Capital Punishment

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Capital punishment From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search "Death penalty" and "Death sentence" redirect here. For other uses, see Death penalty (disambiguation) and Death sentence (disambiguation) . "Execution" and "Execute" redirect here. For other uses, see Execution (disambiguation) and Execute (disambiguation) . For other uses, see Capital punishment (disambiguation) . Part of a series on Capital punishment Issues Debate Religion and capital punishment Use by country Wrongful execution Drug trafficking Current use Afghanistan Bahamas Belarus Botswana Chad China (PRC) Cuba Democratic Republic of Congo Egypt Equatorial Guinea Ethiopia Gambia Guatemala

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Transcript of Capital Punishment

Page 1: Capital Punishment

Capital punishmentFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search "Death penalty" and "Death sentence" redirect here. For other uses, see Death penalty (disambiguation) and Death sentence (disambiguation). "Execution" and "Execute" redirect here. For other uses, see Execution (disambiguation) and Execute (disambiguation). For other uses, see Capital punishment (disambiguation).

Part of a series on

Capital punishment

Issues

Debate

Religion and capital punishment

Use by country

Wrongful execution

Drug trafficking

Current use

Afghanistan

Bahamas

Belarus

Botswana

Chad

China (PRC)

Cuba

Democratic Republic of Congo

Egypt

Equatorial Guinea

Ethiopia

Gambia

Guatemala

Guinea

India

Indonesia

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Iran

Iraq

Israel

Japan

Jordan

Laos

Lebanon

Libya

Malaysia

Myanmar

Nigeria

North Korea

Oman

Pakistan

Russia

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

Somalia

South Korea

South Sudan

Sudan

Syria

Taiwan (ROC)

Tajikistan

Thailand

Tonga

Uganda

United Arab Emirates

United States

Vietnam

Yemen

Zimbabwe

Past use

Australia

Austria

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Belgium

Bhutan

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Cyprus

Denmark

Ecuador

France

Germany

Gibraltar

Hong Kong

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Liechtenstein

Macau

Mexico

Mongolia

Netherlands

New Zealand

Norway

Philippines

Poland

Portugal

Romania

San Marino

South Africa

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

United Kingdom

Venezuela

Current methods

Decapitation

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Electrocution

Gas chamber

Hanging

Lethal injection

Shooting  (firing squad)

Stoning

Nitrogen asphyxiation (proposed)

Past methods

Boiling

Breaking wheel

Burning

Crucifixion

Crushing

Disembowelment

Dismemberment

Drawing and quartering

Elephant

Flaying

Immurement

Impalement

Premature burial

Sawing

Scaphism

Slow slicing

Suffocation in ash

Related topics

Crime

Death row

Last meal

Penology

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Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" (referring to execution by beheading).[1]

Capital punishment has, in the past, been practised by most societies (one notable exception being Kievan Rus);[2] currently 58 nations actively practise it, and 97 countries have abolished it (the remainder have not used it for 10 years or allow it only in exceptional circumstances such as wartime).[3] It is a matter of active controversy in various countries and states, and positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region. In the European Union member states, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment.[4]

Currently, Amnesty International considers most countries abolitionist.[5] The UN General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008 and 2010, non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.[6] Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where executions take place, such as the People's Republic of China, India, the United States of America and Indonesia, the four most-populous countries in the world, which continue to apply the death penalty (although in India, Indonesia and in many US states it is rarely employed). Each of these four nations voted against the General Assembly resolutions.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

Contents

1 History o 1.1 Ancient history o 1.2 Ancient Tang China o 1.3 Middle Ages o 1.4 Modern era o 1.5 Contemporary era

2 Movements towards humane execution 3 Abolitionism 4 Contemporary use

o 4.1 Global distribution o 4.2 Execution for drug-related offences o 4.3 Juvenile offenders

4.3.1 Iran 4.3.2 Somalia

o 4.4 Methods 5 Controversy and debate

o 5.1 Human rights o 5.2 Wrongful execution o 5.3 Retribution

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o 5.4 International views 6 Religious views

o 6.1 Buddhism o 6.2 Christianity

6.2.1 Roman Catholic Church 6.2.2 Protestants 6.2.3 Mormonism

o 6.3 Hinduism o 6.4 Islam o 6.5 Judaism

7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

o 10.1 Opposing o 10.2 In favour o 10.3 Religious views

History

Execution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies—both to punish crime and to suppress political dissent. In most places that practise capital punishment it is reserved for murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, adultery, incest and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy in Islamic nations (the formal renunciation of the state religion). In many countries that use the death penalty, drug trafficking is also a capital offence. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offences such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.[16]

Anarchist Auguste Vaillant guillotined in France in 1894

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The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history. Most historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, shunning, banishment and execution. Usually, compensation and shunning were enough as a form of justice.[17] The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities included formal apology, compensation or blood feuds.

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 state or organised religion. It may result from crime, land disputes or a code of honour. "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."[18] However, in practice, it is often difficult to distinguish between a war of vendetta and one of conquest.

Severe historical penalties include breaking wheel, boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing (including crushing by elephant), stoning, execution by burning, dismemberment, sawing, decapitation, scaphism, necklacing or blowing from a gun.

The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883). Roman Colosseum.

