Criminal Corpse Research Articles

Command Responsibility in the Times ofTokhang: Defining Military-likeness under Article 28(a) of the Rome Statute

AbstractPresident Rodrigo Duterte won on a law-and-order campaign promise to fatten the fish in Manila Bay with the corpses of criminals. By the time the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute, the body count stood at a reported 30,000, a fifth of whom were openly killed in Philippine National Police (PNP) anti-drug operations. Duterte has since been accused of Crimes Against Humanity,inter alia, as “a person effectively acting as a military commander” under Article 28(a) of the Rome Statute for failing to prevent, repress, and report the crimes of his police subordinates. This study tests the veracity of that claim. It seeks to determine whether Duterte, as the Chief Executive and overall superior of the PNP – statutorily, a civilian group – may be held liable as a military-like commander under the doctrine of command responsibility. At the core of this query lies a singular concern far from simple: the meaning of military-likeness.

History of Judiciary of the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century in the territory of Southern Ukraine in epistolary sources

The change in the modern scientific paradigm of historical research encourages a more active study of the personal, subjective, "human" in various spheres of society. The purpose of the article: is to analyze the information potential of epistolary sources on the history of justice on the territory of Southern Ukraine in the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. Research methods: biographical, comparative studies, method of internal criticism of the sources. Main results. All letters can be divided into two groups. The first being letters of various kinds, are directly in the court cases themselves. The second, being private letters of persons, mention cases of contact with the judicial system and give its characteristics. The letters preserved in court archives are divided into private and business ones. The first ones were provided as evidence in cases; the second ones were used as a power of attorney. In the first group, the most interesting is the correspondence between the leader of the nobility of Yekaterinoslav governorate, Konstantin Lalosh, and his wife, Martha, in the 1780s. Letters of assistance to high-ranking officials are informative in terms of understanding the court process, attitude to the law, and combating office abuse by members of the court. They, as well as letters of instruction (“letters of credence”) of this period sometimes contain elements of private communication. That is, business and private correspondence often had common features and similarities. In addition to the procedure for obtaining legal services, the preserved epistolary describes the procedure for examining a criminal corpse. During this period, each landowner had experience in communicating with the judiciary, often in civil proceedings. Land tenure, inheritance, conflicts were resolved through the courts, debts were withheld. There is frequent evidence of such facts in ego-documents. The result of the lawsuit is correspondence between the famous writer Vasyl Kapnist and his counterpart Tekla Tarnovska (1797–1798). The consideration of mutual claims for property rights lasted for more than 20 years, for some time it took place in the chamber of the civil court of Yekaterinoslav governorate. The case was complicated by various circumstances and finally resolved by mutual agreement outside the courtroom. There are 17 letters from both sides, which were sent in search of understanding. Equally important is brief information about the activities of the courts which occur in the correspondence of this period (for example, the published complex of letters of the Yekaterinoslav landowners the Nechaievs). Conclusions. All epistolary sources demonstrate the importance of courts in the life of the society in the Southern Ukraine in the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. They tried to maintain good relations with court officials, avoided appearing before judges, but had little hope for judicial justice. Therefore, the need for control over attorneys and litigation was often pointed out; at the same time with trials, high officials and the emperor were usually addressed. Reconciliation processes were also popular. The analyzed epistolary books, some of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, have significant information potential for research of social, gender, economic history of the region in this period. Type of article: research.

Features of prosecutorial inspections of criminal fires (by the example of Kuzbass) as markers of sustainable development of mining region

In this article, the authors consider the issues of using coal as one of the main sources of thermal energy when hiding criminal corpses by burning. It has been established that it is impossible to reproduce the conditions of a crematorium under domestic conditions, and therefore, in order to destroy a corpse, a criminal needs access to a heat source on an industrial scale. Most often, criminals use boiler and stoker stoves to hide the corpse, or destroy the corpse in storage facilities where coal is stored. In the course of investigating criminal cases about these crimes, investigators must find out how the criminal was able to get access to the source of energy - coal, in cases where the coal does not belong to him on the basis of ownership. Meanwhile, the study of criminal cases showed that the duties under consideration are not fulfilled by investigators properly or are not performed at all. The article touches upon the issues of prosecutor's supervision over the investigation of this category of cases, and measures that the prosecutor could take to activate the investigation bodies and other officials in order to counteract the use of coal in criminal acts.

