That bit of folklore mentioned by Musket has always sounded improbable to me. However.... It has been asserted in two books that a former British Lord Chief Justice, the repulsive Rayner Goddard got a thrill from passing the death sentence, sufficient that his valet had to provide him with a change of underwear on such days. It was Goddard, incidentally, whose blatent misdirecting of a jury resulted in Derek Bentley being hanged for a murder he did not commit - a misscarriage of justice eventually acknowledged in 1998. (We are not as civilised in the UK as Musket sometimes suggests.)
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