different realities and reactions The house of priests wrote to the government suggesting that the priest should meet the condemned at the limit of the site and there comfort and bless her. Further actions such as the blindfolding a civil attendant should assist with. The priest should keep his distance but be at hand if the delinquent would call for him. No speeches should be allowed.560 The house of priests here aligned itself with the generally rather modest critique of the executions that sometimes had been heard from within the Swedish clergy, generally expressing that there were too much of ceremonies thereby tending to lessen the deterring value of the execution. The executions also were horrifying and damaging experiences for the priests. The letter eventually resulted in a Royal letter January 1st 1830 prohibiting any speeches held at the execution and the tradition of a priest putting the blindfold on the condemned.561 Also after the legislation of 1830 it occurred that the condemned emphatically desired an abolished custom. The priest Frans Wilhelm Lewerentz at the execution of Jonas Falk January 20th 1855 blindfolded Falk because of his urgings.562 Also, from the execution of Erik Bur the same year, we hear how the priest started praying and waited for the axe to fall, but the executioner did not move. He waited for the priest to first fold down the collar of the condemned, a task he perceived to be a duty of the priest.563 As the idea that the punishment in itself could inspire the crime became stronger and more obvious the urge for action also became stronger. In 1832 the law committee of Sweden in a criminal code proposal, eventually non adopted, suggested that criminals committing murder or other crimes because they wanted to die should not be executed, because the death penalty did not deter them. Instead, they should be sentenced to forced labour for life.564 560 RD1828–30Pr X:121 sqq. 561 Bergman 1996 p 119 sqq, SFS1830:7 p 100. 562 Lewerentz 1855 p 14. See also e g Eklund 1943 p 495, Löfvén 1853 p 16, Nya Dagligt Allehanda 18 March 1893. 563 Wadström 1897 p 169 sq, Wadström 1876 p 107 sq. 564 Förslag 1832 Straffbalken 6:21, motives p 29 sq. 160
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