Did US judges in death penalty cases ever say May God have mercy on your soul?

[aldiboronti]

In England judges giving sentence of death, right up to the abolition of the death in the 60s, would always say after the sentence, And may God have mercy on your soul. I don’t recall American judges, at least in the movies and TV, ever using this phrase. Was it ever used in the US and if so when did it stop?

[don_t_ask]

The death sentence of Jose Maria Martin in about 1860 sort of includes it, by omission.

And the Court was about to add, Jose Maria Martin, may God have mercy on your soul, but this Court will not assume the responsibility of asking an allwise Providence to do that which a jury of your peers has refused to do. The Lord could not have mercy on your soul.

The couple of pages are well worth reading.

[muldoonthief]

Since you mentioned movies - the judge (or whatever position he had) said it at Tuco’s hanging in “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”

[bob_2]

I wondered if it was true that English judges used these words, so I looked it up. Everything you would ever want to know about who, what, why and how can be found here

Up to 1948 the judge would say “(full name of prisoner) you will be taken hence to the prison in which you were last confined and from there to a place of execution where you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead and thereafter your body buried within the precincts of the prison and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul”. A slight modification was made in 1902, removing the words “the prison in which you were last confined” and substituting “lawful prison”. Around 1947 the judiciary decided that the sentence be modified by the substitution of the words “suffer death by hanging” for “be hanged by the neck until dead” and this sentence continued to be used for those convicted of capital murder up to 1956.

[Evan_Drake]

Well, only some of British prisons had the distinction of having an execution chamber. Kinda the Three Gold Star establishments.
We executed people nearly at the rate of the Americans — hangings were more popular a sport than shootings in the Old West — obviously, most European countries didn’t have high rates of executions in the 19th to 20th centuries until the Bolsheviks and Nazis took over. Then they went nuts for it.

[aldiboronti]

@bob_2

I wondered if it was true that English judges used these words, so I looked it up. Everything you would ever want to know about who, what, why and how can be found here

Great link. Thank you.

[bob_2]

@Evan_Drake

Well, only some of British prisons had the distinction of having an execution chamber. Kinda the Three Gold Star establishments.
We executed people nearly at the rate of the Americans — hangings were more popular a sport than shootings in the Old West — obviously, most European countries didn’t have high rates of executions in the 19th to 20th centuries until the Bolsheviks and Nazis took over. Then they went nuts for it.

From the same source:

At the beginning of the 19th century, there were no fewer than 222 capital crimes, including such terrible offences as impersonating a Chelsea pensioner and damaging London Bridge! [although] there were only about seventeen general offences for which a death sentence was generally carried out in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These included murder, attempted murder, arson, rape, sodomy, forgery, uttering (passing forged or counterfeit monies or bills) coining, robbery, highway robbery (in many cases, this was the offence of street robbery, that we would now call mugging), housebreaking, robbery in a dwelling house, returning from transportation, cutting and maiming (grievous bodily harm) and horse, cattle or sheep stealing. For all the other capital offences, transportation to America or Australia was generally substituted for execution.

Chelsea Pensioners were, and still are, retired soldiers who live in a home in Chelsea, an upmarket part of London (Also the site of the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show). They are distinguished by the distinctive red uniforms they wear.

London Bridge is now in Arizona and I imagine the penalty for damaging it is somewhat more lenient…

[carnivorousplant]

@don_t_ask

The death sentence of Jose Maria Martin in about 1860 sort of includes it, by omission.

The couple of pages are well worth reading.

Judges always seem to be assholes to me.

“When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.” - Winston Churchill

[md2000]

I always thought it was a movie trope about some “hanging judge” that he said “May God have mercy upon your soul, for I shall have none…”

[Shodan]

@Judge Roy Bean

Jose Manuel Miguel Gonzales, in a few short weeks it will be spring.
The snows of winter will flow away, the ice will vanish, the air will become soft and balmy.
The annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass.
The rivulet will run its soaring course to the sea.
The timid desert flowers will put fourth their tender shoots.
The glorious valleys of this imperial domain will blossom as the rose.
From every tree top, some wild songster will carol his mating song.
Butterflies will sport in the sunshine.

But you will not be their to enjoy it. Because I command the sheriff of the county to lead you away to some remote spot, swing you by the neck from a knotting bough of some sturdy oak and let you hang until dead.