Book Reviews

This opus relates to the management of the criminal corpses over a period that extends from the adoption of the Murder Act (1752) until that of the Anatomy Act (1832). It discusses how these corpses were managed by lawyers and, above all, by penal surgeons whose role was regulated by both the Murder Act and the Anatomy Act. The Murder Act provided that in case of “horrid crimes”, the sentenced should be publicly dissected (ca 5% of the sentenced); hence it introduced post mortem punishments involving the medical profession. The Anatomy Act broadened its access to corpses insofar as it allowed the dissection of those unclaimed after death, for instance the poor who died in hospitals, workhouses or jails.

Criminal corpse dismemberment in Hamburg, Germany from 1959 to 2016

Cases of corpse dismemberment are rare, but occur most frequently in urban agglomerations. A distinction is made between defensive and offensive corpse dismemberment. This systematic review retrospectively assesses the phenomenology of 51 cases of corpse dismemberment (30 defensive and 21 offensive), which occurred in a period of 57 years and were subject to medico-legal autopsies performed at the Departement of Legal Medicine in Hamburg, Germany. The victims’ gender ratio was 1.7:1 female to male. In most cases, the perpetrators were middle-aged men from the close social environment, who had no psychiatric primary illnesses, no experience in the medical sector, and had not worked professionally as a butcher. In 80% of the cases it was possible to establish the cause of death; the most frequent cause was injuries sustained through sharp force (15 cases). The cases are discussed within the context of the existing international literature on corpse dismemberment.

Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse

Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse

'Other Spaces' for the Dangerous Dead of Provincial England, c.1752-1832.

The Murder Act (1752) decreed that homicide perpetrators should be hanged and sent for post‐execution punishment. This article explores the event management of criminal dissections by penal surgeons in situ. It reveals that the punishment parade of the condemned did not stop at the scaffold, contrary to the impression in many standard historical accounts. Instead, ordinary people accompanied criminal corpses to many different types of dissection venues. Penal surgeons hand‐picked these performance spaces that were socially produced for legal and practical reasons. They had to be able to process large numbers of people who wanted to be part of the consumption of post‐mortem ‘harm’ in English communities. Event management on location had to have emotional and visual appeal, moral coherence, be timed appropriately, and, if successful, would enhance the deterrence value of the capital code. Yet, managing the ‘dangerous dead’ involved a great deal of discretionary justice with unpredictable outcomes. It often happened in ‘counter‐sites’ of punishment in the community and involved a great deal of immersive theatre. Some events worked well, others threatened the social order. In ‘Other Spaces’ the ‘Dangerous Dead’ was hence a fascinating feature of the Murder Act outside the Metropolis from 1752 to 1832.

Punishing the Criminal Corpse, 1700-1840:Aggravated Forms of the Death Penalty in England

Punishing the Criminal Corpse, 1700-1840:Aggravated Forms of the Death Penalty in England

Remembering and Disremembering the Dead: Posthumous Punishment, Harm and Redemption over Time

This book is a multidisciplinary work that investigates the notion of posthumous harm over time. The question what is and when is death, affects how we understand the possibility of posthumous harm and redemption. Whilst it is impossible to hurt the dead, it is possible to harm the wishes, beliefs and memories of persons that once lived. In this way, this book highlights the vulnerability of the dead, and makes connections to a historical oeuvre, to add critical value to similar concepts in history that are overlooked by most philosophers. There is a long historical view of case studies that illustrate the conceptual character of posthumous punishment; that is, dissection and gibbetting of the criminal corpse after the Murder Act (1752), and those shot at dawn during the First World War. A long historical view is also taken of posthumous harm; that is, body-snatching in the late Georgian period, and organ-snatching at Alder Hey in the 1990s.

