onies, which as a result became capital(Black 2). By the end of the
             18th-century English criminal law contained about 200 capital offenses. Many offenders
             who were convicted of capital crimes escaped the gallows as a result of reprieves and
             royal pardons, usually on condition of transportation, and many others who were charged
             with capital crimes were acquitted against the evidence, because the jury was unwilling to
             see the death penalty applied in a minor case(Black 5).
             The unpredictable application of the death penalty in the late 18th and early 19th
             centuries led to demands for humanitarian reform. Between 1820 and 1840 most capital
             statutes were repealed, and by 1861 only murder, treason, arson in a royal dockyard, and
             piracy with violence retained the death penalty. Until the mid
             ...