§ MR. MARSHALL HALL (Lancashire, Southport)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, having regard to the fact that a sentence of death passed upon a woman convicted of infanticide is rarely, if ever, executed, he will introduce a Bill giving the Judge presiding at the trial and conviction of a female prisoner for this crime power in his discretion to record sentence of death against her, instead of actually pronouncing such sentence in open Court.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) I presume my hon. and learned friend refers only to cases of women who have killed their own infant children, not to other cases, e.g., murders by "baby-farmers." It is true that in the former cases the capital sentence is scarcely ever carried out; but, on the other hand, the objections to the practice of "recording" death sentences are serious, and I do not, 279 at the present time, see my way to proposing new legislation on this very difficult subject.