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Racializing Mercy: Capital Punishment and Race in Twentieth-Century England and Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2020

Lizzie Seal  and
Alexa Neale Open the ORCID record for Alexa Neale [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

Fifty-seven men of color were sentenced to death by the courts of England and Wales in the twentieth century and were less likely to receive mercy than white contemporaries. Though shocking, the data is perhaps unsurprising considering institutional racism and unequal access to justice widely highlighted by criminologists since the 1970s. We find discourses of racial difference were frequently mobilized tactically in nineteenth- and twentieth-century England and Wales: to support arguments for mercy and attempt to save prisoners from the gallows. Scholars have identified historically and culturally contingent narratives traditionally deployed to speak to notions of lesser culpability. These mercy narratives reveal contemporary ideals and attitudes to gender or class. This article is original in identifying strategic mercy narratives told in twentieth-century England and Wales that called on contemporary tropes about defendants' race. The narratives and cases we explore suggest contemporary racism in the criminal justice system of England and Wales has a longer history than previously acknowledged.

Type
Original Article
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 883 - 910
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society for Legal History

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Footnotes

This article is a product of the project “Race, Racialization and the Death Penalty in England and Wales, 1900–1965” (RPG-2016-352) funded by the Leverhulme Trust, to which the authors express their thanks.

References

1. Calculated from Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1949–1953 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office: 1953), 298–301, 326–27; Home Office Criminal Statistics England and Wales (1900–1965) and authors’ collected data. We use “people of color” in place of “coloured persons” which was the term used in the contemporary sources upon which this article draws, conscious that neither can be used unproblematically. Contemporary terms and their implications are further discussed in the body of the article, see also footnote 61.

2. The Black and Asian population in Britain is estimated to have been 7,000 in 1939, 74,500 in 1951, and 500,000 in 1962; see Webster, Wendy, “Home, Colonial and Foreign: Europe, Empire and the History of Migration in Twentieth-Century Britain,” History Compass 8 (2010): 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Waters, Chris, “‘Dark Strangers in Our Midst’: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947–1963,” Journal of British Studies 36 (1997): 209CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. RC on Capital Punishment (1953), 326. In total, fifty-seven men of color were sentenced to death from 1900 to 1965. Two were found insane post-conviction and sent to Broadmoor, and two successfully appealed against their convictions. Of the remaining fifty-three considered for reprieve, eighteen had their sentences commuted to imprisonment and thirty-five were hanged.

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21. Seal, Capital Punishment, 101. Eight men of color were recommended for mercy by their jury: one was acquitted on appeal, one certified insane, three received mercy, and three were executed.

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40. HO 144/1441/302481/2: Hill, Young (1915), Justice Ridley to Jury; Foreman of Jury, Trial Transcript, 31–32.

41. HO 144/1441/302481: Hill (1915), Report, Ernley Blackwell to Home Secretary, November 24, 1915; Petition, Quilliam and Son [solicitors] to Home Secretary, same date.

42. Conley, Certain Other Countries, 59. The cases from our research do not offer a straight comparison, as they include men born in the Caribbean and on the British mainland.

43. Lorimer, Science, Race Relations and Resistance, 314–21.

44. Seal and Neale, “In His Passionate Way.”

45. HO 144/7470: Khan, Ajun Sherif (1920), Memo, Blackwell to Home Secretary, August 25, 1920.

46. See also Strange, “Introduction,” 9.

47. HO 144/907/176776: See, Lee (1909), Mary Parslow to Home Secretary, March 29, 1909.

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51. TNA, DPP 2/959: Director of Public Prosecutions: Case Papers: Banks (1942), Justice Oliver to Jury, Trial Transcript, 41.

52. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1, 362.

53. DPP 2/959: Banks (1942), Justice Oliver to Jury, Transcript, 40.

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59. Seal, Capital Punishment, 110–13. The project on which this article draws focused on capital cases as defined and tried by the courts of England and Wales and therefore cases of black American servicemen tried by United States courts martial in Britain during the Second World War were not part of the study.

