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Capital punishment: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Capital punishment
The word capital comes from the Latin word for head, a linguistic fossil from an era when the most common method of execution was beheading. This etymological root anchors a practice that has existed since the dawn of recorded history, serving as the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. In the earliest days of civilization, before the development of modern prison systems, there was frequently no workable alternative to ensure deterrence and incapacitation of criminals. The response to crimes committed by neighboring tribes, clans, or communities often included formal apologies, compensation, blood feuds, and tribal warfare. A blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes fails, or an arbitration system is non-existent. This form of justice was common before the emergence of an arbitration system based on the state or organized religion. It may result from crime, land disputes, or a code of honor. Acts of retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies, as well as potential allies, that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished. The word murder is derived from the French word mordre, meaning bite, a reference to the heavy compensation one must pay for causing an unjust death. The bite one had to pay was used as a term for the crime itself, as Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in The Canterbury Tales in the late fourteenth century. In certain parts of the world, nations in the form of ancient republics, monarchies, or tribal oligarchies emerged, united by common linguistic, religious, or family ties. The earliest and most famous example is the Code of Hammurabi, which set different punishments and compensation according to the different class or group of victims and perpetrators. The Athenian legal system that replaced customary oral law was first written down by Draco in about 621 BC, applying the death penalty for a particularly wide range of crimes, though Solon later repealed Draco's code and published new laws, retaining capital punishment only for intentional homicide and only with the victim's family permission. The Romans also used the death penalty for a wide range of offenses, including libel, arson, and theft, with crucifixion reserved for slaves, bandits, and traitors. During the Late Republic, there was consensus among the public and legislators to reduce the incidence of capital punishment, leading to voluntary exile being prescribed in place of the death penalty, whereby a convict could either choose to leave in exile or face execution. A historic debate, followed by a vote, took place in the Roman Senate to decide the fate of Catiline's allies when he attempted to seize power in December 63 BC. Cicero, then Roman consul, argued in support of the killing of conspirators without judgment by decision of the Senate, and was supported by the majority of senators, while the most notable minority voice opposed to the execution was Julius Caesar. The custom was different for foreigners who did not hold rights as Roman citizens, and especially for slaves, who were transferable property. Corpses of the crucified were typically left on the crosses to decompose and to be eaten by animals, intended to be a punishment, a humiliation, and a deterrent. In China, there was a time in the Tang dynasty, between 618 and 907, when the death penalty was abolished in the year 747, enacted by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. When abolishing the death penalty, Xuanzong ordered his officials to refer to the nearest regulation by analogy when sentencing those found guilty of crimes for which the prescribed punishment was execution. Thus, depending on the severity of the crime, a punishment of severe scourging with the thick rod or of exile to the remote Lingnan region might take the place of capital punishment. However, the death penalty was restored only 12 years later in 759 in response to the An Lushan Rebellion. At this time in the Tang dynasty, only the emperor had the authority to sentence criminals to execution. Under Xuanzong, capital punishment was relatively infrequent, with only 24 executions in the year 730 and 58 executions in the year 736. The two most common forms of execution in the Tang dynasty were strangulation and decapitation, which were the prescribed methods of execution for 144 and 89 offenses respectively. Strangulation was the prescribed sentence for lodging an accusation against one's parents or grandparents with a magistrate, scheming to kidnap a person and sell them into slavery, and opening a coffin while desecrating a tomb. Decapitation was the method of execution prescribed for more serious crimes such as treason and sedition. Despite the great discomfort involved, most of the Tang Chinese preferred strangulation to decapitation, as a result of the traditional Tang Chinese belief that the body is a gift from the parents and that it is, therefore, disrespectful to one's ancestors to die without returning one's body to the grave intact. Some further forms of capital punishment were practiced in the Tang dynasty, of which the first two that follow at least were extralegal. The first of these was scourging to death with the thick rod, which was common throughout the Tang dynasty, especially in cases of gross corruption. The second was truncation, in which the convicted person was cut in two at the waist with a fodder knife and then left to bleed to death. A further form of execution called Ling Chi, or death by a thousand cuts, was used from the close of the Tang dynasty, around 900, to its abolition in 907. When a minister of the fifth grade or above received a death sentence, the emperor might grant him a special dispensation allowing him to commit suicide in lieu of execution. Even when this privilege was not granted, the law required that the condemned minister be provided with food and ale by his keepers and transported to the execution ground in a cart rather than having to walk there. Nearly all executions under the Tang dynasty took place in public as a warning to the population. The heads of the executed were displayed on poles or spears. When local authorities decapitated a convicted criminal, the head was boxed and sent to the capital as proof of identity and that the execution had taken place.
