly, to 247, but trials for meurtre had risen sharply to 415. Before 1907, however, the Compte général's tables on accused persons tried in the cours d'assises did not distinguish simple meurtre, which was of course not a capital crime, from meurtre accompanied by another crime, which was punishable by death. Therefore, among the persons tried for meurtre in 1898, some were eligible for the guillotine. In 1907, when the distinction between the two types of unpremeditated murder was first made, 96 persons were tried for meurtre accompanied by another crime. Hence most (319) cases of meurtre in that year were not punishable by death. This was still a considerable increase since 1898, and in that year, cases of noncapital meurtre would have certainly been lower than 230. Compte général, 1898, Table 1, p. 4; 1907, Table 1, p. 4.

139. Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, November 11, 1908, 211.

140. Hanley, John, “The Death Penalty,” in Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy, ed. Persily, Nathaniel, Citrin, Jack, and Egan, Patrick J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 112–14Google Scholar, 120–21.

141. According to Garland, less than 1% of murderers are sentenced to death in the United States, and most of them are never executed. Since executions were resumed in 1977, the highest number implemented in 1 year was ninety-eight, in 1999. In the years from 2000 through 2009, the annual average has been approximately sixty, in a nation where there are more than 14,000 murders every year. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 11, 47, 202.

142. Nye, Crime, Madness, and Politics, 309; and Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 242–43.

143. Wright, Between the Guillotine and Liberty, 178–79.

144. From 1945 through 1952, 395 persons, or an average of 49 per year, were sentenced to death in the cours d'assises. From 1953 through 1964, 140, or an average of only 12 per year, were sentenced to death. From 1965 through 1980, 186 persons were sentenced to death, again an average of 12 per year. Ministère de l'Economie et des Finances, Annuaire statistique de la France: Résumé rétrospectif (Paris: Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, 1966),163Google Scholar; and Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et du Budget, Annuaire Rétrospectif de la France 1948–1988 (Paris: Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, 1990), 634Google Scholar.

145. Le Quang Sang, La loi et le bourreau, 259.

146. Ibid., 254.

147. Garland cites polls in Germany, France, Britain, and Canada showing that approximately two thirds to three quarters of the public in those countries supported the death penalty at the time of abolition or for years after. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 184.

148. Imbert, La peine de mort, 114.

149. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 12, 317n.

150. According to figures compiled by the Department of Justice, African-Americans accounted for 424 (34.4%) of the 1,234 inmates executed in the United States from 1977 through 2010, although they comprised only 12.3% of the total United States population in 2000 and 12.6% in 2010. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Capital Punishment, 2010 Statistical Tables (December 2011, NCJ 236510), Table 9, p. 13; and United States Census Bureau, The Black Population: 2010 (September 2011, C2010BR-06), Table 1, p. 3.

151. Badinter does not, however, show precise figures. Badinter, Robert (trans. Mercer, Jeremy), Abolition: One Man's Fight against the Death Penalty, (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, xviii, 124.

152. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 252–53.

153. Whitman, Harsh Justice, 196.

154. Ibid., 199.

155. Ibid., 200.

156. Ibid., 200–201.

157. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 38, 47–48, 310.

158. Ibid., 49; and Van Caenegem, Raoul C., Judges, Legislators and Professors: Chapters in European Legal History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, 38.

159. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 48–49, 272–80.

160. See, for example, Esmein, Adhemar (trans Jastrow, Rachel Szold), A History of Continental Criminal Procedure with Special Reference to France (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1968), 564Google Scholar; Saleilles, Raymond, The Individualization of Punishment, trans. Rachel Szold Jastrow (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1968), 75–76Google Scholar; and Garçon, Maurice, “Faut-il modifier la composition et les attributions du jury,” Revue de droit pénal et de criminologie 35 (1955): 457–59Google Scholar.

161. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 310.

162. According to an Ipsos Public Affairs Poll of December 1980, 61% of the French favored the death penalty. http://www.ipsos-public affairs/sondages/france-et-peine mort (accessed 5/26/2014). The results of a poll pubished by Le Monde on October 1, 1981 showed that 62% of the French favored the death penalty. Jean-Marie Theolleyre, “La France des 62%”.http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1981/10/01/la-france des 62% (accessed 5/27/2014).

163. Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 354.

164. Imbert, La peine de mort, 79–81.

165. Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 355.

166. Ibid., 356.

167. Thomson, David, Democracy in France Since 1870 (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 104–06Google Scholar; and Wolf, France, 381.

