different realities and reactions not to be subjected to corporal punishment. They were to be exhibited on a town square or its equivalent on two separate days before the execution chained to a sign detailing the crime and then subjected to a severe corporal punishment – with different implements used for men and women. In Stockholm two different squares were to be used. After some time had been given for preparation, the delinquent was to be taken to the site of execution with covered eyes.548 Although no further legislation of specific punishments for this kind of murder were to be adopted other solutions might be found in individual cases. In 1786 Isac Jonsson killed his son Anders Isacsson. The government agreed in the justice of the inferior court sentence of losing his right hand, decapitation and ”stegling”, the general punishment for murder.Asthe motive of Isac for the murder, however, was his boredom with life an alternative punishment was designed. As executing Isac would not have been a punishment, Isac was to be given a severe corporal punishment, attend church for one Sunday in a way that was regarded as a shaming, and spend the rest of his life in forced labour at a fortress.549 Arne Jansson sees this case as setting the precedent that those seeking executions should not be executed.550 Executions according to the Royal letter of 1754, however, occurred up to the beginning of the nineteenth century.551 The message put across by the execution also became a problem. In a bill sent to the Swedish Diet of 1778–79 by Gustaf IIIproposing the abolishment of capital punishment for infanticide the king stated that death 548 The Royal letter in registratur 24 April 1754NJrARAS, printed in Jusléen 1787 p 379 sq, the utterance of the law commission 4 December 1753 in volume 16ÄK16RAS. Jansson 1994 p 22, 32, 36, 47 sq, Jansson 1998 p 53, Bergman 1996 p 27. The idea of repeated corporal punishment preceding the execution was not new, it was e g applied to those that committed planned murder without any provocation in a Danish legislation from 27 January 1738, Algreen-Ussing 1831 p 43 sqq. 549 Draft 26 January 1787 in utslagshandlingar 26 january 1787 NJrARAS. 550 Jansson 2004 p 98. 551 According to Wedberg 1935 p 257 sq it was executed as late as 1808, thus probably not later. Elin Nilsdotter from Knoll in the hundred of Gillberg was however refused reprieve from such an extended penalty in 1811, Statsrådsprotokoll i justitieärende 12 September 1811NJrARAS. Due to fire in an archive it is difficult to find direct information about her execution. 157
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