Traveller Vignette 021

“Mrs Wagner?” The Deputy handed her a snubnose revolver. It was heavier than she'd expected. “There are three bullets in it, and the law says you need to fire all three”. He was trying for a reassuring tone, but she wanted to vomit. The prisoner knelt on the ground beside her, his hands bound behind the stake that held him upright.

She approved of the rule that a jury passing a death sentence had to carry it out themselves in theory – if you weren't sure enough to pull the trigger yourself, you weren't sure enough to ask the faceless state to do it for you. Theory didn't help much now, however

She raised the gun to his temple. He was gagged, but his eyes were hopeless and terrified.

She was as sure of his guilt as she was of her own birthday; he'd killed those three kids. The jury had been unanimous, and it has just her bad luck to draw the one black marble from the cup.

She sucked in a deep breath, and pulled the trigger; it took more force than she expected. Two more quick shots, she handed the pistol to the deputy and threw up everything she'd eaten that day next to the man she'd just executed.

She stumbled away, past the open grave the other jurors were still digging...


(Author's note - As noted previously, justice systems are a good way to give a world character. I envisioned this as a frontier-type world, but there's no reason it has to be. Involving the jury in actually delivering the sentence might lead to a lower use of the death penalty (few cases will be as clear as the one here), with more chance of a compromise sentence such as exile or imprisonment even where the strict penalty would be death.)


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