Islam on the whole accepts capital punishment,[19] and the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad, such as Al-Mu'tadid, were often cruel in their punishments.[20] Nevertheless, mercy is considered preferable in Islam,[citation needed], and in Sharia law the victim's family can choose to spare the life of the killer, which is not uncommon.[citation needed] In the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, the fictional storyteller Sheherazade is portrayed as being the "voice of sanity and mercy", with her philosophical position being generally opposed to punishment by death. She expresses this through several of her tales, including "The Merchant and the Jinni", "The Fisherman and the Jinni", "The Three Apples", and "The Hunchback".[21]

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The breaking wheel was used during the Middle Ages and was still in use into the 19th century.

Ancient history

Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done in a religious context and compensation system. Compensation was based on the principle of substitution which might include material (for example, cattle, slave) compensation, exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the blood debt. Settlement rules could allow for animal blood to replace human blood, or transfers of property or blood money or in some case an offer of a person for execution. The person offered for execution did not have to be an original perpetrator of the crime because the system was based on tribes, not individuals. Blood feuds could be regulated at meetings, such as the Viking things.[22] Systems deriving from blood feuds may survive alongside more advanced legal systems or be given recognition by courts (for example, trial by combat). One of the more modern refinements of the blood feud is the duel.

Giovanni Battista Bugatti, executioner of the Papal States between 1796 and 1865, carried out 516 executions (Bugatti pictured offering snuff to a condemned prisoner). Vatican City abolished its capital punishment statute in 1969.

In certain parts of the world, nations in the form of ancient republics, monarchies or tribal oligarchies emerged. These nations were often united by common linguistic, religious or family ties. Moreover, expansion of these nations often occurred by conquest of neighbouring tribes or

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nations. Consequently, various classes of royalty, nobility, various commoners and slave emerged. Accordingly, the systems of tribal arbitration were submerged into a more unified system of justice which formalised the relation between the different "classes" rather than "tribes". The earliest and most famous example is Code of Hammurabi which set the different punishment and compensation according to the different class/group of victims and perpetrators. The Torah (Jewish Law), also known as the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Christian Old Testament), lays down the death penalty for murder, kidnapping, magic, violation of the Sabbath, blasphemy, and a wide range of sexual crimes, although evidence suggests that actual executions were rare.[23]

A further example comes from Ancient Greece, where the Athenian legal system was first written down by Draco in about 621 BC: the death penalty was applied for a particularly wide range of crimes, though Solon later repealed Draco's code and published new laws, retaining only Draco's homicide statutes.[24] The word draconian derives from Draco's laws. The Romans also used death penalty for a wide range of offenses.[25][26]

Ancient Tang China

Although many are executed in China each year in the present day, there was a time in Tang Dynasty China when the death penalty was abolished.[27] This was in the year 747, enacted by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756). 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.[28] At this time in China 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.[27]

Ling Chi – execution by slow slicing – in Beijing around 1910.

The two most common forms of execution in China in the Tang period were strangulation and decapitation, which were the prescribed methods of execution for 144 and 89 offences 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

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and opening a coffin while desecrating a tomb. Decapitation was the method of execution prescribed for more serious crimes such as treason and sedition. Interestingly, and despite the great discomfort involved, most Chinese during the Tang preferred strangulation to decapitation, as a result of the traditional 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 practised in Tang China, 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 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.[29] A further form of execution called Ling Chi (slow slicing), or death by/of a thousand cuts, was used in China from the close of the Tang dynasty (around 900) to its abolition in 1905.

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 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 Tang China, when a person was sentenced to decapitation for rebellion or sedition, punishment was also imposed on their relatives, whether or not the relatives were guilty of participation in the crime. In such cases fathers of the convicted under 79 years of age and sons aged over 15 were strangled. Sons under 15, daughters, mothers, wives, concubines, grandfathers, grandsons, brothers and sisters were enslaved and uncles and nephews were banished to the remotest reaches of the empire. Sometimes the tombs of the family's ancestors were levelled, the ancestors' coffins were destroyed and their bones scattered.[29]

Middle Ages

In medieval and early modern Europe, before the development of modern prison systems, the death penalty was also used as a generalised form of punishment. During the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed.[30]

Despite its wide use, calls for reform were not unknown. The 12th century Sephardic legal scholar, Moses Maimonides, wrote, "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to death." He argued that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice." Caprice of various sorts are more visible now with DNA testing, and digital computer searches and discovery requirements opening DA's files. Maimonides' concern was maintaining popular

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respect for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more threatening than errors of omission.[31]

Modern era

Mexican execution by firing squad, 1916

The last several centuries have seen the emergence of modern nation-states. Almost fundamental to the concept of nation state is the idea of citizenship. This caused justice to be increasingly associated with equality and universality, which in Europe saw an emergence of the concept of natural rights. Another important aspect is that emergence of standing police forces and permanent penitential institutions. The death penalty became an increasingly unnecessary deterrent in prevention of minor crimes such as theft. The argument that deterrence, rather than retribution, is the main justification for punishment is a hallmark of the rational choice theory and can be traced to Cesare Beccaria whose well-known treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), condemned torture and the death penalty and Jeremy Bentham who twice critiqued the death penalty.[32] Additionally, in countries like Britain, law enforcement officials became alarmed when juries tended to acquit non-violent felons rather than risk a conviction that could result in execution.[citation needed] Moving executions there inside prisons and away from public view was prompted by official recognition of the phenomenon reported first by Beccaria in Italy and later by Charles Dickens and Karl Marx of increased violent criminality at the times and places of executions.