And then Jose Manuel Miguel Gonzales, I further command that such officers retire quickly from your dangling corpse, that vultures may descend from the heavens upon your filthy body until nothing is left but the bare, bleached bones of a cold-blooded, blood-thirsty, throat-cutting, mudering S.O.B

Cite.

Judge Bean is also said to have concluded, not trials, but marriages, with the phrase “and may God have mercy on your soul”.

Regards,
Shodan

[carnivorousplant]

@Shodan

Judge Bean is also said to have concluded, not trials, but marriages, with the phrase “and may God have mercy on your soul”.

Perhaps they aren’t all assholes.

[CalMeacham]

Here’s a citation dating from before 1849 (the year the book was published – and he was writing about hearing this as a child)

Human Life

Human Life – Illustrated by my Individual Experience as a Child, a Youth, and a Man by Henry Clarke Wright p. 52

here’s another, from a book published in 1882, about Guiteau p. 401

A Complete History of the Trial of Guiteau, Assassin of President Garfield
By Charles Joseph Hayes, Henry Gillespie Hayes

A Complete History of the Trial of Guiteau, Assassin of President Garfield

The judge is supposed to have used the words “and may God have mercy on your soul” in both books.

[clairobscur]

@Shodan

Cite.

Judge Bean is also said to have concluded, not trials, but marriages, with the phrase “and may God have mercy on your soul”.

Hmmmm…This quote is suspiciously similar to that mentioned for Jose Maria Martin in the link given by don’t ask. And it seems from his link thta the fate of this Martin is unknown. And his crime isn’t mentioned, which I find surprising. Could it be that these quotes are just stories, attributed to different people in different places, essentially urban legends?

[Shodan]

What? Are you saying some random quote plucked from the Internet could be wrong? :eek:

FWIW I read another version of the flowery condemnation to hanging in a surprisingly scholarly work called The History of Torture. In that book, which I no longer own, the condemned is supposed to have responded

You can hang me by my neck until I’m dead, dead, dead. And you can kiss my ass until it’s red, red, red, and G*d damn your foul old soul.

Which has a certain poetry of its own.

Regards,
Shodan

[alphaboi867]

The justice of the peace that married my grandparents (jokingly) said that to my grandfather right after pronouncing them man & wife.

[Colibri]

The judge in the 1883 trail of Alferd Packer, the notorious Colorado Cannibal, was reported by a local newspaper to have condemned him with the words:

Stand up yah voracious man-eatin’ sonofabitch and receive yir sintince. When yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven Dimmycrats. But you, yah et five of ‘em, goddam yah. I sintince yah t’ be hanged by th’ neck ontil yer dead, dead, dead, as a warnin’ ag’in reducin’ th’ Dimmycratic populayshun of this county. Packer, you Republican cannibal, I would sintince ya ta hell but the statutes forbid it

However, according to court records the judge actually said:

Alfred Packer, the judgement of this court is that you be removed from hence to the jail of Hinsdale County and there confined until the 19th day of May, A.D. 1883, and that on said 19th day of May, 1883, you be taken from thence by the sheriff of Hinsdale County to a place of execution prepared for this purpose, at some point within the corporate limits of the town of Lake City, in the said county of Hinsdale, and between the hours of 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. of said day, you, then and there, by said sheriff, be hung by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead, and may God have mercy upon your soul.

[pkbites]

I don’t have a link but some years back I did see footage of a judge (IIRC in Florida) sentence a man to death and did in fact say MGHMOYS. And after that he said “good luck to you.” Hmm.

[Evan_Drake]

[QUOTE=Colibri]
The judge in the 1883 trail of Alferd Packer, the notorious Colorado Cannibal, was reported by a local newspaper to have condemned him with the words:
[/quote]

After he was hanged the body of the condemned was disposed of by his relatives as he requested.
Probably.

[Enola_Gay]

Can’t remember the name of the killer, but he killed Polly Klass & I watched his sentencing on TV and after he was sentenced to death, the judge said “May God have mercy on your soul.” So clearly, at least some judges say it.

[Shodan]

It’s been twenty years and he’s still not dead - I wish God would have mercy on him sooner.

Regards,
Shodan