In medieval and early modern Europe, before the development of modern prison systems, the death penalty was also used as a generalized form of punishment for even minor offenses. In early modern Europe, a mass panic regarding witchcraft swept across Europe and later the European colonies in North America. During this period, there were widespread claims that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christendom. As a result, tens of thousands of women were prosecuted for witchcraft and executed through the witch trials of the early modern period, between the 15th and 18th centuries. The death penalty also targeted sexual offenses such as sodomy. In the early history of Islam, between the 7th and 11th centuries, there is a number of purported but mutually inconsistent reports regarding the punishments of sodomy ordered by some of the early caliphs. Abu Bakr, the first caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, apparently recommended toppling a wall on the culprit, or else burning him alive, while Ali ibn Abi Talib is said to have ordered death by stoning for one sodomite and had another thrown head-first from the top of the highest building in the town. Other medieval Muslim leaders, such as the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad, most notably al-Mu'tadid, were often cruel in their punishments. In early modern England, the Buggery Act 1533 stipulated hanging as punishment for buggery. James Pratt and John Smith were the last two Englishmen to be executed for sodomy in 1835. In 1636, the laws of Puritan-governed Plymouth Colony included a sentence of death for sodomy and buggery. The Massachusetts Bay Colony followed in 1641. Throughout the 19th century, U.S. states repealed death sentences from their sodomy laws, with South Carolina being the last to do so in 1873. Historians recognize that during the Early Middle Ages, the Christian populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries suffered religious discrimination, religious persecution, religious violence, and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers. As People of the Book, Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to dhimmi status, along with Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians, which was inferior to the status of Muslims. Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination and religious persecution in that they were banned from proselytizing, for Christians, it was forbidden to evangelize or spread Christianity, in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslims on pain of death. They were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs. Under sharia, non-Muslims were obligated to pay jizya and kharaj taxes, together with periodic heavy ransom levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty. These financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam. Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to Muslim rulers as payment, who would sell them as slaves to Muslim households where they were forced to convert to Islam. Many Christian martyrs were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance, such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs. One of the youngest children ever to be executed was the infant son of Perotine Massey on or around the 18th of July 1556. His mother was one of the Guernsey Martyrs who was executed for heresy, and his father had previously fled the island. At less than one day old, he was ordered to be burned by Bailiff Hellier Gosselin, with the advice of priests nearby who said the boy should burn due to having inherited moral stain from his mother, who had given birth during her execution. In the United States, between 1642 and the American Revolution, an estimated 365 juvenile offenders were executed by various colonial authorities and the federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma in 1988, and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons in 2005. In Prussia, children under the age of 14 were exempted from the death penalty in 1794. General State Laws for the Prussian States, Part 20, Section 17, Part 1, Section 25. Capital punishment was cancelled by the Electorate of Bavaria in 1751 for children under the age of 11, and by the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1813 for children and youth under 16 years. In Prussia, the exemption was extended to youth under the age of 16 in 1851. For the first time, all juveniles were excluded for the death penalty by the North German Confederation in 1871, which was continued by the German Empire in 1872. In Nazi Germany, capital punishment was reinstated for juveniles between 16 and 17 years in 1939. This was broadened to children and youth from age 12 to 17 in 1943. The death penalty for juveniles was abolished by West Germany, also generally, in 1949, and by East Germany in 1952. In the Hereditary Lands, Austrian Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia within the Habsburg monarchy, capital punishment for children under the age of 11 was no longer foreseen by 1770. The death penalty was, also for juveniles, nearly abolished in 1787, except for emergency or military law, which is unclear in regard to those. It was reintroduced for juveniles above 14 years by 1803, and was raised by general criminal law to 20 years in 1852. In the Helvetic Republic, the death penalty for children and youth under the age of 16 was abolished in 1799, yet the country was already dissolved in 1803, whereas the law could remain in force if it was not replaced on cantonal level. In the canton of Bern, all juveniles were exempted from the death penalty at least in 1866. In Fribourg, capital punishment was generally, including for juveniles, abolished by 1849. In Ticino, it was abolished for youth and young adults under the age of 20 in 1816. In Zurich, the exclusion from the death penalty was extended for juveniles and young adults up to 19 years of age by 1835. In 1942, the death penalty was almost deleted in criminal law, as well for juveniles, but since 1928 persisted in military law during wartime for youth above 14 years. If no earlier change was made in the given subject, by 1979, juveniles could no longer be subject to the death penalty in military law during wartime. Between 2005 and May 2008, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen were reported to have executed child offenders, the largest number occurring in Iran. During Hassan Rouhani's tenure as president of Iran from 2013 until 2021, at least 3,602 death sentences have been carried out. This includes the executions of 34 juvenile offenders. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles under article 37(a), has been signed by all countries and subsequently ratified by all signatories with the exception of the United States. The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights maintains that the death penalty for juveniles has become contrary to a jus cogens of customary international law. A majority of countries are also party to the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose Article 6.5 also states that sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age. Iran, despite its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was the world's largest executioner of juvenile offenders, for which it has been the subject of broad international condemnation. The country's record is the focus of the Stop Child Executions Campaign. But on the 10th of February 2012, Iran's parliament changed controversial laws relating to the execution of juveniles. In the new legislation, the age of 18, solar year, would be applied to accused of both genders, and juvenile offenders must be sentenced pursuant to a separate law specifically dealing with juveniles. Based on Islamic law, which now seems to have been revised, girls at the age of 9 and boys at 15 of the lunar year, 11 days shorter than a solar year, are deemed fully responsible for their crimes. Iran accounted for two-thirds of the global total of such executions, and currently has approximately 140 people considered as juveniles awaiting execution for crimes committed, up from 71 in 2007. Iranian activists fight child executions, Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press, the 17th of September 2008. Retrieved the 22nd of September 2008. The past executions of Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni, and Makwan Moloudzadeh became the focus of Iran's child capital punishment policy and the judicial system that hands down such sentences. In 2023, Iran executed a minor who had knifed a man that fought him for following a girl in the street. Saudi Arabia also executes criminals who were minors at the time of the offense. In 2013, Saudi Arabia was the center of an international controversy after it executed Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker, who was believed to have been 17 years old at the time of the crime. Saudi Arabia banned executions for minors, except for terrorism cases, in April 2020. Japan has not executed juvenile criminals since August 1997, when they executed Norio Nagayama, a spree killer who had been convicted of shooting four people dead in the late 1960s. Nagayama's case created the eponymously named Nagayama standards, which take into account factors such as the number of victims, brutality, and social impact of the crimes. The standards have been used in determining whether to apply the death sentence in murder cases. Teruhiko Seki, convicted of murdering four family members including a 4-year-old daughter and raping a 15-year-old daughter of a family in 1992, became the second inmate to be hanged for a crime committed as a minor in the first such execution in 20 years after Nagayama on the 19th of December 2017. Takayuki Otsuki, who was convicted of raping and strangling a 23-year-old woman and subsequently strangling her 11-month-old daughter to death on the 14th of April 1999, when he was 18, is another inmate sentenced to death, and his request for retrial has been rejected by the Supreme Court of Japan. There is evidence that child executions are taking place in parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union. In October 2008, a girl, Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. Somalia's established Transitional Federal Government announced in November 2009, reiterated in 2013, that it plans to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This move was lauded by UNICEF as a welcome attempt to secure children's rights in the country.
The Enlightenment Shift
While during the Middle Ages the expiatory aspect of the death penalty was taken into account, this is no longer the case under the Lumières. These define the place of man within society no longer according to a divine rule, but as a contract established at birth between the citizen and society, it is the social contract. From that moment on, capital punishment should be seen as useful to society through its dissuasive effect, but also as a means of protection of the latter vis-à-vis criminals. In the last several centuries, with the emergence of modern nation states, justice came to be increasingly associated with the concept of natural and legal rights. The period saw an increase in standing police forces and permanent penitential institutions. Rational choice theory, a utilitarian approach to criminology which justifies punishment as a form of deterrence as opposed to retribution, can be traced back to Cesare Beccaria, whose influential treatise On Crimes and Punishments in 1764 was the first detailed analysis of capital punishment to demand the abolition of the death penalty. Marcello Maestro, A pioneer for the abolition of capital punishment: Cesare Beccaria. Journal of the History of Ideas 34.3 (1973): 463, 68. In England, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of modern utilitarianism, called for the abolition of the death penalty. Beccaria, and later Charles Dickens and Karl Marx, noted the incidence of increased violent criminality at the times and places of executions. Official recognition of this phenomenon led to executions being carried out inside prisons, away from public view. In England in the 18th century, when there was no police force, Parliament drastically increased the number of capital offences to more than 200. These were mainly property offences, for example cutting down a cherry tree in an orchard. In 1820, there were 160, including crimes such as shoplifting, petty theft, or stealing cattle. The severity of the so-called Bloody Code was often tempered by juries who refused to convict, or judges, in the case of petty theft, who arbitrarily set the value stolen at below the statutory level for a capital crime. Durant, Will and Ariel, The Story of Civilization, Volume IX: The Age of Voltaire New York, 1965, p. 71. Durant, p. 72. In the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, in 1846. The short-lived revolutionary Roman Republic banned capital punishment in 1849. Venezuela followed suit and abolished the death penalty in 1863, and San Marino did so too in 1865, however the last execution in San Marino had taken place in 1468. In Portugal, after legislative proposals in 1852 and 1863, the death penalty was abolished in 1867. The last execution in Brazil was 1876; from then on all the condemnations were commuted by the Emperor Pedro II until its abolition for civil offences and military offences in peacetime in 1891. The penalty for crimes committed in peacetime was then reinstated and abolished again twice, 1938, 1953 and 1969, 1978, but on those occasions it was restricted to acts of terrorism or subversion considered internal warfare and all sentences were commuted and not carried out. Many countries have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. Since World War II, there has been a trend toward abolishing capital punishment. Capital punishment has been completely abolished by 108 countries, a further seven have done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 26 more have abolished it in practice because they have not used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice against carrying out executions. In the United States between 1972 and 1976, the death penalty was declared unconstitutional based on the Furman v. Georgia case, but the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case once again permitted the death penalty under certain circumstances. Further limitations were placed on the death penalty in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, death penalty unconstitutional for people with an intellectual disability, and Roper v. Simmons