By 1820 in Britain, there were 160 crimes that were punishable by death, including crimes such as shoplifting, petty theft, stealing cattle, or cutting down trees in public place.[33] The severity of the so-called Bloody Code, however, 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.[34]

Contemporary era

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Polish women being led to a Nazi execution site in the Palmiry forest, near Warsaw.

The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history. Tens of millions were killed in wars between nation-states as well as genocide perpetrated by nation states against political opponents (both perceived and actual), ethnic and religious minorities; the Turkish assault on the Armenians, Hitler's attempt to exterminate the European Jews, the Khmer Rouge decimation of Cambodia, the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, to cite four of the most notorious examples. A large part of execution was summary execution of enemy combatants. Also, modern military organisations employed capital punishment as a means of maintaining military discipline. The Soviets, for example, executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during World War II.[35] In the past, cowardice, absence without leave, desertion, insubordination, looting, 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 almost invariably been firing squad.

Various authoritarian states— for example those with fascist or communist governments—employed the death penalty as a potent means of political oppression. According to Robert Conquest, the leading expert on Stalin's purges, more than 1 million Soviet citizens were executed during the Great Terror of 1937–38, almost all by a bullet to the back of the head.[36] Mao Zedong publicly stated that "800,000" people had been executed after the Communist Party's victory in 1949. Partly as a response to such excesses, civil rights organizations have started to place increasing emphasis on the concept of human rights and abolition of the death penalty.

Among countries around the world, almost all European and many Pacific Area states (including Australia, New Zealand and Timor Leste), and Canada have abolished capital punishment. In Latin America, most states have completely abolished the use of capital punishment, while some countries, such as Brazil, allow for capital punishment only in exceptional situations, such as treason committed during wartime. The United States (the federal government and 33 of the states), Guatemala, most of the Caribbean and the majority of democracies in Asia (for example, Japan and India) and Africa (for example, Botswana and Zambia) retain it. South Africa's Constitutional Court, in judgement of the case of State v Makwanyane and Another, unanimously abolished the death penalty on 6 June 1995.[37][38]

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 European Union. The United States is a notable exception: some states have had bans on capital punishment for

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decades (the earliest is Michigan, where it was abolished in 1846), while others actively use it today. The death penalty there remains a contentious issue which is hotly debated.

In abolitionist countries, 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 (such as Sri Lanka and Jamaica) to effectively end the moratorium on the death penalty. 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.

Movements towards humane execution

Further information: Cruel and unusual punishment

A gurney in the San Quentin State Prison in the United States on which prisoners are restrained during an execution by lethal injection.

Trends in most of the world have long been to move to less painful, or more humane, executions. France developed the guillotine for this reason in the final years of the 18th century, while Britain banned drawing and quartering in the early 19th century. Hanging by turning the victim off a ladder or by kicking a stool or a bucket, which causes death by suffocation, was replaced by long drop "hanging" where the subject is dropped a longer distance to dislocate the neck and sever the spinal cord. Shah of Persia introduced throat-cutting and blowing from a gun as quick and painless alternatives to more tormentous methods of executions used at that time.[39] In the U.S., the electric chair and the gas chamber were introduced as more humane alternatives to hanging, but have been almost entirely superseded by lethal injection, which in turn has been criticised as being too painful. Nevertheless, some countries still employ slow hanging methods, beheading by sword and even stoning, although the latter is rarely employed.

In early New England, public executions were a very solemn and sorrowful occasion, sometimes attended by large crowds, who also listened to a Gospel message[40] and remarks by local preachers and politicians. The Connecticut Courant records one such public execution on 1 December 1803, saying, "The assembly conducted through the whole in a very orderly and solemn manner, so much so, as to occasion an observing gentleman acquainted with other countries as well as this, to say that such an assembly, so decent and solemn, could not be collected anywhere but in New England."[41]

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Abolitionism

The death penalty was banned in China between 747 and 759. In Japan, Emperor Saga abolished the death penalty in 818 under the influence of Shinto and it lasted until 1156. Therefore, capital punishment was not employed for 338 years in ancient Japan.[42]

In England, a public statement of opposition was included in The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, written in 1395. Sir Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, debated the benefits of the death penalty in dialogue form, coming to no firm conclusion. 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, famous enlightened monarch and future Emperor of Austria, abolished the death penalty in the then-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the first permanent abolition in modern times. On 30 November 1786, after having de facto blocked capital 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 30 November to commemorate the event. The event is commemorated on this day by 300 cities around the world celebrating Cities for Life Day.

Peter Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Joseph Hickel, 1769

The Roman Republic banned capital punishment in 1849. Venezuela followed suit and abolished the death penalty in 1854[43] and San Marino did so in 1865. 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.

Abolition occurred in Canada in 1976, in France in 1981, and in Australia in 1973 (although the state of Western Australia retained the penalty until 1984). In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the world, it is desirable to

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"progressively restrict the number of offenses for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this punishment".[44]

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 peacetime offences in 1998.[45]

In the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, on 18 May 1846.[46] The death penalty was declared unconstitutional between 1972 and 1976 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 (death penalty unconstitutional for persons suffering from mental retardation) and Roper v. Simmons (death penalty unconstitutional if defendant was under age 18 at the time the crime was committed). Currently, as of 25 April 2012, 17 states of the U.S. and the District of Columbia ban capital punishment, with Connecticut the most recent state to ban the practice.[47] A 2010 Gallup poll shows that 64% of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, down from 65% in 2006 and 68% in 2001.[48][49] Of the states where the death penalty is permitted, California has the largest number of inmates on death row, while Texas has been the most active in carrying out executions (approximately one third of all executions since the practice was reinstated).

