As Dan mentions above "Danny Deever" is one of the great capital punishment songs along side of "The Night That Poor Larry Was Stretched". A few more well known 'Goodnight Songs' are Captain Kidd & Jack Hall. Not a death penatly song but surely one of the more haunting of all the hanging songs, from Billy Holiday ( & from those that brought us lynching) "Strange Fruit".

I believe I recently saw mention in a thread that this is the only instance where the criminal recieves the same treatment for which they had been convicted of. This form of an eye for an eye justice is supposed to be above us. We don't steal from the thief of force drugs into/onto the dealer (maybe Bill Clinton would perfer this form of reform).

Here's a true story about one of our fellow Mudcatter's, John Nolan. John used to be a cop in Glasgow before coming to the US (see his posting in the thread 'Hamish Imlach' Oct 3, 98 for a little backround) maybe 20 yrs ago when I first met him. He's been thorn to some & a relief to others by his use of the pen for the papers he writes for in southeastern New Hampshire. His writing brought him to sitting in on a criminal case where a death row inmate was trying to get his case reheard. I'm not sure on the little details, dates & how John got involved but he thought something wasn't right in the way the process had or was presently working. What was, is that an innocent man sat on death row & without John's investigating & getting to expose the way the case was originally handled, the man's fate would still remain sealed. The man was released & John is the hero. Now the crime here is that an innocent was forced to lay on death row until a stroke of luck brought about a miracle. Death row is mostly made up of the poor, the undereducated & the Blacks, those that have never seen a miracle or couldn't afford one (ask O.J. if it doesn't cost much to get away with murder). Anyway, it seems as if this death penalty system is to faulty & flawed & does not dish out justice on an equal basis, is definitly blinded to the poorer & is not a determent. If one innocent life is taken, there is no recourse. Does the victim sue the judge, the jury, the DA, the police & the court appointed attorney to regain their life? In these cases there's no room for error & if it exists then there should be no room for this form of reform. Don't hang me for going on so long, sorry. Barry