Law Amusement
Surreal law facts
The truth is always stranger than fiction.
The hanging judge
Benedict Carpzow (1595-1666) was a criminal law professor at the law school at Leipzeg but it was customary for law professors to also sit as judges. He became the most prolific death penalty judge that ever lived. He signed more than 30,000 death warrants, most against women convicted of witchcraft. In his 45 years as a judge in Leipzig, Germany, that equals 450 a year.
As a law professor, he convinced Germans that for witchcraft, suspects could be readily tortured based on suspicion.
Ironically, Carpzow was a devout Protestant who went to church regularly and his favourite book, the Bible and his favourite passage must have been Jeremiah 21:12 “administer justice every morning”.
Last meal: cake
Frances "Frankie" Silvers lived with her husband Charlie near the Toe River, North Carolina.
For reasons that have never been explained, Frankie killed her husband while he snoozed in front of a fire at around Christmas, 1831. Then, she cut up and burned the body.
Suspicious family members searched the farm and found bits of teeth and rotting internal organs. Frankie was arrested and faced a North Carolina law that denied her the right to testify. She was sentenced to be hung while her lawyer confidently told the press that "they don't hang women" (in N.C.).
Just before her date with the hangman, she managed to escape from prison but was quickly caught.
Her last request was for a piece of cake which on the gallows on July 12, 1833, in full view of the spectators that had come for miles to witness the execution, she slowly ate, while the executioner waited. A popular ballad came out after her death known as Frankie Silvers.
She remains the only woman ever hung in North Carolina.
Source: www.duhaime.org