The latest country to abolish the death penalty for all crimes was Gabon, in February 2010.[50] Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it "cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment". Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate denial of Human Rights".[51]

Contemporary use

Global distribution

Use of the death penalty around the world (as of February 2011).  Abolished for all offenses (96)  Abolished for all offenses except under special circumstances (9)

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  Retains, though not used for at least 10 years (34)  Retains death penalty (58)** While laws vary among U.S. states, it is considered retentionist because the federal death penalty is still in active use.See also: Use of capital punishment by country

Since World War II there has been a trend toward abolishing the death penalty. In 1977, 16 countries were abolitionist. According to information published by Amnesty International in 2012, 97 countries had abolished capital punishment altogether, 8 had done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 36 had not used it for at least 10 years or were under a moratorium. The other 57 retained the death penalty in active use.[52]

Criminal procedure

Criminal trials and convictions

Rights of the accused

Fair trial

Speedy trial

Jury trial

Counsel

Presumption of innocence

Exclusionary rule 1

Self-incrimination

Double jeopardy 2

Verdict

Conviction

Acquittal

Not proven 3

Directed verdict

Sentencing

Mandatory

Suspended

Custodial

Dangerous offender 4, 5

Capital punishment

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Execution warrant

Cruel and unusual punishment

Life

Indefinite

Post-sentencing

Parole

Probation

Tariff 6

Life licence 6

Miscarriage of justice

Exoneration

Pardon

Sexually violent predator legislation 1

Related areas of law

Criminal defenses

Criminal law

Evidence

Civil procedure

Portals

Law

Criminal justice

1 US courts

2 Not in English/Welsh courts

3 Scottish courts

4 English/Welsh courts

5 Canadian courts

6 UK courts

7 Indian courts

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e

According to Amnesty International, only 21 countries were known to have had executions carried out in 2011. In addition, there are countries which do not publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China, which is estimated to execute hundreds of people each year. At least 18,750 people worldwide were under sentence of death at the beginning of 2012.[53]

Rank Country Number executed in 2011[54]

1 People's Republic of China

Officially not released.[55][56] In the thousands, may be up to 4,000.[57]

2 Iran 360+3 Saudi Arabia 82+4 Iraq 68+5 United States 436 Yemen 41+7 North Korea 30+8 Somalia 109 Sudan 7+10 Bangladesh 5+11 Vietnam 5+12 South Sudan 5

13 Republic of China (Taiwan)

5

14 Singapore 4[58]

15 Palestinian Authority 316 Afghanistan 217 Belarus 218 Egypt 1+19 United Arab Emirates 120 Malaysia +21 Syria +

The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly restrained in some retentionist countries including Taiwan and Singapore.[59] Indonesia has carried out no executions since 2008, as of 2010.[60] Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the United States are the only developed countries that have retained the death penalty. The death penalty was overwhelmingly practised in poor and authoritarian states, which often employed the death penalty as a tool of political oppression. During the 1980s, the democratisation of Latin America swelled the rank of abolitionist countries. This was soon followed by the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, which then aspired to enter the EU. In these countries, the public support for the death penalty varies.[61]

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The European Union and the Council of Europe both strictly require member states not to practise the death penalty (see Capital punishment in Europe). On the other hand, rapid industrialisation in Asia has been increasing the number of developed retentionist countries. In these countries, the death penalty enjoys strong public support, and the matter receives little attention from the government or the media; in China there is a small but growing movement to abolish the death penalty altogether.[62] This trend has been followed by some African and Middle Eastern countries where support for the death penalty is high.

The state of Israel retains the death penalty only for Nazis convicted of crimes against humanity.[63] The only execution in Israeli history occurred in 1961, when Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was put to death after his trial in Jerusalem.

Firing Squad in Iran by Jahangir Razmi, 1979

Some countries have resumed practicing the death penalty after having suspended executions for long periods. The United States suspended executions in 1972 but resumed them in 1976, then again on 25 September 2007 to 16 April 2008; there was no execution in India between 1995 and 2004; and Sri Lanka declared an end to its moratorium on the death penalty on 20 November 2004,[64] although it has not yet performed any executions. The Philippines re-introduced the death penalty in 1993 after abolishing it in 1987, but abolished it again in 2006.

