Today, in the U.S., there is a strong desire to restore the death penalty in homicide cases on most premeditated levels. In most states that have a death penalty it is only supposed to be used in murders of police officers and public officials. Certain states use it in any homicide case which fit the minimum for making the perpetrator seem to be planning to kill his victim for some time.
There is no clear right or wrong point on this controversy. Anti-death penalty advocates ignore the damage done to the family and friends of homicide victims, while pro-death penalty supporters forget that there are cases where the perpetrator is not as hopelessly bad as one imagines but had reasons that might mitigate.
It is of interest to Americans to see the same problem has and bedeviled other nations. In particular Great Britain. From 1950 - 1960 a series of great homicide cases shook up British belief in capital punishment. Some have been the subject of movies.
The first was the Christie / Evans Tragedy that was the subject of the film 10 RILLINGTON PLACE. Christie, a strangler and necrophiliac, killed over a dozen women burying the corpses in the walls and garden of his home. Two of the victims appear to be Mrs. Evans and her baby daughter. But Christie had been the chief witness for the prosecution of Timothy Evans for these murders in 1950. His testimony sent Evans to the gallows. Christie followed three years later. It took nearly a decade for the British Government to admit an error in executing Evans, who was posthumously rehabilitated.
In 1954 came the Craig - Bentley tragedy, the subject of the film LET HIM HAVE IT. Chris Craig, a youth of about 15, went on a criminal spree, followed by his mentally challenged playmate Derek Bentley (age 19). Chris hated policeman, and he and Bentley were cornered on a roof. Bentley was in police custody, and seeing a constable confronting the armed Chris shouted, "Let him have it, Chris!" The meaning of this sentence is in dispute to this day. Most likely Bentley was telling Chris to hand the gun to the constable. Instead, Chris shot and killed the Constable. Chris was underage, and could not be put to death. Bentley (who you remember was in police hands at the time of the shooting), was of the right age for possible execution. He was tried, convicted, and executed. Craig served a long term for a juvenile, was released, and eventually became a farmer.
The following year came this story: the Ellis - Blakeney tragedy. There have been other female killers who have been executed in Britain before Ruth Ellis. Edith Thompson, in the 1920s, comes closest to her in sympathy because she was a remarkable woman, and her conviction for killing her husband seemed due to her jury trying her more for adultery with the actual killer (her lover Frederick Byswater) than proof that she tried to murder her husband Percy (whom Byswater eventually did kill). She appears to have been in a physical state of collapse when she was hanged in 1922. More sympathy had been shown to Alma Rattenbury in 1935 when she and her lover were tried for killing her husband Frances, a prominent architect. She was acquitted (her lover got the death sentence), but she committed suicide thinking about the lover - who, ironically, was given a reduced sentence.
Edith Thompson and Alma Rattenbury were both good looking, and talented. Rattenbury was a part-time song composer, and Thompson's letters to Byswater shows a remarkable intellect at work. Similarly, Ruth Ellis was a good looking blonde, who was helping to run a social club (i.e. bar). She had a boy and a girl, and was cool and collected looking on the outside, but capable of having real emotional turmoil on the inside. She met an upper class amateur racing driver named David Blakeley, and they had a romance. But he dropped her, basically at the advice of his upper-crust friends and family. Ellis could not get him out of her system (despite the attempts of her friend and boss Desmond Cusins, who wanted to marry Ellis himself). Eventually, after Blakely and she had several public scenes, Ellis shot him to death on a public street. When asked later on (at her trial) if she intended to only wound him, she admitted she wanted to kill him. She was found guilty and hanged. But there was a tremendous uproar from the public. It was a typical French-style crime passion-ale, and deserved different treatment from say a murder connected to a robbery. As a result of the large revulsion felt by the British public, Ruth Ellis turned out to be the last woman in Great Britain to be executed.
The top three roles are Miranda Richardson as the doomed Ruth, wishing that she could get the right signals back from the self-centered Blakeney (superbly played by Rupert Everett). Between them they let Americans understand the crazy state of snobbery that exists in Britain even after two World Wars and the collapse of it's leadership position in the world. Blakeney does not really need too much convincing to dump Ruth - his friends the Findlaters (Tom Chadbon and Jane Bertish) put up the social pressure to do it (Ruth later blames the tragedy on their meddling). As for Cusins (Ian Holm) he is a man of abilities and some position who is hopelessly in love with a woman who won't look in his direction (but he's always ready to return being the doormat or helper of the same woman). It is a fascinating view of a doomed trio of losers, who could not break out of their interconnections and their incompatibilities.