in 2005, death penalty unconstitutional if defendant was under age 18 at the time the crime was committed. In the United States, 23 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. ban capital punishment. In the United Kingdom, it was abolished for murder, leaving only treason, piracy with violence, arson in royal dockyards, and a number of wartime military offences as capital crimes, for a five-year experiment in 1965 and permanently in 1969, the last execution having taken place in 1964. It was abolished for all offences in 1998. Protocol 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, first entering into force in 2003, prohibits the death penalty in all circumstances for those states that are parties to it, including the United Kingdom from 2004. Abolition occurred in Canada in 1976, except for some military offences, with complete abolition in 1998, in France in 1981, and in Australia in 1973, although the state of Western Australia retained the penalty until 1984. In South Australia, under the premiership of then-Premier Dunstan, the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 was modified so that the death sentence was changed to life imprisonment in 1976. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it was desirable to progressively restrict the number of offences for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment. In 724 AD in Japan, the death penalty was banned during the reign of Emperor Shōmu, but the abolition only lasted a few years. In 818, Emperor Saga abolished the death penalty under the influence of Shinto, and it lasted until 1156. In China, the death penalty was banned by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang in 747, replacing it with exile or scourging. However, the ban only lasted 12 years. Following his conversion to Christianity in 988, Vladimir the Great abolished the death penalty in Kievan Rus', along with torture and mutilation; corporal punishment was also seldom used. In England, a public statement of opposition was included in The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, written in 1395. In the post-classical Republic of Poljica, life was ensured as a basic right in its Poljica Statute of 1440. Sir Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, debated the benefits of the death penalty in dialogue form, coming to no firm conclusion. More was himself executed for treason in 1535. More recent opposition to the death penalty stemmed from the book of the Italian Cesare Beccaria, Dei Delitti e Delle Pene, On Crimes and Punishments, published in 1764. In this book, Beccaria aimed to demonstrate not only the injustice, but even the futility from the point of view of social welfare, of torture and the death penalty. Influenced by the book, Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg, the future emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, abolished the death penalty in the then-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the first abolition in modern times. On the 30th of November 1786, after having de facto blocked executions, the last was in 1769, Leopold promulgated the reform of the penal code that abolished the death penalty and ordered the destruction of all the instruments for capital execution in his land. In 2000, Tuscany's regional authorities instituted an annual holiday on the 30th of November to commemorate the event. The event is commemorated on this day by 300 cities around the world celebrating Cities for Life Day. Leopold's brother Joseph, the then emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, abolished in his immediate lands in 1787 capital punishment, which though only lasted until 1795, after both had died and Leopold's son Francis abolished it in his immediate lands. In Tuscany, it was reintroduced in 1790 after Leopold's departure becoming emperor. Only after 1831 capital punishment was again at times stopped, though it took until 2007 to abolish capital punishment in Italy completely. The Kingdom of Tahiti was the first legislative assembly in the world to abolish the death penalty in 1824. Tahiti commuted the death penalty to banishment. In the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, in 1846. The short-lived revolutionary Roman Republic banned capital punishment in 1849. Venezuela followed suit and abolished the death penalty in 1863, and San Marino did so too in 1865, however the last execution in San Marino had taken place in 1468. In Portugal, after legislative proposals in 1852 and 1863, the death penalty was abolished in 1867. The last execution in Brazil was 1876; from then on all the condemnations were commuted by the Emperor Pedro II until its abolition for civil offences and military offences in peacetime in 1891. The penalty for crimes committed in peacetime was then reinstated and abolished again twice, 1938, 1953 and 1969, 1978, but on those occasions it was restricted to acts of terrorism or subversion considered internal warfare and all sentences were commuted and not carried out. Many countries have abolished capital punishment either in law or in practice. Since World War II, there has been a trend toward abolishing capital punishment. Capital punishment has been completely abolished by 108 countries, a further seven have done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 26 more have abolished it in practice because they have not used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice against carrying out executions. In the United States between 1972 and 1976, the death penalty was declared unconstitutional based on the Furman v. Georgia case, but the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case once again permitted the death penalty under certain circumstances. Further limitations were placed on the death penalty in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, death penalty unconstitutional for people with an intellectual disability, and Roper v. Simmons in 2005, death penalty unconstitutional if defendant was under age 18 at the time the crime was committed. In the United States, 23 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. ban capital punishment. In the United Kingdom, it was abolished for murder, leaving only treason, piracy with violence, arson in royal dockyards, and a number of wartime military offences as capital crimes, for a five-year experiment in 1965 and permanently in 1969, the last execution having taken place in 1964. It was abolished for all offences in 1998. Protocol 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, first entering into force in 2003, prohibits the death penalty in all circumstances for those states that are parties to it, including the United Kingdom from 2004. Abolition occurred in Canada in 1976, except for some military offences, with complete abolition in 1998, in France in 1981, and in Australia in 1973, although the state of Western Australia retained the penalty until 1984. In South Australia, under the premiership of then-Premier Dunstan, the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 was modified so that the death sentence was changed to life imprisonment in 1976. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it was desirable to progressively restrict the number of offences for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment.
