The Hon. J.R. (Ralph) Hanan continued to campaign for the abolition of the death penalty. A tide of disgust against the penalty overtook public perception after the hanging of Albert Black. One more person was hanged before the election of the 1957–1960 Labour Government. During that term all death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. In 1960 a National Government took office again. In 1961 Hanan, by then the Attorney-General, introduced legislation to withdraw hanging as a punishment. The Hon J.R. Marshall put forward six reasons why it should be maintained. The Bill was debated on non-party lines.
Hanan said, at the end of the debate: ‘Justice is due to all men, murderers as well as the rest of us, simply because we are men. The situation through the vagaries of party politics in New Zealand for the last twenty-five years has, therefore, violated justice.’
Ten members of the National Party voted with Labour to abolish the death penalty for murder.
Hanan died suddenly in 1969. He was sixty years old.