There is no clear right or wrong point on this controversy. Anti-death penalty advocates ignore the damage done to the family and friends of homicide victims, while pro-death penalty supporters forget that there are cases where the perpetrator is not as hopelessly bad as one imagines but had reasons that might mitigate.
It is of interest to Americans to see the same problem has and bedeviled other nations. In particular Great Britain. From 1950 - 1960 a series of great homicide cases shook up British belief in capital punishment. Some have been the subject of movies.
The first was the Christie / Evans Tragedy that was the subject of the film 10 RILLINGTON PLACE. Christie, a strangler and necrophiliac, killed over a dozen women burying the corpses in the walls and garden of his home. Two of the victims appear to be Mrs. Evans and her baby daughter. But Christie had been the chief witness for the prosecution of Timothy Evans for these murders in 1950. His testimony sent Evans to the gallows. Christie followed three years later. It took nearly a decade for the British Government to admit an error in executing Evans, who was posthumously rehabilitated.
In 1954 came the Craig - Bentley tragedy, the subject of the film LET HIM HAVE IT. Chris Craig, a youth of about 15, went on a criminal spree, followed by his mentally challenged playmate Derek Bentley (age 19). Chris hated policeman, and he and Bentley were cornered on a roof. Bentley was in police custody, and seeing a constable confronting the armed Chris shouted, "Let him have it, Chris!" The meaning of this sentence is in dispute to this day. Most likely Bentley was telling Chris to hand the gun to the constable. Instead, Chris shot and killed the Constable. Chris was underage, and could not be put to death. Bentley (who you remember was in police hands at the time of the shooting), was of the right age for possible execution. He was tried, convicted, and executed. Craig served a long term for a juvenile, was released, and eventually became a farmer.
The following year came this story: the Ellis - Blakeney tragedy. There have been other female killers who have been executed in Britain before Ruth Ellis. Edith Thompson, in the 1920s, comes closest to her in sympathy because she was a remarkable woman, and her conviction for killing her husband seemed due to her jury trying her more for adultery with the actual killer (her lover Frederick Byswater) than proof that she tried to murder her husband Percy (whom Byswater eventually did kill). She appears to have been in a physical state of collapse when she was hanged in 1922. More sympathy had been shown to Alma Rattenbury in 1935 when she and her lover were tried for killing her husband Frances, a prominent architect. She was acquitted (her lover got the death sentence), but she committed suicide thinking about the lover - who, ironically, was given a reduced sentence.
Edith Thompson and Alma Rattenbury were both good looking, and talented. Rattenbury was a part-time song composer, and Thompson's letters to Byswater shows a remarkable intellect at work. Similarly, Ruth Ellis was a good looking blonde, who was helping to run a social club (i.e. bar). She had a boy and a girl, and was cool and collected looking on the outside, but capable of having real emotional turmoil on the inside. She met an upper class amateur racing driver named David Blakeley, and they had a romance. But he dropped her, basically at the advice of his upper-crust friends and family. Ellis could not get him out of her system (despite the attempts of her friend and boss Desmond Cusins, who wanted to marry Ellis himself). Eventually, after Blakely and she had several public scenes, Ellis shot him to death on a public street. When asked later on (at her trial) if she intended to only wound him, she admitted she wanted to kill him. She was found guilty and hanged. But there was a tremendous uproar from the public. It was a typical French-style crime passion-ale, and deserved different treatment from say a murder connected to a robbery. As a result of the large revulsion felt by the British public, Ruth Ellis turned out to be the last woman in Great Britain to be executed.
The top three roles are Miranda Richardson as the doomed Ruth, wishing that she could get the right signals back from the self-centered Blakeney (superbly played by Rupert Everett). Between them they let Americans understand the crazy state of snobbery that exists in Britain even after two World Wars and the collapse of it's leadership position in the world. Blakeney does not really need too much convincing to dump Ruth - his friends the Findlaters (Tom Chadbon and Jane Bertish) put up the social pressure to do it (Ruth later blames the tragedy on their meddling). As for Cusins (Ian Holm) he is a man of abilities and some position who is hopelessly in love with a woman who won't look in his direction (but he's always ready to return being the doormat or helper of the same woman). It is a fascinating view of a doomed trio of losers, who could not break out of their interconnections and their incompatibilities.