Rest in peace - all of you....

The other item which caught my attention whilst on holiday was the decision to pardon those executed for cowardice during the First World War. I really find myself torn over this - on the one hand it is clear that today many if not most of them would have been diagnosed as psychologically damaged and not responsible for their actions, but on the other hand what you have to ask yourself is whether or not they were wrongly treated according to the laws and understanding of the day - and that is not so clear-cut. I have mentioned before that I am implacably opposed to the death penalty, and that my views were crystallized by the Craig/Bentley case back in the 1950's. I was among the first to raise a glass when Derek Bentley was eventually pardoned in 1998, but that was a different matter - even by the legal standards of 1953 Bentley was probably wrongly convicted, and definitely wrongly executed. Perhaps today's pardons are more directed to the surviving families than to the men themselves, and I can go along with that.