Dissecting the Criminal Corpse: Staging Post-Execution Punishment in Early Modern England

The manuscript received an 'excellent' endorsement by external refereeing and suggested amendments were very minor. The completed manuscript was sent to the publisher and accepted on 31 July 2015. It will be copy-edited in the spring of 2016 and is scheduled for open access production in April 2016. Palgrave Macmillan has recently merged with Springer and a short delay in processing has been caused in-house whilst they merge their production systems. The main anonymous referee was very praiseworthy of the book and commented that it will make a 'major contribution...extending the work of Vic Gattrell's The Hanging Tree' in terms of its historical reach'. The report is available on request.

Curious afterlives: the enduring appeal of the criminal corpse

Not only did the criminal corpse have actual medicinal and magical power for Europeans, it also had social and cultural meaning as an object, a curio or secular relic. This paper considers the appeal of notorious bodies. From books bound in the skin of a criminal, to preserved and exhibited heads, from fragments of the hangman’s rope to the exhibition of the skeleton, the story of the afterlife of criminal bodies and the material culture most immediately associated with them begins with the collection and exchange of bodies and moves into contemporary preoccupations with authenticity. This paper considers the bodies of three notorious criminals of the eighteenth century: Eugene Aram, William Burke and William Corder. It ends with some reflections on the glamour of the authentic body of a notorious or celebrated individual – using the response to the discovery of the body of Richard III as an example.

The criminal corpse in pieces

For criminals the moment of death marked the beginning of a new social existence, in which their former identities disappeared in the magico-medical employments of their bodies. Blood, fat and bones were sought for by people as effective medicines or as protective charms. This paper aims to look at the survival of such traditions in nineteenth-century western Europe, discussing how a blend of learned notions and folk-beliefs nurtured the view of an untimely dead body as full of physical and spiritual usable powers.

The commodification of the criminal corpse: ‘selective memory’ in posthumous representations of criminal

For the last 20 years, you have been able to buy body parts of criminals on the Internet. Through repeated exposure to the corpse in popular culture, the boundaries between real and facsimile are blurring when it comes to the cadaver, but ‘murderabilia’, a consumeristic arm of ‘dark tourism’, is often sold as the most authentic way to consume crime in the culture industry. Foltyn argues that in the process of consuming death, we are ‘creating corpse facts and fictions’. With regards to murderabilia, my contribution offers the concept of ‘selective memory’ as a way to understand how positive histories are enhanced in posthumous representations of criminal. A ‘selective memory’ augments these corpse fictions, more than the facts, making for lopsided representations of the criminal corpse. This paper of three parts analyses historical commodification of the criminal corpse, arguing that being dead has often been a prerequisite of achieving notoriety for criminals. Second, a case study of Charles Manson is used to showcase the brand-like qualities attached to successful criminal celebrities. Third, this case study is continued through news media representations, to show that the criminal corpse is recalled with a ‘selective memory’, missing violent aspects and focussing instead on brand.

A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse

A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse

The Landscape of the Gibbet

ABSTRACTFrom the Murder Act of 1752 until the Anatomy Act of 1832 it was forbidden to bury the bodies of executed murderers unless they had first been anatomised or ‘hung in chains’ (gibbeted). This paper considers some of the observations of the Wellcome-funded project ‘Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse’ as they relate to the practice of gibbeting. The nature of hanging in chains is briefly described before an extensive discussion of the criteria by which gibbets, which often remained standing for many decades, were selected. These are: proximity to the scene of crime, visibility, and practicality. Exceptions, in the forms of those sentenced by the Admiralty Courts, and those sentenced in and around London, are briefly considered. Hanging in chains was an infrequent punishment (anatomical dissection was far more frequently practised) but it was the subject of huge public interest and attracted thousands of people. There was no specified time for which a body should remain hanging, and the gibbet often became a known landmark and a significant place in the landscape. There is a remarkable contrast between anatomical dissection, which obliterates and anonymises the body of the individual malefactor, and hanging in chains, which leaves a highly personalised and enduring imprint on the actual and imaginative landscape.

