Capital punishment in Australia

In 1973 the Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 of the Commonwealth abolished the death penalty for federal offences. It provided in Section 3 that the Act applied to any offence against a law of the Commonwealth, the Territories or under an Imperial Act, and in s. 4 that "[a] person is not liable to the punishment of death for any offence".

No executions were ever carried out under Commonwealth criminal laws, and the passage of the Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 saw the death penalty replaced with life imprisonment as the maximum punishment. On 11 March 2010, Federal Parliament passed laws that prevent the death penalty from being reintroduced by any state or territory in Australia.[1]

The Commonwealth will not extradite or deport a prisoner to another jurisdiction if they could be sentenced to death for any crime. A recent case involving this was the case of American Gabe Watson, who was convicted of the manslaughter of his wife in North Queensland, and faced capital murder charges in his home state of Alabama. His deportation was delayed until the government received assurances that he would not be executed if found guilty.

No executions were carried out in the Australian Capital Territory, where federal legislation abolished capital punishment in 1973.

The last execution in New South Wales was carried out on 24 August 1939, when John Trevor Kelly was hanged at Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Centre for the murder of Marjorie Constance Sommarlad. New South Wales abolished the death penalty for murder in 1955, but retained it as a potential penalty for treason, piracy, and arson in naval dockyards until 1985. New South Wales was the last Australian state to formally abolish the death penalty for all crimes.

Between 1800 and 1846, over 30 people were executed on Norfolk Island, which was a penal colony at the time. On one day in 1846, William Westwood and 11 other convicts were hanged for their involvement in the Cooking Pot Uprising.

There were nine executions between 1893 and 1952. Seven of them took place at Fannie Bay Gaol, the other two at regional locations close to where the crime took place.

The former gallows at Fannie Bay Gaol

The last execution in the Northern Territory was a double hanging at Fannie Bay Gaol on 8 August 1952. The death penalty was abolished in 1973.[7]

A total of 94 people were hanged in the Moreton Bay/Queensland region from 1830 until 1913.[8] The last person hanged was Ernest Austin on 22 September 1913 for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Ivy Mitchell.

The only woman to be hanged was Ellen Thompson on 13 June 1887; she was hanged alongside her lover, John Harrison, for murdering her husband William.

In 1922, Queensland became the first part of the British Commonwealth to abolish the death penalty.[9]

The Adelaide Gaol was the site of forty-four hangings, from Joseph Stagg on 18 November 1840 to Glen Sabre Valance, murderer and rapist, on 24 November 1964. Three executions also occurred at Mount Gambier Gaol, five at country locations out of Port Lincoln, three at Franklin Harbor, one at Streaky Bay and two at Fowler's Bay.[10]

Two Ngarrindjeri men were controversially executed by hanging along the Coorong on 22 August 1840, after a drumhead court-martial conducted by Police Commissioner O'Halloran on the orders of Governor George Gawler. The men were found to be guilty of murdering the twenty-five survivors of the shipwreck Maria a few months before.[11]

Elizabeth Woolcock, the only woman ever to have been executed under South Australian law, was hanged on 30 December 1873. Her body was not released to the family and was buried between the inner and outer walls of the prison, identified by a number and the date of the execution.

In the late 1950s, Don Dunstan became well known for his campaign against the death penalty being imposed on Max Stuart, who was convicted of rape and murder of a young girl, opposing then-Premier Thomas Playford IV over the matter.

In 1976, under the premiership of then-Premier Dunstan, the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA)[12] was modified so that the death sentence was changed to life imprisonment.

In the early days of colonial rule, Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land, was the site of penal transports. Mary McLauchlan was convicted in 1830 for infanticide; she was sentenced to both death and dissection.[13][14] She was the first woman to be hanged in Tasmania.

The last execution was on 14 February 1946, when serial rapist and killer Frederick Thompson was hanged for the murder of eight-year-old Evelyn Maughan. The death penalty was abolished in 1968.[15]

Old Melbourne Gaol gallows

Victoria's first executions occurred in 1842 when two Aboriginal men, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, were hanged outside the site of the Melbourne Gaol for the killing of two whalers in the Westernport district.[16] Ronald Ryan was the last man executed at Pentridge Prison and in Australia. He was hanged on 3 February 1967 after being convicted of shooting dead a prison officer during an escape from Pentridge Prison, Coburg, Victoria in 1965.[17]

Victoria was also the state of the last woman executed in Australia: Jean Lee was hanged in 1951. She was accused of being an accomplice in the murder of 73-year-old William ('Pop') Kent. She, along with her accomplices, were executed on 19 February 1951. Victoria would not carry out another execution until that of Ronald Ryan.[18]

Not all those executed were murderers: for instance, Albert McNamara was hanged for arson causing death in 1902, and David Bennett was hanged in 1932 after being convicted of raping a four-year-old girl. Bennett was the last man to be hanged in Australia for an offence other than murder.[19]

This number includes triple murderer Edward Leonski, executed by the U.S. Army in 1942.[20]

The beam and trapdoor used to execute condemned prisoners were removed from Old Melbourne Gaol and installed in D Division at Pentridge Prison by the condemned child rapist David Bennett, who was a carpenter by trade. It was used for all 10 Pentridge hangings (including a double hanging). After Victoria abolished capital punishment in 1975, the beam and trapdoor were removed and put into storage. The beam was reinstalled at the Old Melbourne Gaol in August 2000, although the trapdoor had been modified during installation at Pentridge and no longer fitted.[21]

The Fremantle Prison gallows, last used in 1964

John Gavin was hanged outside the Fremantle Round House

Fremantle Prison

In Western Australia, the first legal executions were under Dutch VOC law on 2 October 1629 on Long Island, Houtman Abrolhos (near Geraldton), when Jeronimus Corneliszoon and six others were hanged as party to the murders of 125 men, women and children.

Following British colonization, between 1833 and 1855 executions by firing squad and hanging were performed at a variety of places, often at the site of the offence. Even with the construction of the new Perth Gaol in 1855 as the main execution site in the state, some executions were carried out at various country locations until 1900. In 1886 the Fremantle Prison was handed over to the colonial government as the colony's major prison; from 1889 43 men and one woman (Martha Rendell) were hanged there.

The first execution under British law was that of Midgegooroo, who on 22 May 1833 was executed by firing squad while bound to the door of the original Perth Gaol. John Gavin, a Parkhurst apprentice, was the first British settler to be executed in Western Australia. In 1844 he was hanged for murder at the Fremantle Round House, at the age of fifteen. Bridget Larkin was the first woman to be executed in Western Australia, for the murder of John Hurford, in 1855. "It is the sentence of this court that you be returned to your former custody, and at a time and place appointed by the Governor-in-Council, that you be hanged by the neck till you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul". The last execution was that of Eric Edgar Cooke on 26 October 1964 at Fremantle Prison. Cooke had been convicted on one count of murder, but evidence and his confessions suggested he had committed many more. The last sentence of death in Western Australia was passed in 1984,[22][23] but the female killer (Brenda Hodge)[24] in question had her sentence commuted to imprisonment for life, as was customary by this stage.

Capital punishment was formally removed from the statutes of the state with the passage of the Acts Amendment (Abolition of Capital Punishment) Act 1984.