THE JURY didn't want Derek Bentley to hang. They had listened to the cocky, almost boastful evidence of 16-year-old Christopher Craig in the witness-box, casually admitting to owning 40 guns and frankly accepting that he had been the instigator of the criminal enterprise that had resulted in his killing PC Sidney Miles. They had contrasted that with the 19-year-old Bentley's pathetic, child-like performance, showing in nearly every answer his lack of comprehension, his low IQ, his mental dullness. The jury knew that Craig could not hang because of his age; and for Bentley, they recommended that he be shown mercy. Unfortunately, Bentley had the bad luck to be tried and sentenced by one of the last of the hanging judges, Rayner Goddard, the Lord Chief Justice.
We don't have hanging judges today. There are, to be sure, judges who support the death penalty and would be prepared to impose it. But the concept of the hanging judge implied more than mere support for capital punishment. It meant an unwavering belief in "an eye for an eye", a refusal to accept that the act of killing could have any mitigating circumstances, an enthusiasm for putting on the black cap before announcing an imminent execution, and an element of sadistic pleasure in ordering a fellow human being's death.
Lord Goddard fitted all the criteria. A brilliant lawyer, he was also a domineering bully with viciously punitive views on all aspects of criminal justice policy. His idea of fun, after a legal dinner, was to take part in a "boat race", in which two groups of lawyers and judges would arrange themselves on the dining-hall floor in the formation of a rowing eight, and shuffle on their bottoms towards a finishing line. More sinister and perverted was his habit, according to his clerk, of ejaculating when passing a death sentence, so that a fresh pair of trousers had to be brought to court on those occasions.
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