Posted on 02/23/2024 11:46:17 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
On or about this day in 1629, one John Dean, described in court documents as “an infant between eight and nine years,” was hanged in Abingdon, England for setting fire to two barns in the nearby town of Windsor.
According to Historia placitorum corone: The history of the pleas of the crown, Volume 1 by William Axton Stokes and Edward Ingersoll, this juvenile felon was indicted, arraigned and found guilty all on the same day, February 23, “and was hanged accordingly.” The actual date of his execution is not known, but it can’t have been long afterward. The wheels of British justice ground very quickly in those days, though not so fine.
The age of criminal responsibility in England at the time was seven years old. (It was later raised to eight, and in 1963 to ten, where it remains; there have been calls to raise it again.) Accordingly, anyone seven years or older could be charged with a crime and face the same penalties as someone seventeen or forty-seven — including the death sentence....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
A friend is a retired fire fighter. His sister-in-law married an arsonist. Must have been some uncomfortable family get togethers!
While the use of capital punishment was excessive in “ye olde” 1600s it’s gone too far the other way now.
Instead of weeding violent genes out of the population some leftist states are ensuring they have reproductive advantages over normal people:
According to one source John Dean was pimping prostitutes to compromise Dems and this evidence was found during the Watergate break-in (or maybe the break-in was to retrieve the evidence) and so the whole Watergate affair was to cover his backside.
I read a book about arsonists when the neighborhood I was living in seemed to have one.
Apparently, the type of arsonist classified as a ‘pyromaniac’ often returns to the fire or even calls emergency himself, to take voyeuristic pleasure in what he has done. Also, sometimes it is a first responder himself who sets a fire, in order to help put it out and appear ‘heroic’. A very strange psychology.
“The same source notes that little John Dean was probably the youngest child ever executed in England.”
The two Princes in the Tower were probably next youngest..........
The actual date of his execution is not known, but it can’t have been long afterward.
As opposed to how we do it:
https://apnews.com/article/execution-florida-crime-death-penalty-d49e5c9b58de4952a08cf8d418857e3d
1985-86 until 2023. Issues yes, but damn...what are we doing?
We had a firefighter in a company in the town adjacent to ours who WAS an arsonist. Instead of arresting him and giving him jail time, they quietly fired him. We wanted to hang him.
Well, he burned down the Nixon administration, that’s for sure!
I'd have thought they'd get along like a house on fire.
he age of criminal responsibility in England at the time was seven years old. (It was later raised to eight, and in 1963 to ten, where it remains;
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A few years ago in England 2 ten yos murdered a 5 yo and hid his body in a culvert...
The law can stay at 10...
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