Barry Scheck will never forget that sunny Sunday morning at a Bar Council conference on Bloomsday, June 16, 2001, a red-letter day for the pro-life advocate in a debate about the death penalty. “Crime and Punishment – Retribution or Rehabilitation” was the official name, a grandiose title for yet another discussion in Dublin about judicial executions.  Scheck, a renowned US attorney, was sharing a platform with Michael Howard QC, the former pro-hanging, Tory hardliner and one-time Home Secretary. Howard had twice voted in favour of the death penalty’s reintroduction in parliament before changing his mind in 1994. At dinner the…

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