The Hmm...s on death penalty

I am the precise opposite of a legal eagle, a legal illiterate. Therefore, my musings here must be taken as mere ramblings of an incoherent mind.

In an article in The Hindu [1] I read that one Sushil Sharma who had been handed down a death sentence for murdering his wife and tried to burn her body in a tandoor in a restaurant pleaded in the Supreme Court that “he could not have killed his wife as he was deeply in love with her.” But, the Supreme Court said sorry, but commuted the death sentence to life term “for the rest of his life” [2].

The reasons the Supreme Court advanced for commuting the sentence are given. I tried to understand them and obviously could not. Hence this post. Perhaps someone will read this and help me out.

The murder was the “outcome of strained personal relationship and not an offence against society,” as given in the newspaper report. That is, killing someone you know in a moment of outrage is a protection against being awarded death penalty. Hmm…

“The appellant has no criminal antecedents. He is (sic) [my italics] not a confirmed criminal [my italics] and no evidence is led by the state to indicate that he is likely to revert to such crimes [my italics] in future.” This is quoted from the judgment, as I understand it. The court is perhaps hedging. It implies that if released, Sushil Sharma may indulge in other types of crimes! Hmm…

It adds, “It is, therefore, not possible to say there is no chance of the appellant being reformed or rehabilitated.” The criminal (notwithstanding what the learned judges said, Sushil Sharma is a confirmed criminal as he has been pronounced guilty by the court) did not acknowledge that he had murdered his wife; yet, the judges think he can be “reformed or rehabilitated.” Hmm…

Even with the caveat that it is only a passing concern, the judgment says, “the appellant is the only son of his parents, who are old and infirm.” Quite touching, but only till you recognize that a similar argument by the wife of the convicted was rejected in the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee some years ago. Hmm…

Sushil Sharma had “spent more than 10 years in death cell.” Well, given the speed of disposing capital cases, ten years is almost like a blink of an eye. So, it is better for death row convicts to delay their case coming up in the Supreme Court. Hmm…

“[B]rutality alone will not justify the death sentence in this case [my italics].” In which cases would it? Hmm…

The “social status” of the victim made it difficult for the judges to conclude that “the appellant was in a dominant position qua [italics in the original] her.” To add, “She [the victim] was not a poor illiterate hapless woman.” That is, if the victim is rich, literate and hapful (?), the murderer escapes the gallows. Hmm…

Given all the above “Hmm…”s, I changed my position.

Bring on the gallows! Train more hangmen (and, hangwomen too). I am all for death penalty.

Raghuram Ekambaram

P.S. The above is merely to highlight what this legal illiterate considers the entrenched arbitrariness in the process of awarding the death penalty. Hence, my sincere conclusion, notwithstanding how I concluded the post, is “Abolish the death penalty, a blot on society.”

References

1.    Extreme possessiveness drove Sharma to murder his wife: SC, The Hindu, October 9, 2013.

2.    SC spares Sushil Sharma the noose in tandoor murder case, J. Venkatesan, The Hindu, October 9, 2013.