Everything about Capital Punishment In New Zealand totally explained
Capital punishment in New Zealand was introduced in 1842, shortly after European settlement began. It was last used in
1957, abolished for murder in
1961, and abolished altogether, including for treason, in
1989. During that period of effect, 85 people were
executed.
Method
The method of execution in New Zealand was
hanging. At first, there were many possible execution sites all around the country, but later, the only two cities in which hangings could be carried out were
Wellington (the capital) and
Auckland (the largest city). Initially, there was no professional hangman employed—the executioner was simply chosen from among any who were deemed qualified. On occasion, convicted criminals were employed as hangmen, often in exchange for reduced sentences or monetary reward. In
1877, however, the sheriff of
Blenheim recommended that a professional executioner be hired. Tom Long, an
Irishman who claimed to have been an executioner in
Australia, was hired as New Zealand's first official hangman. He was the only official hangman to be publicly known; others chose to remain anonymous.
History
The first person to be sentenced to death by a court in New Zealand was a
Māori youth named Kihi, who was found guilty of murdering a white shepherd. However, Kihi died of
dysentery before the sentence could be carried out. The first person to actually be executed was Wiremu Kingi Maketu, who was found guilty of murdering several people on
Motuarohia Island, in the
Bay of Islands. The people killed were the wife, son and foster daughter of Captain John Roberton (who predeceased them), who was accused of swindling and kidnapping Māori from the
Chatham Islands—Maketu appears to have been acting in revenge. He was sentenced to death by an all-white jury (his defence had wanted a half-white, half-Māori jury) in an
Auckland court. Maketu was executed in March
1842.
All but one of the 85 people executed were men; the sole woman was
Minnie Dean, found guilty of
infanticide in
1895. All but one of the executions were of convicted murderers—the only exception was
Hamiora Pere, who was convicted of
treason. The last person to be executed in New Zealand was
Walter James Bolton, who was found guilty of poisoning his wife. He was executed on
February 17,
1957.
Abolition
When the
Labour Party formed its first government following the
1935 elections, it commuted all death sentences to
life imprisonment. In
1941, the Crimes Amendment Act changed the penalty for murder from death to life imprisonment with
hard labour. The only crimes for which the death penalty would still apply were
treason and
piracy.
Eventually, however, the Labour Party lost power to the more conservative
National Party, which had pledged to reintroduce capital punishment. During the time that the National Party was in office, 36 people were convicted of murder, and 22 of those were sentenced to death. The final decision on executions rested with
Cabinet, however, and only eight of the condemned were actually put to death.
According to Department of Justice historian Pauline Engel, the British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1953) may have heavily influenced the rise of abolitionism, as did the controversies that surrounded the executions of Harry Whiteland and Edward Te Whiu, which raised questions about post-war trauma, intellectual and developmental disability as factors for leniency. Thus, a National Committee for Abolition of the Death Penalty was formed in November 1956, with branches in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Engel and Maureen Goring have drawn attention to the involvement of Protestant Christian opposition to capital punishment. In 1941 and 1951, the Christian Social Justice League, Christchurch Anglican Diocesan Synod and Methodist Public Questions Committee all supported abolitionism, as did individual Catholics, although their hierarchy would remain neutral during the course of this debate. The New Zealand Theosophical Society also opposed capital punishment, and the Churches of Christ and Baptist Union also declared their opposition in the late fifties. As religious opposition grew, it provided opponents of capital punishment with an organisational base that was used to good effect.
In
1956, a proposal for a referendum on capital punishment was put forward by the
Minister of Justice,
Jack Marshall. This referendum was to be voted on during the
1957 general elections, but the proposal was defeated. The elections saw a short-lived Labour government elected, but no changes were made before the National Party regained power in the
1960 elections.
In
1961, the National Party reaffirmed its support for the death penalty, although restricted its use to premeditated murders, murders committed during another crime, and murders committed during an escape from custody. The issue of capital punishment generated debate within the National Party—the then Minister of Justice in the
Second National Government who was responsible for introducing the new Crimes Bill,
Ralph Hanan, was an opponent of the death penalty, while Jack Marshall, then
Deputy Prime Minister, was a strong supporter.
The issue came to a
conscience vote in Parliament, and ten National MPs
crossed the floor to vote with the Labour Party. The result was a majority of 11 against capital punishment (41 to 30). The ten National MPs were: Rev
Ernest Aderman,
Gordon Grieve,
Ralph Hanan,
Duncan MacIntyre,
Robert Muldoon,
Herbert Pickering,
Logan Sloane,
Brian Talboys, Mrs
Esme Tombleson and
Herbert John Walker. The death penalty was thereby abolished for murder, being retained only for treason and other similar acts.
These last remnants of the death penalty which were rarely used (only one person had been hanged for treason) were finally abolished under a Labour government in
1989. Occasional calls still surface for it to be reintroduced, but no major political party has made capital punishment part of its manifesto.
While the (defunct) fundamentalist
Christian Heritage New Zealand party did so, it only ever commanded one to two percentage points of public support in most opinion polls until its dissolution in
2006. Even then, New Zealand evangelical Christians disagreed profoundly about capital punishment amongst one another, as
The Kiwi Party (formerly
Future New Zealand), didn't agree with its counterpart fundamentalist party over any restoration of capital punishment. Many otherwise conservative Catholics also opposed restoration of the death penalty.
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