In 2011, the USA was the only source of executions (43) in the G8 countries or Western Hemisphere.[65] The latest country to move towards abolition is Mongolia. In January 2012, its Parliament adopted a bill providing for the death penalty to be abolished.[66]

For further information about capital punishment in individual countries or regions, see: Australia · Canada · People's Republic of China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau) · Europe · India · Iran · Iraq · Japan · New Zealand ·Pakistan· Philippines · Russia · Singapore · Taiwan · United Kingdom · United States

Execution for drug-related offences

Main article: Capital punishment for drug trafficking

Some countries that retain the death penalty for murder and other violent crimes do not execute offenders for drug-related crimes. Countries that have statutory provisions for the death penalty for drug-related offences as of 2012 include:

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 Afghanistan Bangladesh Brunei People's Republic of China [67]  Republic of China [68] Also available on Chinese Wikisource. Egypt Indonesia Iran Iraq Kuwait Laos Malaysia Oman Pakistan Saudi Arabia Singapore Somalia Sri Lanka Thailand Vietnam United Arab Emirates United States [69]  Yemen Zimbabwe

Juvenile offenders

The death penalty for juvenile offenders (criminals aged under 18 years at the time of their crime) has become increasingly rare. Considering the Age of Majority is still not 18 in some countries, since 1990 nine countries have executed offenders who were juveniles at the time of their crimes: The People's Republic of China (PRC), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States and Yemen.[70] The PRC, Pakistan, the United States, Yemen and Iran have since raised the minimum age to 18.[71][72] Amnesty International has recorded 61 verified executions since then, in several countries, of both juveniles and adults who had been convicted of committing their offenses as juveniles.[73] The PRC does not allow for the execution of those under 18, but child executions have reportedly taken place.[74]

Starting in 1642 within British America, an estimated 365[75] juvenile offenders were executed by the states and federal government of the United States.[76] The United States Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005). In addition, in 2002, the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the execution of individuals with mental retardation, in Atkins v. Virginia.[77]

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Between 2005 and May 2008, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen were reported to have executed child offenders, the most being from Iran.[78]

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 ratified, except for Somalia and the United States (notwithstanding the latter's Supreme Court decisions abolishing the practice).[79] 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...").

In Japan, the minimum age for the death penalty is 18 as mandated by the internationals standards. But under Japanese law, anyone under 20 is considered a juvenile. There are three men currently on death row for crimes they committed at age 18 or 19.

Iran

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 biggest executioner of juvenile offenders, for which it has received international condemnation; the country's record is the focus of the Stop Child Executions Campaign. But on 10 February 2012 Iran's parliament changed the controversial law of executing juveniles. In the new law, the age of 18 (solar year) would be for both genders considered and juvenile offenders will be sentenced on a separate law than of adults.”[71][72] Based on the Islamic law which now seems to have been revised, girls at the age of 9 and boys at 15 of lunar year (11 days shorter than a solar year) were fully responsible for their crimes.[71]

Iran accounted for two-thirds of the global total of such executions, and currently has roughly 140 people on death row for crimes committed as juveniles (up from 71 in 2007).[80][81] The past executions of Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni and Makwan Moloudzadeh became international symbols of Iran's child capital punishment and the judicial system that hands down such sentences.[82][83]

Somalia

There is evidence that child executions are taking place in the parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). In October 2008, a girl, Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow was buried up to her neck at a football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. The stoning occurred after she had allegedly pleaded guilty to adultery in a shariah court in Kismayo, a city controlled by the ICU. According to a local leader associated with the ICU, she had stated that she wanted shariah law to apply.[84] However, other sources state that the victim had been crying, that she begged for mercy and had to be forced into the hole before being buried up to her neck in the ground.[85] Amnesty International later learned that the girl was in fact 13 years old and had been arrested by the al-Shabab militia after she had reported being gang-raped by three men.[86]

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Somalia's recently established Transitional Federal Government announced in November 2009 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.[87]

Methods

Main article: List of methods of capital punishment

The following methods of execution permitted for use in 2010:[88][89][90][91][92]

Beheading (Saudi Arabia, Qatar) Electric chair (as an option in Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida,

Oklahoma and Kentucky in the USA) Gas chamber (California, Missouri and Arizona in the USA) Hanging (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestinian

National Authority, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, India, Burma, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Zimbabwe, South Korea, Malawi, Liberia, Chad, Washington in the USA)

Lethal injection (Guatemala, Thailand, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, all states in the USA that are using capital punishment)

Shooting (the People's Republic of China, Republic of China, Vietnam, Belarus, Lebanon, Cuba, Grenada, North Korea, Indonesia, Yemen)

Controversy and debate

Not to be confused with Capital punishment debate in the United States.

There are many organizations worldwide, such as Amnesty International, and country-specific, such as the ACLU, that have abolition of the death penalty as a fundamental purpose.[93][94]

Advocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, is a good tool for police and prosecutors (in plea bargaining for example),[95] makes sure that convicted criminals do not offend again and is a just penalty for atrocious crimes such as child murders, serial killers or torture murderers.[96] Opponents of capital punishment argue that not all people affected by murder desire a death penalty, that execution discriminates against minorities and the poor, and that it encourages a "culture of violence" and that it violates human rights.[97]

Human rights

Abolitionists believe capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because the right to life is the most important, and judicial execution violates it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Albert Camus wrote in a 1956 book called "Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion & Death":

An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. [...] For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a

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horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.[98]

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.[99]

Wrongful execution

Capital punishment was abolished in the United Kingdom in part because of the case of Timothy Evans, an innocent man who was hanged in 1950.Main article: Wrongful execution

It is frequently argued that capital punishment leads to miscarriage of justice through the wrongful execution of innocent persons.[100] Many people have been proclaimed innocent victims of the death penalty.[101][102][103]

Some have claimed that as many as 39 executions have been carried out in the face of compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt from in the US from 1992 through 2004. Newly available DNA evidence prevented the pending execution of more than 15 death row inmates during the same period in the U.S,[104] but DNA evidence is only available in a fraction of capital cases.[105] However, since the death penalty reinstatement in the United States during the 1970s, no inmate executed has been granted posthumous pardon.[106]

Also, improper procedure may result in unfair executions. For example, Amnesty International argues that, in Singapore, "the Misuse of Drugs Act contains a series of presumptions which shift the burden of proof from the prosecution to the accused. This conflicts with the universally guaranteed right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty".[107] This refers to a situation when someone is being caught with drugs. In this situation, in almost any jurisdiction, the prosecution has a prima facie case.

