§ MR. HAZELLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the report of the trial at Leicester of William Henry Broughton for the murder of his father on 15th March last, under great provocation, when the jury found him guilty of murder but strongly recommended him to mercy, and he was thereupon sentenced to death, but within two days 410 was respited, and subsequently the sentence was reduced to ten years' penal servitude, whether, seeing that this is an example of a considerable number of trials where the death sentence is pronounced with no likelihood of its being carried out, he will consider the advisability of introducing a Bill to deal with the case of a person convicted by a jury of murder but recommended to mercy on the ground that the crime was committed under extenuating circumstances, but insufficient to reduce it to manslaughter, so as to abolish the sentence of death in such a case?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYThis question has been the subject of frequent consideration by my predecessors and by Her Majesty's Judges, but every solution of it that has been suggested, including that mentioned by the hon. Member, has been thought to be open to serious objections, and I am not prepared to give any promise of introducing legislation.