Capital punishment concept evolves through ages
Editor's Note: This is the first of two parts on capital punishment.
BYMONADUCKWORT
Reporter
On June 29, 1972, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the "imposition and carrying out of the death sentence in the present cases constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments."
The cases were those of three men, two convicted of rape and one convicted of murder. Their convictions had been upheld by state supreme courts so the 5-4 Supreme Court vote saved their lives. The ruling temporarily outlawed capital punishment in North Carolina, establishing that the 700 prisoners on death rows across the nation could not be executed.
THE CONTROVERSIAL nature and history of capital punishment neither began until the 1970s.
According to Evelle J. Younger, former judge of the Municipal Court of Los Angeles, the existence of the death penalty dates back to primitive man's efforts to placate the gods by killing the person who had violated the social codes supposedly revealed by those gods. Appeasement of the gods evolved into revenge against the offender. This vengeance was based on smaller animals and human beings, blow, injury for injury," according to George Ryley Scott in The History of Capital Punishment.
Retaliation for injuries against persons
relatives of the victim and the offender.
The Laws of Israel, Scott says, provided that when homicide was committed, the murdered person's nearest relative made himself the sole solider of guilt. The relative was judge, jury and executioner, and it mattered little what particular type of
homicide was involved. The death penalty in all savages and primitive society was less effective than the capital punishment.
GRADUALLY THE primitive concept of personal revenge evolved into an act of retribution instituted on behalf of the relatives by the governing power. After the state took over, injuries became crimes and revenge became punishment. People accepted the state as the instrument for revenge and the state carried more preventive weight than was possible with an individual's idea of revenge.
Despite the state's takeover of capital punishment and the formation of penal codes, early lawmakers still thought murder was a crime for which revenge was due the sufferer or his relatives. In the early days of civilization there were no prisons. Detention as a punishment or as a deterrent was unthought of. The state
simply took over individual powers of
revenge and began to specify what form of
revenge should be exacted or what type of
restitution should be made.
THE EMERGENCE of the state as the body with the power to assess the death penalty for criminal acts was followed by an increase in the number of crimes punishable by death and an increase in the methods of execution.
The oldest death sentence extant was found in the accounts of trials of state criminals in Egypt about 1,500 years before the revolt that condemned criminal was guilty of nine murders. It is also that first recorded legal execution, the history of capital punishment has been that of a pendulum; first sweeping to executions for petty crimes such as pickpockets, returning back to executions for such recognized grave offenses as murder and rape.
A few examples show the dynamic status of the death penalty throughout history. In the Roman republic in the Fifth Century, B.C., the death penalty was punishment for insulting or insulting songs, and making disturbances in the city at night.
MUCH LATER in the 11th and 12th centuries, England and Scotland eliminated petty crimes subject to the death penalty and recognized only treason, murder, manlaughter, arson, highway robbery, burglary and larceny as capital crimes. The Middle Ages saw another increase in the crime of capital crimes in England. Torture became a widespread execution. The death penalty for heretics became law in England from 1382 until 1672.
During the reign of Henry VII, 72,000 of his lice subjects were executed. In 1531, while he was still king, boiling to death became legal. Until that time hanging had
been the most commonly used form of execution.
The defined aims of the English penal system in the 18th Century were to prevent repetition of the offense by the murderer or the victim. The criminal punishment befitting the crime in accordance with the Roman theory of lex talionis (law of reciprocal punishment in kind; and to identify the deity, society and law) was to punish the criminal specifically devised form of atonement.
AS DETERRENCE ranked higher and higher in importance the state extended capital punishment to any crime for which it was deemed a fitting penalty. Thus in the 18th Century, 160 capital offenses existed in England. By the beginning of the 19th century, more than 200 offences were listed as subject to the death penalty.
Stoning to death was the usual method of See PUNISHMENT Back Page.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Vol.85-No.67 Wednesday, December 4,1974
The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Title IX hits Greeks; colleges seek revamp
The Greeks are being threatened.