Retribution

Supporters of the death penalty argued that death penalty is morally justified when applied in murder especially with aggravating elements such as multiple homicide, child murder, torture murder and mass killing such as terrorism, massacre, or genocide. Some even argue that not applying death penalty in latter cases is patently unjust. This argument is strongly defended by

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New York law professor Robert Blecker,[108] who says that the punishment must be painful in proportion to the crime. It would be unfair that those who have committed these horrible crimes stay alive, even incarcerated.

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.

International views

The United Nations introduced a resolution during the General Assembly's 62nd sessions in 2007 calling for a universal ban.[109][110] The approval of a draft resolution by the Assembly's third committee, which deals with human rights issues, voted 99 to 52, with 33 abstentions, in favour of the resolution on 15 November 2007 and was put to a vote in the Assembly on 18 December.[111][112][113]

Again in 2008, a large majority of states from all regions adopted a second resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the UN General Assembly (Third Committee) on 20 November. 105 countries voted in favour of the draft resolution, 48 voted against and 31 abstained.

A range of amendments proposed by a small minority of pro-death penalty countries were overwhelmingly defeated. It had in 2007 passed a non-binding resolution (by 104 to 54, with 29 abstentions) by asking its member states for "a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty".[114]

Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union affirms the prohibition on capital punishment in the EU

A number of regional conventions prohibit the death penalty, most notably, the Sixth Protocol (abolition in time of peace) and the 13th Protocol (abolition in all circumstances) to the European Convention on Human Rights. The same is also stated under the Second Protocol in the American Convention on Human Rights, which, however has not been ratified by all countries in

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the Americas, most notably Canada and the United States. Most relevant operative international treaties do not require its prohibition for cases of serious crime, most notably, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This instead has, in common with several other treaties, an optional protocol prohibiting capital punishment and promoting its wider abolition.[115]

Several international organizations have made the abolition of the death penalty (during time of peace) a requirement of membership, most notably the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe. The EU and the Council of Europe are willing to accept a moratorium as an interim measure. Thus, while Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and practises the death penalty in law, it has not made public use of it since becoming a member of the Council.

Other states, while having abolished de jure the death penalty in time of peace and de facto in all circumstances, have not ratified Protocol no.13 yet and therefore have no international obligation to refrain from using the death penalty in time of war or imminent threat of war (Armenia, Latvia, Poland and Spain).[116] Italy is the most recent to ratify it, on 3 March 2009.[117]

Turkey has recently, as a move towards EU membership, undergone a reform of its legal system. Previously there was a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Turkey as the last execution took place in 1984. The death penalty was removed from peacetime law in August 2002, and in May 2004 Turkey amended its constitution in order to remove capital punishment in all circumstances. It ratified Protocol no. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights in February 2006. As a result, Europe is a continent free of the death penalty in practice, all states but Russia, which has entered a moratorium, having ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, with the sole exception of Belarus, which is not a member of the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has been lobbying for Council of Europe observer states who practise the death penalty, the U.S. and Japan, to abolish it or lose their observer status. In addition to banning capital punishment for EU member states, the EU has also banned detainee transfers in cases where the receiving party may seek the death penalty.[citation needed]

Among non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are noted for their opposition to capital punishment. A number of such NGOs, as well as trade unions, local councils and bar associations formed a World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2002.

Religious views

Main article: Religion and capital punishment

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Public execution of a woman by Taliban members, Afghanistan, 1999

The world's major religions have mixed opinions on the death penalty, depending on the sect, the individual believer, and the time period.

Buddhism

There is disagreement among Buddhists as to whether or not Buddhism forbids the death penalty. The first of the Five Precepts (Panca-sila) is to abstain from destruction of life. Chapter 10 of the Dhammapada states:

"Everyone fears punishment; everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore you do not kill or cause to be killed."

[118]

Chapter 26, the final chapter of the Dhammapada, states, "Him I call a brahmin who has put aside weapons and renounced violence toward all creatures. He neither kills nor helps others to kill." These sentences are interpreted by many Buddhists (especially in the West) as an injunction against supporting any legal measure which might lead to the death penalty. However, as is often the case with the interpretation of scripture, there is dispute on this matter. Historically, most states where the official religion is Buddhism have imposed capital punishment for some offenses. One notable exception is the abolition of the death penalty by the Emperor Saga of Japan in 818. This lasted until 1165, although in private manors executions continued to be conducted as a form of retaliation. Japan still imposes the death penalty, although some recent justice ministers have refused to sign death warrants, citing their Buddhist beliefs as their reason.[119] Other Buddhist-majority states vary in their policy. For example, Bhutan has abolished the death penalty, but Thailand still retains it, although Buddhism is the official religion in both.