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63. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), P.E.J. Minvalla to Home Secretary, July 26, 1943; and Notes by Justice Humphreys, June 17, 1943.

64. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), Report on Minvalla's petition, Frank Newsam to Home Secretary, July 29, 1943.

65. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), Minvalla to Home Secretary, July 26, 1943.

66. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), Newsam to Home Secretary, July 29, 1943.

67. Ibid.

68. HO 144/22221: Gordon, Horace Beresford (1944–45), Memorandum, Frank Newsam, January 2, 1945.

69. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Horace Gordon examined by J. P. Eddy for defense and cross-examined by Linton Thorp for Prosecution, December 1, 1944, Trial Transcript, 57–69.

70. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Justice Humphreys to Jury, December 1, 1944, Transcript, 79.

71. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Statements, Elvina Morris, September 28, 1944; Private Burton Shaw, September 20, 1944; and Andrew Sopp, September 14, 1944.

72. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Statements: Private Hibbert Hamilton, September 29, 1944; Lance Corporal John Haughn, October 2, 1944; Private Edward Adams and Lance Corporal Charles Jones, October 6, 1944; and Corporal James Fitzmaurice and Evelyn Hutchings, October 10, 1944.

73. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Humphreys to Jury, Transcript, 83.

74. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1, 362.

75. DPP 2/1317: Berry [Philip] (1945), Metropolitan Police Report, Detective Inspector J. Black to Superintendent E. Seymour, January 18, 1945.

76. DPP 2/1317: Berry (1945), Statement, Fred White, January 20, 1945.

77. DPP 2/1317: Berry (1945), Police Report.

78. DPP 2/1317: Berry (1945), Statement, P.C. Cecil Isdell, January 17, 1945. Had police admitted to prompting this comment by questioning Berry in the car it would have been inadmissible in court. It was important to the prosecution because it suggested that he was commenting on the victim having used these epithets, therefore placing him at the scene.

79. DPP 2/1349: Berry, [Philip] Murder appeal (1945), Justice Macnaghten to Jury, Transcript, 78.

80. DPP 2/1349: Berry (1945), Brief for respondent, March 19, 1945. Home Office report unavailable.

81. DPP 2/1349: Berry (1945), D.I. Black cross-examined by Mr O'Sullivan [defence], Transcript, 38.

82. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1 (1901–65), 362.

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84. RC on Capital Punishment (1953), 326.

85. Criminal Statistics England and Wales (1942–1955) and authors’ collected data.

86. Waters, “Dark Strangers,” 207–238.

87. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1, 363, for example “Estridge, William (1955). West Indian … A deliberate, premeditated and ruthless murder the mitigating circ[umstance]s of which w[oul]d not themselves have justified clemency but in view of progress of Abolition Bill – Respited.”

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91. J 82/21: Singh, G. (1956–57) P. Back [defence] to Jury, Transcript, 177–79.

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93. DPP 2/2531: Jordan (1956), Veale to Jury, Transcript (fourth day), 43–51.

94. DPP 2/2531: Jordan (1956), Justice Byrne to Jury, Transcript (fourth day), 52–58 and (fifth day), 2–18.

95. DPP 2/3485: Grey, Oswald (1962), Report: R.B. Stanley [Psychiatrist], Monyhull Hospital, July 19, 1962, to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

96. Notions of post-war Black migrants as rootless and adrift, with homes and family structures in poor condition, identified by Webster and others, contributed to penal-welfarist interpretations of the mental health and intelligence of people of color. Webster, Imagining Home; see also Weston, Janet, Medicine, the Penal System and Sexual Crimes in England, 1919–1960s: Diagnosing Deviance (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 62–64Google Scholar.

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98. HO 291/2171: Grey, Oswald (1962), Newsam to Henry Brooke, November 6, 1962.

99. Perry, London Is the Place for Me, 14–17.

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