Capital punishment in Australia
During the 19th century, crimes that could carry a death sentence included burglary, sheep stealing, forgery, sexual assaults, murder and manslaughter, and there is one reported case of someone being executed for "being illegally at large".
[5] Most jurisdictions removed capital punishment as a sentence for homosexual activity, although in Victoria it remained as such when committed while also inflicting bodily harm or to a person younger than the age of fourteen until 1949.
On 11 March 2010, Federal Parliament passed laws that prevent the death penalty from being reintroduced by any state or territory in Australia.
[citation needed] The Australian administration of Nauru as a League of Nations mandate applied the criminal code of Queensland as at 1 July 1921, which allowed for capital punishment.
[11] Papua administrator Hubert Murray wrote to Prime Minister James Scullin in 1930 emphasising the need for retention of the death penalty, stating:[12] In Papua the position of the European is that of a small garrison, upholding the cause of civilization among a more or less hostile or indifferent population of primitives; and obviously the lives of this small garrison and the honour of the women must be protected.
A failure to afford an adequate protection would jeopardise the cause of civilization, and might bring about the horrors of a racial war.Executions were carried out infrequently in Papua, with none from 1916 to 1930 and two in the 1930s.
[7] The last execution under the Australian administration of Papua New Guinea took place in Lae in November 1957, when Aro was hanged for the murder of his two wives.
[13] Death remained the mandatory sentence for wilful murder until 1965, when it was abolished by the Papua New Guinea House of Assembly.
[14] In 1907, the Deakin government approved an amendment to the Queensland criminal code as applied in Papua, to allow for the resumption of public executions.
At least 22 civilians were publicly executed in New Guinea in 1943 and 1944, with the death sentences approved by Australian commander Edmund Herring.
[11] The last execution in New South Wales was carried out on 24 August 1939, when John Trevor Kelly was hanged at Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Centre for the murder of Marjorie Constance Sommarlad.
[20] Two Ngarrindjeri men were controversially executed by hanging along the Coorong on 22 August 1840, after a drumhead court-martial conducted by Police Commissioner O'Halloran on the orders of Governor George Gawler.
Her body was not released to the family and was buried between the inner and outer walls of the prison, identified by a number and the date of the execution.
In the late 1950s, Don Dunstan became well known for his campaign against the death penalty being imposed on Max Stuart, who was convicted of rape and murder of a young girl, opposing then-Premier Thomas Playford IV over the matter.
In 1976, under the premiership of then-Premier Dunstan, the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA)[22] was modified so that the death sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
In the early days of colonial rule, Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land, was the site of penal transports.
The last execution was on 14 February 1946, when serial rapist and killer Frederick Thompson was hanged for the murder of eight-year-old Evelyn Maughan.
[25] Victoria's first executions occurred in 1842 when two Aboriginal men, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, were hanged outside the site of the Melbourne Gaol for the killing of two whalers in the Westernport district.
The beam was reinstalled at the Old Melbourne Gaol in August 2000, although the trapdoor had been modified during installation at Pentridge and no longer fitted.
[32] In Western Australia, the first legal executions were under Dutch VOC law on 2 October 1629 on Long Island, Houtman Abrolhos (near Geraldton), when Jeronimus Corneliszoon and six others were hanged as party to the murders of 125 men, women and children.
"It is the sentence of this court that you be returned to your former custody, and at a time and place appointed by the Governor-in-Council, that you be hanged by the neck till you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul".
In the 2002 case of the Bali bombers, then prime minister John Howard stated that Australians expected their execution by Indonesia.
On various occasions, the media and public express support for capital punishment for the most heinous of crimes including mass murder such as in the cases of the Milat Backpacker Murders and the Bryant Port Arthur massacre, in which a total of 35 people were killed stirring strong emotions as to whether or not to reintroduce the death penalty.
[38][39] The results of the poll are as follows: In 2014 another public opinion survey was conducted by Roy Morgan Research where responders were given the question: "If a person is convicted of a terrorist act in Australia which kills someone should the penalty be death?"
The poll showed a small majority of Australians (52.5%) favoured the death penalty for deadly terrorist acts in Australia while 47.5% did not.