Many stories in Buddhist scripture stress the superior power of the Buddha's teaching to rehabilitate murderers and other criminals. The most well-known example is Angulimala in the Theravadan Pali canon who had killed 999 people and then attempted to kill his own mother and the Buddha, but under the influence of the Buddha he repented and entered the monkhood. The Buddha succeeded when the King and all his soldiers failed to eliminate the murderer by force.[120]

Without one official teaching on the death penalty, Thai monks are typically divided on the issue with some favoring abolition of the death penalty while others see it as bad karma stemming from bad actions in the past. [121]

In the edicts of the great Buddhist king Ashoka (ca. 304–232 BC) inscribed on great pillars around his kingdom, the King showed reverence for all life by giving up the slaughtering of animals and many of his subjects followed his example. King Ashoka also extended the period before execution of those condemned to death so they could make a final appeal for their lives.

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A close reading of texts in the Pali canon reveals different attitudes towards violence and capital punishment. The Pali scholar Steven Collins finds Dhamma in the Pali canon divided into two categories according to the attitude taken towards violence. In Mode 1 Dhamma the use of violence is "context-dependent and negotiable". A King should not pass judgement in haste or anger but the punishment should fit the crime, with warfare and capital punishment acceptable in certain situations. In Mode 2 Dhamma the use of violence is "context-independent and non-negotiable" and the only advice to kings is to abdicate, renounce the world and leave everything to the law of karma. Buddhism is incompatible with any form of violence especially warfare and capital punishment. [122]

In the world that humans inhabit there is a continual tension between these two modes of Dhamma. This tension is best exhibited in the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta (Digha Nikaya 26 of the Sutta Pitaka of the Pāli Canon), the story of humanity's decline from a golden age in the past. A critical turning point comes when the King decides not to give money to a man who has committed theft but instead to cut off his head and also to carry out this punishment in a particularly cruel and humiliating manner, parading him in public to the sound of drums as he is taken to the execution ground outside the city. In the wake of this decision by the king, thieves take to imitating the King's actions and murder the people from whom they steal to avoid detection. Thieves turn to highway robbery and attacking small villages and towns far away from the royal capital where they won't be detected. A downwards spiral towards social disorder and chaos has begun. [123]

Christianity

Views on the death penalty in Christianity run a spectrum of opinions, from complete condemnation of the punishment, seeing it as a form of revenge and as contrary to Christ's message of forgiveness, to enthusiastic support based primarily on Old Testament law.

Among the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, the message to his followers that one should "Turn the other cheek" and his example in the story Pericope Adulterae, in which Jesus intervenes in the stoning of an adulteress, are generally accepted as his condemnation of physical retaliation (though most scholars[124][125] agree that the latter passage was "certainly not part of the original text of St John's Gospel"[126]) More militant Christians consider Romans 13:3–4 to support the death penalty. Many Christians have believed that Jesus' doctrine of peace speaks only to personal ethics and is distinct from civil government's duty to punish crime.

In the Old Testament, Leviticus Leviticus 20:2–27 provides a list of transgressions in which execution is recommended. Christian positions on these passages vary.[127] The sixth commandment (fifth in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches) is translated as "Thou shalt not kill" by some denominations and as "Thou shalt not murder" by others. As some denominations do not have a hard-line stance on the subject, Christians of such denominations are free to make a personal decision.[128]

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Eastern Orthodox Christianity does not officially condemn or endorse capital punishment. It states that it is not a totally objectionable thing, but also that its abolishment can be driven by genuine Christian values, especially stressing the need for mercy.[129]

The Rosicrucian Fellowship and many other Christian esoteric schools condemn capital punishment in all circumstances.[130][131]

Roman Catholic Church

St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, accepts the death penalty as a deterrent and prevention method but not as a means of vengeance. (See Aquinas on the death penalty.) The Roman Catechism states this teaching thus:

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.[132]

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II suggested that capital punishment should be avoided unless it is the only way to defend society from the offender in question, opining that punishment "ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent."[133] The most recent edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church restates this view.[134] That the assessment of the contemporary situation advanced by John Paul II is not binding on the faithful was confirmed by Cardinal Ratzinger when he wrote in 2004 that,

if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.[135]

While all Catholics must therefore hold that "the infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians", the matter of "the advisability of exercising that power is, of course, an affair to be determined upon other and various considerations."[136]

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Protestants

The Religious Society of Friends or Quaker Church is one of the earliest American opponents of capital punishment and unequivocally opposes execution in all its forms.

Southern Baptists support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts, so long as it does not constitute as an act of personal revenge or discrimination.[137]

The Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops condemned the death penalty in 1988:

This Conference: ... 3. Urges the Church to speak out against: ... (b) all governments who practise capital punishment, and encourages them to find alternative ways of sentencing offenders so that the divine dignity of every human being is respected and yet justice is pursued;....[138]

The United Methodist Church, along with other Methodist churches, also condemns capital punishment, saying that it cannot accept retribution or social vengeance as a reason for taking human life.[139] The Church also holds that the death penalty falls unfairly and unequally upon marginalised persons including the poor, the uneducated, ethnic and religious minorities, and persons with mental and emotional illnesses.[140] The General Conference of the United Methodist Church calls for its bishops to uphold opposition to capital punishment and for governments to enact an immediate moratorium on carrying out the death penalty sentence.

