This article discusses the results of part of a research project studying punishment as a discursive practice in the creation of two concomitant events: a murder and a hanging; the working of a criminal hand and the working of justice. It looks into a hanging which occurred in Quebec in 1930. The material analyzed is composed of all archival documents related to the event. Michel Foucault's archeo-genealogical method is used in an exploratory manner as an approach for the analytic interpretation. The authors analyze certain practices which served to constitute the meaning of the two utterances. For the constitution of the murder, the authors considered the admission and the coroner's examination of the victim's body, and, for the constitution of the hanging, they examined they work of managing the condemned individual's body, work which occurred on the day of the hanging. They also discuss a few moments of resistance. The analysis reveals, among other things, the ritualized form of the legal process and the process of statutory degradation and statutory gradation in light of the various strategies and tactics employed.