Modern Methods And Politics
In Nazi Germany, there were three types of capital punishment: hanging, decapitation, and death by shooting. Also, modern military organizations employed capital punishment as a means of maintaining military discipline. In the past, cowardice, absence without leave, desertion, insubordination, shirking under enemy fire, and disobeying orders were often crimes punishable by death, see decimation and running the gauntlet. One method of execution, since firearms came into common use, has also been firing squad, although some countries use execution with a single shot to the head or neck. Public execution is a form of capital punishment which members of the general public may voluntarily attend. This definition excludes the presence of a small number of witnesses randomly selected to assure executive accountability. While today the great majority of the world considers public executions to be distasteful and most countries have outlawed the practice, throughout much of history executions were performed publicly as a means for the state to demonstrate its power before those who fell under its jurisdiction, be they criminals, enemies, or political opponents. Additionally, it afforded the public a chance to witness what was considered a great spectacle. Social historians note that beginning in the 20th century in the U.S. and western Europe, death in general became increasingly shielded from public view, occurring more and more behind the closed doors of the hospital. Executions were likewise moved behind the walls of the penitentiary. The last formal public executions occurred in 1868 in Britain, in 1936 in the U.S. and in 1939 in France. According to Amnesty International, in 2012, public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia. There have been reports of public executions carried out by state and non-state actors in Hamas-controlled Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Executions which can be classified as public were also carried out in the U.S. states of Florida and Utah. Various authoritarian states have employed the death penalty as a potent means of political oppression. Anti-Soviet author Robert Conquest claimed that more than one million Soviet citizens were executed during the Great Purge of 1936 to 1938, almost all by a bullet to the back of the head. Mao Zedong publicly stated that 800,000 people had been executed in China during the Cultural Revolution, 1966, 1976. Partly as a response to such excesses, civil rights organizations started to place increasing emphasis on the concept of human rights and an abolition of the death penalty. By continent, all European countries but one have abolished capital punishment; many Oceanian countries have abolished it; most countries in the Americas have abolished its use, while a few actively retain it; less than half of countries in Africa retain it; and the majority of countries in Asia retain it, for example, China, Japan, and India. Abolition was often adopted due to political change, as when countries shifted from authoritarianism to democracy, or when it became an entry condition for the EU. The United States is a notable exception: some states have had bans on capital punishment for decades, the earliest being Michigan, where it was abolished in 1846, while other states still actively use it today. The death penalty in the United States remains a contentious issue which is hotly debated. In retentionist countries, the debate is sometimes revived when a miscarriage of justice has occurred, though this tends to cause legislative efforts to improve the judicial process rather than to abolish the death penalty. In abolitionist countries, the debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders, though few countries have brought it back after abolishing it. However, a spike in serious, violent crimes, such as murders or terrorist attacks, has prompted some countries to effectively end the moratorium on the death penalty. One notable example is Pakistan, which in December 2014 lifted a six-year moratorium on executions after the Peshawar school massacre during which 132 students and 9 members of staff of the Army Public School and Degree College Peshawar were killed by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan terrorists, a group distinct from the Afghan Taliban, who condemned the attack. Since then, Pakistan has executed over 400 convicts. In 2017, two major countries, Turkey and the Philippines, saw their executives making moves to reinstate the death penalty. In the same year, passage of the law in the Philippines failed to obtain the Senate's approval. On the 29th of December 2021, after a 20-year moratorium, the Kazakhstan government enacted the On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Abolition of the Death Penalty, signed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as part of a series of Omnibus reformations of the Kazak legal system Listening State initiative. The death penalty is also authorized for certain federal and military crimes. Since World War II, there has been a trend toward abolishing the death penalty; 54 countries retain the death penalty in active use, 112 countries have abolished capital punishment altogether, 7 have done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 22 more have abolished it in practice because they have not used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice against carrying out executions. According to Amnesty International, 20 countries are known to have performed executions in 2022. There are countries which do not publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China and North Korea. According to Amnesty International, around 1,000 prisoners were executed in 2017. Amnesty reported in 2004 and 2009 that Singapore and Iraq respectively had the world's highest per capita execution rate. According to Al Jazeera and UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed, Iran has had the world's highest per capita execution rate. A 2012 EU report from the Directorate-General for External Relations' policy department pointed to Gaza as having the highest per capita execution rate in the MENA region. Country Total executed 2022. Capital Punishments UK. Amnesty International. Unknown. The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly restrained in some retentionist countries including Taiwan and Singapore. Indonesia carried out no executions between November 2008 and March 2013. Singapore, Japan, and the United States are the only developed countries that are classified by Amnesty International as retentionist, South Korea is classified as abolitionist in practice. Nearly all retentionist countries are situated in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. The only retentionist country in Europe is Belarus, and in March 2023, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed a law which allows to use capital punishment against officials and soldiers convicted of high treason. During the 1980s, the democratisation of Latin America swelled the ranks of abolitionist countries. This was soon followed by the overthrow of the communist states in Europe. Many