These killers were, after all, making a mockery of deterrence as the officially stated purpose of capital punishment, as they coerced their own execution, and instrumentalized criminal justice to meet their own emotional and religious needs.838 the strategies behind the reactions and the counterstrategies tention of offering a deviant and defiant performance.”832 In France to ’die game’ was seen as a particular English habit and was even called ’mourir à l’angloise’.833 Relevant behaviour however existed also in other areas. Andersson, mostly studying Sweden, reminds us of that to keep up the game and ’die game’ the delinquent needed the crowd as an audience to perform for.834 Kathy Stuart from a German perspective discusses how these murderers ”articulated a proprietary claim upon criminal justice.”835 She chooses to call the crimes ”suicide by proxy”.836 She has chosen this name “in order to emphasize the transactional nature of these crimes.” The criminals take action and the state should therefore give them the executions they are entitled to.837 She also states: The threat of the condemned not behaving as the authorities sought, by insulting the judge, singing unsuitable songs, and refusing to receive the communion and to pray, was a threat of an unruly or even rebellious crowd.839 There exists an interesting parallel between those that ‘died game’ and, on the other hand, those by the authorities pictured as well prepared, saintly, and obedient. Both groups made the execution less deterring. In the German debate of the second half of the eighteenth century critique was raised, picturing how a calm prisoner would sabotage the deterring effect of the execution. Anxiety and despair, agony and fear for death were proper feelings for someone waiting for an imminent execu832 Laqueur 1989 p 319. 833 Bastien 2011 p 204. ’Die in the English fashion.’ 834 Andersson 2002 p 359. 835 Stuart 2008 p 445. 836 Stuart 2008, Stuart 2009, Stuart 2023. The denomination has also been used by Margaret Brannan Lewis, Lewis 2016 p 157 sqq. 837 Stuart 2023 p 8 sq (quotation p 8). 838 Stuart 2009 p 65. 839 Bennewitz 1999 p 163. 234
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