Speaking Notes for Executing Justice, a panel session at the BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival at the State Library of NSW at 3.30 pm on Saturday (original) (raw)

Speaking Notes for Executing Justice, a panel session at the BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival at the State Library of NSW at 3.30 pm on Saturday

This paper reviews three amazing and important books concerning the death penalty in Australia. Barry Jones' The Penalty is Death collects the best writings arguing against the death penalty from 400 years of western literature. Mike Richards' The Hanged Man follows the life and death of Ronald Ryan, the last person hanged in Australia and the machinery of government that brought his life to an end on the gallows. And Rachel Franks' An Uncommon Hangman looks at the death penalty and Australian society through the eyes of "Nosey Bob Howard", the official NSW hangman over an extensive period in the second half of the 19th century.