MI Farooqui :
A convict at the gallows could hardly narrate the pangs of death as vividly as Socrates had done. He was convicted by the majority of 500 jurors of Athens (361-139) in 399 BC on charges of corrupting the youth, practicing religious novelties, and neglecting the gods. Administered with Hemlock to lead to death he vividly narrated the effects of the poison before he breathed his last. This is reported in the Phaedo of Plato as follows:
Socrates, walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, lay down on his back; for the man so directed him. And at the same time he, who gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short interval, examined his feet and legs; and then, having pressed his foot hard, he asked if he felt it. He said that he did not. After this, he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher, he showed us that he was growing cold and stiff. Then Socrates touched himselfand said that when the poison reached his heart he should then depart. But now the parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when uncovering himself, for he had been covered over, he said (and they were his last words): ‘Crito, we’ owe a cock to Aesculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it… Shortly after he gave a convulsive movements and was gone. (Extract from Physiological Materia Medica of Wallium H. Burt, M.D.; B. Jain Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 1991; pp 341-2).
It is doubtful that forced death of a convict brings him any lasting sufferings of punishment. Death soon brings him solace and peace. He is laid to rest with his religious belief that he would survive in paradise, and would be resurrected. Some of the convicts even refuse to appeal against convictions. The jurisprudence is based on ‘life for life, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’. Th is is a retaliatory justice. The principle does not hold well in case of other crimes, namely, ‘rape for rape and torture for torture’. Retaliatory punishments by lethal injunction or by beheading or electric chair; or by firing squid or hanging are all ‘inhuman and degrading treatments’ of the convicts. The convict is deprived of the life, which may occur to any person by accident or natural death. Cause of death may vary. It may be peaceful or apparent violent. But feelings of death in all the variant conditions are momentary.
Within moments a convict is dead. It is faster now than that of Socrates with a pang yet to be told. A convict is removed from the society to the satisfaction of the few, and horror to many Punishment is not achieved in true sense of the term. On death he is at large as a person who commits suicide.
The ‘purpose to punish is defeated. Such convicts do not suffer more than a few moments, but it brings perpetual sufferings to others.
What Socrates said at the end of the trial:
” …. Whether life or death is better is known to God alone. No ham1 can befall a good man in life or indeath. Death is either an eternal dreamless sleep or a journey to a better world. In either case, it is not an evil.”
Draco (7th century BC) .was the legislator of Athens” ‘in’ Ancient Greece. He prescribed death penalty for the offences including the minor ones: His legislations were harsh and severe. We still remember him by’ calling the harsh and inhuman legislations as Draconian laws. All his laws were repealed by Solon in the early 6th century BC with the ‘ exception of the homicide law, We have therefore inherited homicide law with death penalty from Draco. It is a Draconian law that has survived so long.
A convict at the gallows could hardly narrate the pangs of death as vividly as Socrates had done. He was convicted by the majority of 500 jurors of Athens (361-139) in 399 BC on charges of corrupting the youth, practicing religious novelties, and neglecting the gods. Administered with Hemlock to lead to death he vividly narrated the effects of the poison before he breathed his last. This is reported in the Phaedo of Plato as follows:
Socrates, walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, lay down on his back; for the man so directed him. And at the same time he, who gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short interval, examined his feet and legs; and then, having pressed his foot hard, he asked if he felt it. He said that he did not. After this, he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher, he showed us that he was growing cold and stiff. Then Socrates touched himselfand said that when the poison reached his heart he should then depart. But now the parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when uncovering himself, for he had been covered over, he said (and they were his last words): ‘Crito, we’ owe a cock to Aesculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it… Shortly after he gave a convulsive movements and was gone. (Extract from Physiological Materia Medica of Wallium H. Burt, M.D.; B. Jain Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India; 1991; pp 341-2).
It is doubtful that forced death of a convict brings him any lasting sufferings of punishment. Death soon brings him solace and peace. He is laid to rest with his religious belief that he would survive in paradise, and would be resurrected. Some of the convicts even refuse to appeal against convictions. The jurisprudence is based on ‘life for life, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’. Th is is a retaliatory justice. The principle does not hold well in case of other crimes, namely, ‘rape for rape and torture for torture’. Retaliatory punishments by lethal injunction or by beheading or electric chair; or by firing squid or hanging are all ‘inhuman and degrading treatments’ of the convicts. The convict is deprived of the life, which may occur to any person by accident or natural death. Cause of death may vary. It may be peaceful or apparent violent. But feelings of death in all the variant conditions are momentary.
Within moments a convict is dead. It is faster now than that of Socrates with a pang yet to be told. A convict is removed from the society to the satisfaction of the few, and horror to many Punishment is not achieved in true sense of the term. On death he is at large as a person who commits suicide.
The ‘purpose to punish is defeated. Such convicts do not suffer more than a few moments, but it brings perpetual sufferings to others.
What Socrates said at the end of the trial:
” …. Whether life or death is better is known to God alone. No ham1 can befall a good man in life or indeath. Death is either an eternal dreamless sleep or a journey to a better world. In either case, it is not an evil.”
Draco (7th century BC) .was the legislator of Athens” ‘in’ Ancient Greece. He prescribed death penalty for the offences including the minor ones: His legislations were harsh and severe. We still remember him by’ calling the harsh and inhuman legislations as Draconian laws. All his laws were repealed by Solon in the early 6th century BC with the ‘ exception of the homicide law, We have therefore inherited homicide law with death penalty from Draco. It is a Draconian law that has survived so long.
(The writer is a Senior Advocate of Supreme Court of Bangladesh)
