Capital Punishment Abolished
The last use of the death penalty in Australia was in Victoria in 1967. Ronald Joseph Ryan was hanged at Pentridge Prison on 3 February 1967 for the murder of a prison guard, George Hodson.
Capital punishment was officially abolished for federal offences by the Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973. The various states abolished capital punishment at various times, starting with Queensland in 1922 and ending with New South Wales in 1985.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Australia
Famous quotes containing the words capital punishment, capital, punishment and/or abolished:
“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“My object all sublime I shall achieve in time—
To let the punishment fit the crime— The punishment fit the crime; And make each prisoner pent Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment! Of innocent merriment!”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)