different realities and reactions thought that all murderers instead should be sentenced to death and those that did not want to live should be pardoned.528 Ørsted was not alone in seeing problems with the 1767 ordinance. In 1806 they were highlighted when Erich Lycke was tried for a murder in the prison in Odense. He had killed a man but stated that it was the result of him wanting to murder another. He was not believed and the court stated that his own statement was not enough for not using the ordinance. Instead, it should be used if no reasonable motive could be found or murder of pure evilness could be deduced from the circumstances. The confession also had been given swiftly and combined with a denial of committing the murder due to longing for death or having any mental illness. Lycke was sentenced according to the ordinance.529 The next year, however, Lorentz Lorenzen Hertz, who had committed a murder in a prison in Copenhagen and claimed that he had done his deed while not wanting to live and therefore expected to be executed, was not believed. He was sentenced to death and executed.530 These two cases and a third, also from 1806, where a sentence under the ordinance was allowed to stand for the murder committed by Jochum Ernst Simon Petersen in a prison in Copenhagen, suggest that cases of murders in prison was not rare.531 In a case from 1815 the Supreme court of Denmark argued that the most important reason for the ordinance must have been to protect public safety by refusing those who committed murder because they wanted death by execution their desired outcome. In this case again the story of the accused, Hans Christensen, was in focus. He claimed that he had 528 Ørsted 1819 p 149 sq. 529 Juridisk Arkiv 1806 vol 10 p 41 sqq, Juridisk Arkiv 1812 vol 30 p 216. His name was also given as Erich Lykke or Erik Lykke. A similar case from the same island but in 1811 where Maren Pedersdatter was not believed but sentenced using the ordinance despite her words that she had not murdered her daughter because she was tired of life in Nyt Juridisk Arkiv 1812 p 175 sqq. 530 Juridisk Arkiv 1808 vol 14 p 149 sqq, Juridisk Arkiv 1812 vol 30 p 228. Other cases where the ordinance was discussed in the Supreme court but it ended in a sentence of execution in Collegial-Tidende 1818 p 1 sqq, 897 sqq, 1821 p 425 sq. 531 Juridisk Arkiv 1806 vol 9 p 83 sqq. 151
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=