Under current Title IX regulations regarding sex discrimination, college sororities and fraternites can be considered discriminatory. According to Sen. Herman E. Talmadge, DGA, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) has maintained that it has the right from institutions for female students from institutions that provide substantial material support to social Greek-letter societies.
Talmadge proposed a bill recently to accept cease-fire requests and fraternities in KY interactions in KY relations.
Pam Horn, assistant to the dean of women, said yesterday that the relationship between universities and single-sex groups was the issue in question.
She said that current TITLE IX guidelines, which were published in May, were preliminary and that the final guidelines would probably be presented in January.
University support will be the major factor in determining discrimination if the fraternity-sorority system isn't exempted from the new guidelines. Home said.
'At KU, the houses are financially in
dependent," she said. "They own their own property."
Horne said the University of Kansas supported fraternities and sororities by providing advisers, offices and meeting rooms. She said if the exemption weren't added to Title X, action would be taken on a case-by-case basis.
Fraternities and sororites provide services to the University. Horne said, and other faculty members, will be in attendance.
"I think there is still a need for some single-ex groups," she said. "For women, sororities provide an opportunity to have more experience; they might not have it, but their experiences must have."
Martha Jane Mueller, president of Gamma Phi Beta sorority, said she had received the letter pressing her concern about application of TITLE to sororities and fraternities. She said that because University support was the determining factor, she didn't think KU
"I think the fact that the bill was
Mueller said the exemption bill would safeguard sorporities and fraternities so that they could continue pledging members of only one sex.
presented in Congress is a step forward," she said.
Mark Pennington, president of the Interfraternity Council, said that HEW was strictly interpreting Title IX. He said it wasn't reasonable to suggest that fraternities and sororites should become coeducational.
It has been tried and it hasn't worked." Pittsburgh said, "Alumn backing was挂牌."
The way HEW interprets Tide IX isn't justified, he said. Sororites and fraternities don't comply with Tide IX. Pennington discriminates with Tide sexually discriminates by definition.
"If the proposed exemption bill doesn't pass, there will be pressure to eliminate the whistle-blower."
"I think it would be disastrous to the See TITLE Back Page
Pennington said that the University gave much support to the Greek system, but also that sororities and fraternities projected a good image for the University. He said there was sentiment that the fraternities did more for KU than they received in return. He asked to sent to Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., urging a favorable vote on the bill, Pennington said.
It was a long day
Athletic Director Clyde Walker rested his eyes from the camera lights as Don Fambrigham, former head football coach, announced the win.
By Kansas Photographer DEBRIE GUMP
yesterday's press conference. Fambrough, who said he had devoted his career to Kansas football, will remain a member of the team.
Although he says no claims to having power to water-witch himself, Wakefield Dort, another witch expert in the method, method. He used a branch he had cut, but he said a stiff wire would work just fine.
Water witcher
Coach quit to avoid lame duck year
By MARK ZELIGMAN
Sports Editor
Don Fambrigha said yesterday that the prospect of being a lamb duck coach next summer was likely.
Fambrough announced his resignation yesterday morning at a press conference.
"In recruiting young men, we know that a paramount question in their minds is whether the coach who recruits them will continue to be their coach. It therefore requires our commitment of our program that we be able to give young athletes this assurance."
“In view of the fact that I have only one year remaining on my contract,” he said, and realizing that this situation can be instrumental to recruiting and to other long term faculty members, I am relatively resigning as head coach of the University of Kansas.
Athletic Director Clyde Walker said Fambrough had accepted an offer to remain as a member of the athletic department, but Walker didn't elaborate.
Fambrough had one year remaining on a three-year contract. Walker said Fambrough was never told he wouldn't be rehired after next season. Walker did say.
however, that at this particular point, Fambridge's contract would not extend past
Fambrough's Jayhawk football team tied for second in the Big Eight in 1973 and earned a trip to the Liberty Bowl. Famrought wasn't extended after the 1973 season ended.
“To be perfectly frank, I expected it (an extension) a year ago,” Fambrough said, “but I didn't ask for it at the time. Maybe I felt that feeling was that there was one year left.”
