The Mandatory Life Sentence for Murder: Is it Time for Discretion?
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2008.72.4.288 |
| Author | Tenney Cotton |
| Published date | 01 August 2008 |
| Date | 01 August 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
COMMENT
The Mandatory Life Sentence for Murder: Is
It Time for Discretion?
Tenney Cotton*
Keywords Homicide law reform; Sentencing for murder; Moral culpa-
bility; Reckles murder; Contextual evaluation for killing
Recommendations for the abolition of the mandatory life sentence have
consistently surfaced since the death penalty for murder was removed in
1965.1Most recently, this has been the focus of two debates in the House
of Lords,2both introduced by Lord Lloyd of Berwick, following homicide
law reform proposals from the Law Commission.3Lord Lloyd detailed
the previous calls for its abolition,4and enforced his opinion that the
mandatory sentence was ‘inherently unjust’.5
Lord Bingham has also been vocal in his objection to the mandatory
sentence,6largely due to the lack of individualisation of the penalty
awarded following varying degrees of culpability in different murders;
the offence label does not adequately correspond to the criminal action.
He was also critical of the stance taken by the government, which was,
and still appears to be, that public opinion and trust in the criminal
justice system demanded the mandatory rather than a discretionary
award,7as favoured by the majority of the judiciary.8This comment
* LLM; e-mail: T.Cotton@tees.co.uk. The author is a part-time lecturer in law at the
University of Teesside. Many thanks go to Helen Howard and Cath Crosby for their
invaluable comments on drafts of this article.
1 Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965.
2Hansard, HL, 15 January 2008, Murder: Law Commission Report, cols 1177–1180;
Hansard, HL, Law Reform: Murder, 1 March 2007, vol. 689, cols 1692–1725.
3 Law Commission, Murder, Manslaughter and Infanticide, Law Com. Final Report No.
304 (2006) (hereafter ‘the Report’) Part 1, para 1.1(1)(a)—the term of reference
was to retain the mandatory sentence.
4Hansard, HL, 1 March 2007,vol. 689, col. 1694; i.e. the Nathan Report (1988);
Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords under Lord Walton of
Detchant (1993); Report of the Prison Reform Trust under the chairmanship of
Lord Lane (1994); Report of the Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders (The
Butler Report), Cmnd 6244 (October 1975).
5Hansard, 1 March 2007, vol. 689, col. 1692. There was overall agreement of this
opinion by the remaining Lords in the debate.
6 Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Newsam Memorial Lecture, ‘The Mandatory Life
Sentence for Murder’, Police Staff College, Bramshill Hook, Hampshire, 13 March
1998.
7 See, inter alia,Hansard, HL, Murder: Law Commission Report, 15 January 2008, vol.
697, col. 1178, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State,
Ministry of Justice); Hansard, HL, Law Reform: Murder, 1 March 2007, vol. 689,
col. 1721, Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Minister of State for the Home Office);
Hansard, HL, Criminal Justice Bill, 14 October 2003, vol. 653, col. 837, Baroness
Scotland of Asthal; Hansard, HC, Written Answers, 25 November 2002, vol. 395,
col. 100W, Blunkett; Hansard, HC, Written Answers, vol. 229, cols 861–864, 27 July
1993, Angela Rumbold.
8 This almost made it to the statute books via an amendment to the Murder
(Abolition of the Death Penalty) Bill by Lord Parker in July 1964, approving a
288 The Journal of Criminal Law (2008) 72 JCL 288–297
doi:1350/jcla.2008.72.4.510
To continue reading
Request your trial