of these countries aspired to enter the EU, which strictly requires member states not to practice the death penalty, as does the Council of Europe, see Capital punishment in Europe. Public support for the death penalty in the EU varies. The last execution in a member state of the present-day Council of Europe took place in 1997 in Ukraine. In contrast, rapid industrialisation in Asia has seen an increase in the number of developed countries which are also retentionist. In these countries, the death penalty retains strong public support, and the matter receives little attention from the government or the media; in China, there is a small but significant and growing movement to abolish the death penalty altogether. This trend has been followed by some African and Middle Eastern countries where support for the death penalty remains high. Some countries have resumed practising the death penalty after having previously suspended the practice for long periods. The United States suspended executions in 1972 but resumed them in 1976; there was no execution in India between 1995 and 2004; and Sri Lanka declared an end to its moratorium on the death penalty on the 20th of November 2004, although it has not yet performed any further executions. The Philippines re-introduced the death penalty in 1993 after abolishing it in 1987, but again abolished it in 2006. The United States and Japan are the only developed countries to have recently carried out executions. The U.S. federal government, the U.S. military, and 27 states have a valid death penalty statute, and over 1,400 executions have been carried out in the United States since it reinstated the death penalty in 1976. In Japan, 98 inmates were executed between January 2000 and July 2022. After serial killer Ryuji Kobayashi, who murdered 2 college students by burying alive in Okayama prefecture in 2006, committed suicide at Osaka Detention House on the 31st of January 2026, Japan had 103 inmates on death row, the most recent country to abolish the death penalty was Zimbabwe on the 31st of December 2024, almost twenty years after the last execution in the country. According to an Amnesty International report released in April 2020, Egypt ranked regionally third and globally fifth among the countries that carried out the most executions in 2019. The country has increasingly ignored international human rights concerns and criticism. In March 2021, Egypt executed 11 prisoners in a jail, who were convicted in cases of murder, theft, and shooting. According to Amnesty International's 2021 report, at least 483 people were executed in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The figure excluded the countries that classify death penalty data as state secrets. The top five executioners for 2020 were China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Modern-day public opinion on the death penalty varies considerably by country and by the crime in question. Countries where a majority of people are against execution include Norway, where only 25% support it. Most French, Finns, and Italians also oppose the death penalty. In 2020, 55% of Americans supported the death penalty for an individual convicted of murder, down from 60% in 2016, 64% in 2010, 65% in 2006, and 68% in 2001. In 2020, 43% of Italians expressed support for the death penalty. In Taiwan, polls and research have consistently shown strong support for the death penalty at 80%. This includes a survey conducted by the National Development Council of Taiwan in 2016, showing that 88% of Taiwanese people disagree with abolishing the death penalty. Its continuation of the practice drew criticism from local rights groups. The support and sentencing of capital punishment has been growing in India in the 2010s due to anger over several recent brutal cases of rape, even though actual executions are comparatively rare. While support for the death penalty for murder is still high in China, executions have dropped precipitously, with 3,000 executed in 2012 versus 12,000 in 2002. A poll in South Africa, where capital punishment is abolished, found that 76% of millennial South Africans support the re-introduction of the death penalty due to increasing incidents of rape and murder. A 2017 poll found younger Mexicans were more likely to support capital punishment than older ones. 57% of Brazilians support the death penalty. The age group that shows the greatest support for the execution of those condemned is the 25 to 34-year-old category, in which 61% say they support it. A 2023 poll by Research Co. found that 54% of Canadians support reinstating the death penalty for murder in their country. In April 2021, a poll found that 54% of Britons said they would support reinstating the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism in the UK, while 23% of respondents said they would be opposed. In 2020, an Ipsos/Sopra Steria survey showed that 55% of the French people support re-introduction of the death penalty; this was an increase from 44% in 2019.
The Human Rights Debate
Death penalty opponents regard the death penalty as inhumane and criticize it for its irreversibility. They argue also that capital punishment lacks deterrent effect, or has a brutalization effect, discriminates against minorities and the poor, and that it encourages a culture of violence. There are many organizations worldwide, such as Amnesty International, and country-specific, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, whose main purpose includes abolition of the death penalty. Brian Evans, The Death Penalty In 2011: Three Things You Should Know, Amnesty International, the 26th of March 2012, in particular the map, Executions and Death Sentences in 2011. Advocates of the death penalty argue that is a good tool for police and prosecutors in plea bargaining, makes sure that convicted criminals, particularly murderers, do not offend again, and that it ensures justice for crimes such as homicide, where other penalties will not inflict the desired retribution demanded by the crime itself. Capital punishment for non-lethal crimes is usually considerably more controversial, and abolished in many of the countries that retain it. Schillinger, Ted, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead, film about retributive justice and capital punishment. Supporters of the death penalty argued that death penalty is morally justified when applied in murder, especially with aggravating elements such as for murder of police officers, child murder, torture murder, multiple homicide, and mass killing such as terrorism, massacre, and genocide. This argument is strongly defended by New York Law School's Professor Robert Blecker, who says that the punishment must be painful in proportion to the crime. Eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant defended a more extreme position, according to which every murderer deserves to die on the grounds that loss of life is incomparable to any penalty that allows them to remain alive, including life imprisonment. Some abolitionists argue that retribution is simply revenge and cannot be condoned. Others while accepting retribution as an element of criminal justice nonetheless argue that life without parole is a sufficient substitute. It is also argued that the punishing of a killing with another death is a relatively unusual punishment for a violent act, because in general violent crimes are not punished by subjecting the perpetrator to a similar act, for example, rapists are, typically, not punished by corporal punishment, although it may be inflicted in Singapore, for example. Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. Amnesty International considers it to be the ultimate irreversible denial of Human Rights. Albert Camus wrote in a 1956 book called Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion & Death: In the classic doctrine of natural rights as expounded by for instance Locke and Blackstone, on the other hand, it is an important idea that the right to life can be forfeited, as most other rights can be given due process is observed, such as the right to property and the right to freedom, including provisionally, in anticipation of an actual verdict. Joel Feinberg: Voluntary Euthanasia and the Inalienable Right to Life. The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, the 1st of April 1977. As John Stuart Mill explained in a speech given in Parliament against an amendment to abolish capital punishment for murder in 1868: In one of the most recent cases relating to the death penalty in Singapore, activists like Jolovan Wham, Kirsten Han, and Kokila Annamalai and even the international groups like the United Nations and European Union argued for Malaysian drug trafficker Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, who has been on death row at Singapore's Changi Prison since 2010, should not be executed due to an alleged intellectual disability, as they argued that Nagaenthran has low IQ of 69 and a psychiatrist has assessed him to be mentally impaired to an extent that he should not be held liable to his crime and execution. They also cited international law where a country should be prohibiting the execution of mentally and intellectually impaired people in order to push for Singapore to commute Nagaenthran's death penalty to life imprisonment based on protection of human rights. However, the Singapore government and both Singapore's High Court and Court of Appeal maintained their firm stance that despite his certified low. In 2018, at least 35 countries retained the death penalty for drug trafficking, drug dealing, drug possession, and related offences. People had been regularly sentenced to death and executed for drug-related offences in China, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Other countries may retain the death penalty for symbolic purposes. The death penalty was mandated for drug trafficking in Singapore and Malaysia. Since 2013, Singapore ruled that those who were certified to have diminished responsibility, for example, major depressive disorder, or acting as drug couriers and had assisted the authorities in tackling drug-related activities, would be sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death, with the offender liable to at least 15 strokes of the cane if he was not sentenced to death and was simultaneously sentenced to caning as well. Notably, drug couriers like Yong Vui Kong and Cheong Chun Yin successfully applied to have their death sentences replaced with life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane in 2013 and 2015 respectively. In April 2023, legislation abolishing the mandatory death penalty was passed in Malaysia. Other crimes that are punishable by death in some countries include aircraft hijacking, firearm offences, terrorism, crimes against the state, such as attempting to overthrow government, including espionage, separatism, treason, political protests, rape, human trafficking, kidnapping, unlawful sexual behaviour, religious Hudud offences such as apostasy, blasphemy, Moharebeh, witchcraft and sorcery, arson, hirabah, brigandage, armed or aggravated robbery, and homosexuality. In 2023, Iran executed a minor who had knifed a man that fought him for following a girl in the street. Saudi Arabia also executes criminals who were minors at the time of the offense. In 2013, Saudi Arabia was the center of an international controversy after it executed Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker, who was believed to have been 17 years old at the time of the crime. Saudi Arabia banned executions for minors, except for terrorism cases, in April 2020. Japan has not executed juvenile criminals since August 1997, when they executed Norio Nagayama, a spree killer who had been convicted of shooting four people dead in the late 1960s. Nagayama's case created the eponymously named Nagayama standards, which take into account factors such as the number of victims, brutality, and social impact of the crimes. The standards have been used in determining whether to apply the death sentence in murder cases. Teruhiko Seki, convicted of murdering four family members including a 4-year-old daughter and raping a 15-year-old daughter of a family in 1992, became the second inmate to be hanged for a crime committed as a minor in the first such execution in 20 years after Nagayama on the 19th of December 2017. Takayuki Otsuki, who was convicted of raping and strangling a 23-year-old woman and subsequently strangling her 11-month-old daughter to death on the 14th of April 1999, when he was 18, is another inmate sentenced to death, and his request for retrial has been rejected by the Supreme Court of Japan. There is evidence that child executions are taking place in parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union. In October 2008, a girl, Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. Somalia's established Transitional Federal Government announced in November 2009, reiterated in 2013, that it plans to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This move was lauded by UNICEF as a welcome attempt to secure children's rights in the country. As of 2021, 56 countries retain capital punishment, 111 countries have taken a position to abolish it de jure for all crimes, 7 have abolished it for ordinary crimes, while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes, and 24 are abolitionist in practice. Although the majority of countries have abolished capital punishment, over half of the world's population live in countries where the death penalty is retained. As of 2023, only 2 out of 38 OECD member countries, the United States and Japan, allow capital punishment. Capital punishment is controversial, with many people, organisations, religious groups, and states holding differing views on whether it is ethically permissible. Amnesty International declares that the death penalty breaches human rights, specifically the right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. These rights are protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. In the European Union, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment. The Council of Europe, which has 46 member states, has worked to end the death penalty and no execution has taken place in its current member states since 1997. The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, throughout