The Criminal Corpse, Anatomists and the Criminal Law: Parliamentary Attempts to Extend the Dissection of Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century England.

In the later eighteenth century two schemes were introduced in Parliament for extending the practice of handing over the bodies of executed offenders to anatomists for dissection. Both measures were motivated by the needs of anatomy - including the improvement of surgical skill, the development of medical teaching in the provinces, and for conducting public anatomical demonstrations. Yet both failed to pass into law due to concerns about the possibly damaging effects in terms of criminal justice. Through a detailed analysis of the origins and progress of these two parliamentary measures - a moment when the competing claims of anatomy and criminal justice vied for supremacy over the criminal corpse - the following article sheds light on judicial attitudes to dissection as a method of punishment and adds to our understanding of why the dread of dissection would come to fall upon the dead poor (rather than executed offenders) in the nineteenth century.

Skeletons in Armor: Silius Italicus’ Punica and the Aeneid ’s Proem

The arma virumque theme that this article identifies in the Punica is an important avenue through which to understand the meaning of Silius Italicus’ poem and its author’s relationship with Vergil. The text frequently uses combinations of the Aeneid ’s first two words, arma and vir , to suggest a common literary inheritance from Aeneas among its characters, large and small, Roman and Carthaginian. By pervasively characterizing most participants in the Second Punic War as versions, or poetic refractions, of Aeneas, the poet recasts Rome’s glorious foreign war as a kind of civil war producing criminal corpses. More specifically, characters vie not for national dominance of the Mediterranean but for personal prestige as the most worthy heir to Aeneas. This process reconsiders the Republic’s history, aligns the text with the developments of 69 c.e. , and comments critically on the Roman principate and its foundational literary text, the Aeneid .

Consuming criminal corpses: Fascination with the dead criminal body

The body of the criminal has long held a macabre fascination. From the earliest times to the nineteenth century, the public execution of criminals in Britain and America drew large crowds to witness the punishment being carried out. Even after the termination of public executions, the fascination with death through the criminal corpse has continued. This is demonstrated by a tourist-like interest and curiosity emerging to the extent of celebrated status being attained by certain criminals and their deaths. This article engages with the macabre fascination and celebration of death and the criminal corpse by exploring the gruesome tourism and pursuit of souvenirs relating to specific dead criminals in Britain and America. Using a broad sweep of case studies dating between 1800 and the 1970s – including Scottish body snatchers Burke and Hare, and murderers, William Corder, and Gary Gilmore – the enthralment with the criminal corpse will be examined and conceptualised. I draw on Seltzer's notion of wound culture, whereby society is fascinated and thrilled with violence and death, to argue that the consumption of criminal corpses is a grisly aspect of contemporary consumer culture in which even the macabre can gain celebrated, or celebrity, status.

EXPOSURE, MUTILATION, AND RIOT: VIOLENCE AT THE SCALAE GEMONIAE IN EARLY IMPERIAL ROME

Beginning in the reign of Augustus or Tiberius, corpses of criminals condemned and executed by the state were exposed on the Scalae Gemoniae, a flight of stairs located in the northern corner of the Forum Romanum. As one modern commentator has observed, the ritual of execution in which these stairs played a critical role reflected more generally the suppression of popular participation in the judicial processes that accompanied the last century of the Republic and the emergence of the Principate. As has long been noted, however, the Stairs were also the site of well-attested instances of collective violence, in particular protests during Cn. Calpurnius Piso's trial in the senate in AD 20, violence surrounding the fall of Sejanus in AD 31, and the popular violence and warfare of AD 69.