168. Thomson, Democracy in France, 242.

169. Ibid., 246.

170. Nye, Robert, “Two Capital Punishment Debates in France: 1908 and 1981,” Historical Reflections/Réflections Historiques 29 (2003): 213Google Scholar, 223–24, 226–27.

171. Ibid., 226.

172. Donovan, Juries 19, 48–49, 56–61, 66, 110, 131–33, 163–64, 177.

173. Martin, Benjamin F., Crime and Criminal Justice Under the Third Republic: The Shame of Marianne (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 191–233Google Scholar; Ensor, Robert C.K., Courts and Judges in France, Germany, and England (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 40–43Google Scholar.

174. Donovan, “Magistrates and Juries,” 407–8.

175. Donovan, “The Changing Composition of Juries,” 260–61.

176. From 1825 through 1841, an average of 7,477 persons were tried each year in the cours d'assises. In the years from 1894 through 1913, the figure was 3,274, and from 1957 through 1963 it was only 1,173. In the years 1970–1980, the annual average was up to 1,700, although the numbers for these years (unlike the earlier ones ) referred only to those persons who were convicted. Donovan, Juries, 85–86; and Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et du Budget, Annuaire Rétrospectif, 634.

177. Bancaud, Alain, “La cour d'assises pendant le régime de Vichy: une jurisdiction politiquement encombrante,” in La cour d'assises: Bilan d'un héritage démocratique, ed. Association française pour l'histoire de la justice (Paris: La Documentation française, 2001), 55Google Scholar.

178. Gabriel Dupin de Beyssat, Le Jury criminel, son histoire, ses problémes (Cour d'appel d'Orleans, Audience solonnelle de rentrée du 16 septembre 1971), 13–14.

179. Donovan, for example, provides evidence that judges in France in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were much more biased in favor of conviction than were juries. Following the introduction of échevinage in 1941, the conviction rate in the cours d'assises rose rather sharply from its traditional rate of approximately three fifths to three fourths, to approximately nine tenths. Donovan, “Magistrates and Juries,” 384–85, 412–13.

180. Pugh, George W., “Administration of Criminal Justice in France: An Introductory Analysis,” Louisiana Law Review 23 (1963): 6–7Google Scholar; and Royer, Jean-Pierre, Histoire de la justice en France de la monarchie absolue à la République (Paris: Presse Universitaires de France, 1995), 875Google Scholar.

181. Pugh, “Administration of Criminal Justice,” 8.

182. As in the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1808, in the 1958 code, the juge d'instruction was still chosen from among the judges of the bench for a 3 year, renewable term. Kock, Gerald L., trans., The French Code of Criminal Procedure (South Hackensack, NJ: Fred Rothman, 1964), 32Google Scholar.

183. Ibid., 81.

184. The total number of convictions for capital crimes (figures on acquittals are not available) rose from 297 in 1965 to 482 in 1981. Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et du Budget, Annuaire Rétrospectif, 634.

185. Badinter's remarks were published in Le Monde, September 16, 1977, and quoted in Le Naour, Histoire de l'abolition, 320–21.

186. Wright, Between the Guillotine and Liberty, 206–12.

187. These figures are from Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et du Budget, Annuaire Rétrospectif, 634.

188. Badinter, Robert, Abolition :One Man's Fight against the Death Penalty (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2008),159–60Google Scholar.

189. Whereas Le Quang Sang lists more than 100 jury petitions in her chronology of events for 1907–8, there are none for 1981. Le Quang Sang, La loi et le bourreau, 253–54.

190. Garner, “Criminal Procedure in France,” 275n.

191. Un Président d'Assises, “Notes sur le Jury,” La Revue Hebdomadaire 21 (November 1912): 167Google Scholar.

192. Schnapper, “Le Jury français,” 230.

193. Ibid., 231.

194. Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et du Budget, Annuaire Rétrospectif, 635.

195. Vouin, Robert, “The Protection of the Accused in French Criminal Procedure, Pt. 2,” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 5 (1956): 163Google Scholar.

196. Ibid., 164; and Kock, The French Code of Criminal Procedure, 110.

197. Badinter, Abolition, 40.

198. Kock, The French Code of Criminal Procedure, 110.

199. Chambre des députés, Peine de mort. Débat parlementaire, September 17, 1981, 23–24.

200. Ibid., September 17, 1981, 18–20.

201. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 202, 206.

202. Ibid., 120–21.

203. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment, 2010, Statistical Tables NCJ236510, Table 14, www.ojp.usdoj.gov (accessed 1/30/2013)

204. Garland, Peculiar Institution, 50.

205. http://www.gallup.com/poll/144284/Support-Death-Penalty-Cases-Murder.aspx?utm_sour (accessed 2/28/2013).