the years from 2007 to 2020, a record 120 nations adopt UN death-penalty moratorium resolution, the 18th of December 2018, Death Penalty Information Center eight non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with support for eventual abolition. The death penalty for juvenile offenders, criminals aged under 18 years at the time of their crime, although the legal or accepted definition of juvenile offender may vary from one jurisdiction to another, has become increasingly rare. Considering the age of majority is not 18 in some countries or has not been clearly defined in law, since 1990 ten countries have executed offenders who were considered juveniles at the time of their crimes: China, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States, and Yemen. China, Pakistan, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen have since raised the minimum age to 18. Amnesty International has recorded 61 verified executions since then, in several countries, of both juveniles and adults who had been convicted of committing their offences as juveniles. China does not allow for the execution of those under 18, but child executions have reportedly taken place. In 2023, Iran executed a minor who had knifed a man that fought him for following a girl in the street. Saudi Arabia also executes criminals who were minors at the time of the offense. In 2013, Saudi Arabia was the center of an international controversy after it executed Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker, who was believed to have been 17 years old at the time of the crime. Saudi Arabia banned executions for minors, except for terrorism cases, in April 2020. Japan has not executed juvenile criminals since August 1997, when they executed Norio Nagayama, a spree killer who had been convicted of shooting four people dead in the late 1960s. Nagayama's case created the eponymously named Nagayama standards, which take into account factors such as the number of victims, brutality, and social impact of the crimes. The standards have been used in determining whether to apply the death sentence in murder cases. Teruhiko Seki, convicted of murdering four family members including a 4-year-old daughter and raping a 15-year-old daughter of a family in 1992, became the second inmate to be hanged for a crime committed as a minor in the first such execution in 20 years after Nagayama on the 19th of December 2017. Takayuki Otsuki, who was convicted of raping and strangling a 23-year-old woman and subsequently strangling her 11-month-old daughter to death on the 14th of April 1999, when he was 18, is another inmate sentenced to death, and his request for retrial has been rejected by the Supreme Court of Japan. There is evidence that child executions are taking place in parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union. In October 2008, a girl, Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. Somalia's established Transitional Federal Government announced in November 2009, reiterated in 2013, that it plans to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This move was lauded by UNICEF as a welcome attempt to secure children's rights in the country. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles under article 37(a), has been signed by all countries and subsequently ratified by all signatories with the exception of the United States, despite the US Supreme Court decisions abolishing the practice. The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights maintains that the death penalty for juveniles has become contrary to a jus cogens of customary international law. A majority of countries are also party to the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose Article 6.5 also states that sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age. Iran, despite its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was the world's largest executioner of juvenile offenders, for which it has been the subject of broad international condemnation. The country's record is the focus of the Stop Child Executions Campaign. But on the 10th of February 2012, Iran's parliament changed controversial laws relating to the execution of juveniles. In the new legislation, the age of 18, solar year, would be applied to accused of both genders, and juvenile offenders must be sentenced pursuant to a separate law specifically dealing with juveniles. Based on Islamic law, which now seems to have been revised, girls at the age of 9 and boys at 15 of the lunar year, 11 days shorter than a solar year, are deemed fully responsible for their crimes. Iran accounted for two-thirds of the global total of such executions, and currently has approximately 140 people considered as juveniles awaiting execution for crimes committed, up from 71 in 2007. Iranian activists fight child executions, Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press, the 17th of September 2008. Retrieved the 22nd of September 2008. The past executions of Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni, and Makwan Moloudzadeh became the focus of Iran's child capital punishment policy and the judicial system that hands down such sentences. In 2023, Iran executed a minor who had knifed a man that fought him for following a girl in the street. Saudi Arabia also executes criminals who were minors at the time of the offense. In 2013, Saudi Arabia was the center of an international controversy after it executed Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker, who was believed to have been 17 years old at the time of the crime. Saudi Arabia banned executions for minors, except for terrorism cases, in April 2020. Japan has not executed juvenile criminals since August 1997, when they executed Norio Nagayama, a spree killer who had been convicted of shooting four people dead in the late 1960s. Nagayama's case created the eponymously named Nagayama standards, which take into account factors such as the number of victims, brutality, and social impact of the crimes. The standards have been used in determining whether to apply the death sentence in murder cases. Teruhiko Seki, convicted of murdering four family members including a 4-year-old daughter and raping a 15-year-old daughter of a family in 1992, became the second inmate to be hanged for a crime committed as a minor in the first such execution in 20 years after Nagayama on the 19th of December 2017. Takayuki Otsuki, who was convicted of raping and strangling a 23-year-old woman and subsequently strangling her 11-month-old daughter to death on the 14th of April 1999, when he was 18, is another inmate sentenced to death, and his request for retrial has been rejected by the Supreme Court of Japan. There is evidence that child executions are taking place in parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union. In October 2008, a girl, Aisha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. Somalia's established Transitional Federal Government announced in November 2009, reiterated in 2013, that it plans to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This move was lauded by UNICEF as a welcome attempt to secure children's rights in the country.