Published reports have alleged that some alumni in the Wichita area had put pressure on Walker to not extend Famighur's contract. John F. Eberhardt, chairman of the Athletic Board and a Wichita attorney, denied those allegations.
"That's a complete, 200 per cent crook of shit, and you can quote me on that if you can figure out how to write it," Eberhardt said yesterday.
The "alumni don't like to lose 56-0 to Nebraska and lose six games in a row, no more." (AP)
However, he said he had heard that alumni from other parts of Kansas had been
more critical of Fambrough than those in the Wichita area.
"I'll stake my life with Wichita alum had nothing to do with Dion Fambrough's rebellion."
Ahmadi and contributors both in Wichita and other areas said that they didn't know if the case was true.
Walker he made the decision at the end of the 1974 season not to renew Fambrough's contract. He said he didn't consult the Athletic Board.
It was a one-man decision, he said,
although he needed and received the approval
and concurrence of Chancellor Archie R. Dykes.
"You have to look at the results of four seasons and the results of this year," Walker said. "I didn't feel it was appropriate, I recommend extension of the contract."
in four years under Fambridge, the Jayahawks won 19 games, lost 25 and tied on
Walker said had Fambrigh chosen to stay next year he would have given Fambrigh the job.
Fambrough said published reports giving
Water-witching powers defended
By BILL HUMMELL
Water-witching, or dowling, works for some people if they possess the power, according to Wakefield Dort, professor of geology.
Reporter
"My feeling is that there is a certain percentage of downers who are out and out."
"There is another percentage of people who think it works for them, but they are probably using visual aids such as plants, landscapes or prior knowledge. But I really do believe that there are a few individuals that have a power that actually works and for which we at present have no explanation."
"it put it in the same class as ESP in the sense that there are recorded events that can't be explained but don't fit into the realm of more chance."
Ray Cronemeyer, a 78-year-old resident of Tonguang county, claim he has the power to resist him.
Cronemeyer said that he had found wells all over the country and that his power was 80%.
"My dad and granddad were well-wishers," too, he said. "I started in the 1950s."
Croneneyer said he had found hundreds of wells in his life.
"I've found about 35 wells in the last two or three years in Leavnworth, Wyandotte.
"Gross wailed go into an unknown area and, by witching, predict where water was coming."
Jefferson and Douglas Countes," he said. "But it has to be living, underground water. I can hold that stick over a bucket of water or not. What's it doing. It won't work over swaters, either."
Dort said that although he had never been able to find water by dowsing, he had read the book and learned about one documented case, Dort said, was that of a Maine game warden named Henry Gross whose story has been told in three novels by a historical novelist, Kenneth Roberts.
See WATER Back Page
poor health as his reason for resigning were false.
"I want to make it really clear that I'm in perfect health," he said. "As for having stomach aches every Friday night before I go to work." The coach in America who has perfect health."
Walker said, "my objective is to put our football program on a solid foundation."
See QUIT Page 5
Demos aim for reforms
By DON SMITH
Reporter
A gavel's rap Friday will mark the beginning of Kansas City's first national tournament.
But the intentions of the party delegates this weekend will be far different from those of delegates to the last convention in Kansas and Iowa, where a nominated Herbert Hover for president.
The 2,038 delegates gathering in Kansas City, Mo., will be attending the Democratic presidential primary.
Over the weekend, the delegates will write a charter that will govern the party's operations, including the delegate selection procedures for 1980.
The convention, which will convene at 4 p.m. Friday in Municipal Auditorium, represents the first time in American history that a national political party will meet to adopt rules by which the party will govern itself.
Earl Enhir, chairman of the political science department, said yesterday that a successful meeting could benefit the Democratic party's public image.
"If the Democrats are successful in adopting the charter without too many questions, I don't think they have in the public mind, since the Republicans have no such charter," Nehrigh said.
Nehring said the Kansas Republican
See DEMOCRATS Page 5
See DEMOCRATS Page 5