The Death Penalty
By Victor Hugo
Gentlemen of the Jury,
If there is a culprit here, It is not my son, It is myself. It is I, Who for these twenty-four years have opposed capital punishment, Have contended for the inviolability of human life, Have committed this crime to which my son is now arraigned. Here, I denounce myself, Mr. Advocate General, I have committed it under all aggravate circumstances, Deliberately, Repeatedly, Tenaciously. Yes, This old and absurd "Lex Talionis", this law of blood, I have combated all my life, All my life!
Gentlemen of the Jury, while I have breath, I will continue to combat it by all my efforts as a writer, by all my words and all my votes as a legislator. I declare it before the crucifix! Before that victim of the penalty of death, Who sees and hears us, Before that gibbet to which two thousand years ago, For the eternal instruction of the generations, The human law nailed the Divine!
In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment, And for writing and publishing that for which he is now on trial. In all that he has written, He has merely proclaimed the sentiments with which from his infancy, I have inspired him.
Gentlemen, Jurors, The right to criticize a law, And to criticize it severely, Especially a penal law, Is placed beside the duty of amelioration. Like the torch beside the work under the artisan's hand. The right of the journalist is as sacred, As necessary, As imprescriptible.
What are the circumstances? A man, A convict, A sentenced wretch. Is dragged on to a certain morning to one of our public squares. There he finds the scaffold!
He shudders, He struggles, He refuses to die! The victim clings on to the scaffold and shrieks for pardon, His clothes are torn, His shoulders bloody. Still he resists!
They drag him forth, Haggard... Bloody... Weeping, Pleading, Howling for life, Calling upon God, Calling upon his father and mother. For like a very child has this man become in the prospect of death. They drag him forth to the execution. He is hoisted on the scaffold and his head falls! And through our very conscience runs a shudder. Never has a legal murder appeared with an aspect so indecent, So abominable. All feel jointly implicated in his death. It is at this very moment that from a young man's breast escapes a cry, Wrung from his very heart, A cry of pity and of anguish. A cry of horror... A cry of humanity. And this cry you would punish?!
And in the face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, You would say to the guillotine, "Thou art right!". And to Pity, Saintly pity, "Thou art wrong!".
Gentlemen of the Jury, It cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.
Thank you.
