“I am da Law”

[Durelin]

Middle-earth, fitting in as a part of history, is filled with peoples that are really extremely familiar to us, and we can draw countless anthropological parallels between the fantasy cultures and real cultures, past and present. One cultural aspect of those in Middle-earth that I’d like to explore is a system of law...

Specifically...could capital punishment be something used in, specifically, the Free Peoples’ justice system?

Yes, capital punishment. The be all, end all judgment (at least in this life, if you believe in another, or many others, after “this one”).

Could it be something used only in the very gravest of murder cases (cold-blooded and all that) as it is in the American legal system, or might it be used more often? Would it be as controversial as it is in the real world today?

Obviously it couldn’t be used rampantly, particularly not to the extreme of a Judge Dredd (science fiction) judge, jury, and executioner, but Hammurabi’s Code and the Twelve Tables don’t exactly shy away from death and types of physical harm as punishment.

Now, I know that even some of the “purest” seeming of the Free Peoples were all for killing the evil guys (though of course not all, and not always), but what about severe crime that has nothing to do with Sauron (how would they handle crime without any Dark Lord in the picture, as there wasn't for a time before The Lord of the Rings)?

How could the laws of Elves and Men differ on such a matter?

Kingdoms like Gondor and Rohan, I imagine, could have well-organized, written law. But could the laws of the Elves perhaps be less rigid, maybe even more assumed than dictated?

Could peoples like the Haradrim or the Easterlings, portrayed in some ways as somehow more “savage” or “primitive” (primitive not necessarily being a negative word at all) than Gondorians and Rohirrim and the like, be more inclined to deal out capital punishment and other nasty things? (Again, their law completely separate of Sauron’s influence.)

And we can’t forget Hobbits. Now them I can’t imagine using capital punishment at all. Though I simply can’t imagine a Hobbit actually murdering anyone, either...or do anything nastier to each other than steal each others’ mushrooms. But has Tolkien simply brainwashed me with Sam’s sweetness?

I know that all I’m doing is asking a lot of questions, and that this really becomes a very broad topic, but I have difficulty narrowing it down. I actually started with it more narrowed down, but one question leads to more...and more...and more...

So, two disclaimers other than that: First, is that I’m asking only for speculation, and that’s why I’m using “could” a lot. Whether or not Tolkien gave us such information elsewhere (i.e., Letters and such) is wonderful, and I’d love to know, too, but I personally enjoy speculating. Second, is that, of course, I do not want this to touch on our own personal feelings regarding capital punishment, and if it has to touch on how capital punishment is treated in real life now or in the past, I hope everyone will still keep themselves removed from it as a hot-button issue.

If this is a topic worthy of discussion, and not just a bunch of questions from a bored mind.

Well, that was longer than I meant it to be.