Essay Example on Infanticide: Its Prevalence Throughout History

Infanticides are common in various parts of the globe and societies, going by the court cases from the historical perspectives, killing of infants have been experienced in various contexts. There are cases when mothers plans for the death of their infants without informing anyone. On the other hand, there exist situations when the planned murder become popular in the community or even in society at large. Women who have proved guilty of infanticides have been punished in different ways. One of the common punishment that has been imposed on those women culpable of murdering infants is the death penalty. In the Old Bailey Proceedings, a servant was found guilty of infanticide, after she murdered her Bastard-Child (Shoemaker, 2008). According to the court proceedings, the woman pretended that she was delivering some items to the House-of-Office, in the process she wrapped a still-born in her apron and she wanted to privately bury it. However, she was suspected to be involved in a heinous act by some women who were in the area. It was discovered later that the woman had just delivered and that she was considering to dumb the baby due to personal conditions. Under the same circumstance, the woman was also planning for her own death. Parental infanticides researchers have revealed that mothers are more likely to be the perpetrators of infanticides that fathers and in general, they are more likely to commit neonaticide. During the trial in court, it was proved that the woman servant was so lusty to carry out the fallacious deed, in other words, she was determined to murder the infant. From the court, after all the litigations, the woman was sentenced to death as a result of her determination and the processes she was involved in to end the life of the infant.

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The primary source that highlight the above case is The Trail of Servants (t16790430-6). The article was written by London's Criminal Court. The resource was written to serve as the record for the infanticide acts and as a reference for the litigation processes in similar cases. The above primary sources on infanticide were written in April 1679 and it has for a long period, been used as references in different cases involving the fetal murders in various court processes (Shoemaker, 2008). The document provides the court proceedings as well as several defense methods employed both by the accused and the accuser, and how in the end, the judgment was arrived at. The woman who god involved in the murdering of the infant did not escape justice, she, after the court hearings were proven guilty and thereafter subjected to the death penalty. The document is reliable as it provides an elaborate mechanism on how the case was handled and how the proceedings in court can be used to inform the decision-making processes in similar cases in the future. As a historical document, the resource provides ideas and firsthand and useful information.

The accusations made against the woman in question were gross due to the seriousness of the offense that she committed. The evidence is given in the court process actually proved that the woman actually murdered the infant after birth, wrap the still-birth and hide it inside the apron. In addition, the accusation points out directly to the actual offense committed by the woman in question. The woman in question was treated as a criminal due to the substantive evidence presented in court. The evidence consisted of being found with the dead infant in her apron; it was later proved that she delivered and later murdered the infant (Shoemaker, 2008). The ruling in the case was influenced by the laws under murder cases and the moral status of the society.

The woman in question is treated like a criminal by the court where she was tried, however, before the court ruling, the authorities, the community as well as the person who wrote about her treated her as a suspect. However, after the ruling, the community perceived her as an immoral character who does not respect life. In addition, many people from the community believed that she did not value or perceive the life of a human as sacred. After the court processes, the authorities perceived the woman in question as a criminal who derived to be punished in line with the court ruling.

The testimony offered against the woman in question was being found with the dead wrapped and hidden inside her apron. The woman was accused of a crime because at first, she was suspected of murdering the infant, a scenario that was later approved in court after the presentation of evidence by the witnesses and the prosecutor. In other words, she was accused of murdering the infant and was served with the death penalty. The woman was suspected of murdering the baby because she was expectant and the dead infant was discovered a few hours after she delivered. The woman killed the baby due to her conditions, it seems that she was undergoing depression at the time of childbirth.

The sentence against the woman was rightly served. In most cases, individuals involved in the murder cases or infanticide needs to be given gross punishment including death penalty as given in the above case. In the case, there was a proof of murder and all the evidence presented pointed directly to the infanticide committed by the woman. In the year 1803, the law on infanticide was revised, and in the process, the proof of murder became an essential requirement for an individual or a suspect to be convicted. In cases where murder charges became impossible to prove, the accused would be instead charged with concealment of birth, an offense that would become punishable by a maximum imprisonment of two years. However, in the murder case above, there were substantive proofs and the woman was given a death penalty. Therefore, according to the law, the punishment was deservedly delivered.

According to the above sources of information, it is clear that everyone is equal before the law and that trials and punishment are done equally irrespective of gender. In addition, the punishment given depends on the nature of the offense as well as the evidence presented before the court. The trials are also based on the substantive evidence presented before the presiding judges.

Secondary Resource

The secondary source of information under consideration was "the trial of Katherine Tumince" the code of the resource is (t16790716-2). The sources is an article written in July 1679 by London's central criminal court. The sources are about the trial of the murder case committed by Katherine Tumince. From the article, there is an elaboration of the course proceedings involving the murder of an infant by his mother. Additionally, the article entails litigation or court processes and how the judgment was made as well as the punishment given to the suspect. From the information provided in the article, Katherine murdered her bastard son, the body was found in the rubbish. In the process of investigation, there were several witnesses and evidence provided in the court. After the court proceedings, Katherine was found guilty and was sentenced to death. From the article above, the author presents different issues. The thesis of the article is that laws are served equally irrespective of gender or social status. In other words, punishment is assigned to the offender depending on the level of crime committed as well as the evidence of the crime presented before the judges. From the article, there are applications of other scholar's arguments on the subject. In other words, other author's arguments on different litigation issues have been applied in the article, some of the themes borrowed from other scholars include the ruling systems as well as the historical punishments given to the offenders involved in the similar case. The evidence provided in support of the thesis include the primary sources which involve some of the cases that have taken a similar scenario. In addition, there are data as well as the secondary sources of information to support the claims being made in the article. The evidence provided support the thesis as they reveal detailed information about the main topic of the article. The strength in the thesis involves the ability of the writer or author to incorporate diverse approaches which are then elaborated Succicinlty in the paper. From the court processes elaborated in the article, it is clear that laws depend on the evidence provided as well as the type of crime that is in questions in a given scenario.

Reference

Shoemaker, R. B. (2008). The Old Bailey Proceedings and the representation of crime and criminal justice in eighteenth-century London. Journal of British Studies, 47(3), 559-580.