In a 1991 social policy statement, the ELCA officially took a stand to oppose the death penalty. It states that revenge is a primary motivation for capital punishment policy and that true healing can only take place through repentance and forgiveness.[141]

Community of Christ, the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is opposed to capital punishment. The first stand against capital punishment was taken by the church's Presiding High Council in 1995. This was followed by a resolution of the World Conference in 2000. This resolution, WC 1273, states:

[W]e stand in opposition to the use of the death penalty; and ... as a peace church we seek ways to achieve healing and restorative justice. Church members are encouraged to work for the abolition of the death penalty in those states and nations that still practise this form of punishment.[142]

Several key leaders early in the Protestant Reformation, including Martin Luther and John Calvin, followed the traditional reasoning in favour of capital punishment, and the Lutheran Church's Augsburg Confession explicitly defended it. Some Protestant groups have cited Genesis 9:5–6, Romans 13:3–4, and Leviticus 20:1–27 as the basis for permitting the death penalty.[143]

Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and Friends have opposed the death penalty since their founding, and continue to be strongly opposed to it today. These groups, along with other Christians opposed to capital punishment, have cited Christ's Sermon on the Mount (transcribed

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in Matthew Chapter 5–7) and Sermon on the Plain (transcribed in Luke 6:17–49). In both sermons, Christ tells his followers to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies, which these groups believe mandates nonviolence, including opposition to the death penalty.

Mormonism

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also called Mormons) neither promotes nor opposes capital punishment, although the church's founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., supported it.[144] However, today the church officially state it is a "matter to be decided solely by the prescribed processes of civil law."[145]

Hinduism

Criminal executed by an elephant, Baroda.

A basis can be found in Hindu teachings both for permitting and forbidding the death penalty. Hinduism preaches ahimsa (or ahinsa, non-violence), but also teaches that the soul cannot be killed and death is limited only to the physical body. The soul is reborn into another body upon death (until Moksha), akin to a human changing clothes. The religious, civil and criminal law of Hindus is encoded in the Dharmaśāstras and the Arthasastra. The Dharmasastras describe many crimes and their punishments and call for the death penalty in several instances[citation needed], including murder and righteous warfare.

Islam

Some forms of Islamic law, as in Saudi Arabia, may require capital punishment, but there is great variation within Islamic nations as to actual capital punishment. Apostasy in Islam and stoning to death in Islam are controversial topics. Furthermore, as expressed in the Qur'an, capital punishment is condoned. Instead, murder is treated as a civil crime and is covered by the law of retaliation, whereby the relatives of the victim decide whether the offender is punished

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with death by the authorities or made to pay diyah as compensation.[25] Muslims frequently refer to the story of Cain and Abel when referring to killing someone. The Qur'an says the following:

"If anyone kills person– unless it be (a punishment) for murder or for spreading mischief in the land— it would be as if he killed all people. And if anyone saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people" (Qur'an 5:32).

This verse, in accordance with the Mosaic Law, maintains that the punishment for murder is the death penalty. "Mischief in the land" has been interpreted universally to refer to one who upsets the stability of the entire nation or community, in that his actions seriously damage the society, either through corruption, war or otherwise.

Although many hard-line and extremist Muslim societies have adopted capital punishment for other than the crime of murder, this is in violation of the Qur'anic law mentioned above, and so is rejected by most orthodox commentators and scholars.

However, there is also a minority view within some Muslims that capital punishment is not justified in the light of Qur'an.[146]

Judaism

The official teachings of Judaism approve the death penalty in principle but the standard of proof required for application of death penalty is extremely stringent. In practice, it has been abolished by various Talmudic decisions, making the situations in which a death sentence could be passed effectively impossible and hypothetical. A capital case could not be tried by a normal Beit Din of three judges, it can only be adjudicated by a Sanhedrin of a minimum of 23 judges.[147] Forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, i.e. in 30 CE, the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment, making it a hypothetical upper limit on the severity of punishment, fitting in finality for God alone to use, not fallible people.[148]

The 12th century Jewish legal scholar, Maimonides said:

"It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."[149]

Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice". Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.[150]

The state of Israel retains the death penalty only for Nazis convicted of crimes against humanity.[63] The only execution in Israeli history occurred in 1961, when Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was put to death after his trial in Jerusalem.

See also

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Law portal

Crime portal

Death by a Thousand Cuts (book) Eye for an eye List of people who were beheaded The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints (2002) (book)

References

Notes

1. ̂ Kronenwetter 2001, p. 2022. ̂ "The most notable aspect of the criminal provisions was that punishments took the

form of seizure of property, banishment, or, more often, payment of a fine. Even murder and other severe crimes (arson, organised horse thieving, robbery) were settled by monetary fines. Although the death penalty had been introduced by Vladimir the Great, it too was soon replaced by fines." Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine, p. 90, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-0830-5.

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Retrieved 23 August 2010.27. ^ a b Benn, p. 8.28. ̂ Benn, pp. 209–21029. ^ a b Benn, p. 21030. ̂ "History of the Death Penalty". Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 2012-12-12.31. ̂ Moses Maimonides, The Commandments, Neg. Comm. 290, at 269–71 (Charles B.

Chavel trans., 1967).32. ̂ Bedau, Hugo Adam (Autumn 1983). "Bentham's Utilitarian Critique of the Death

Penalty". The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Northwestern University School of Law) 74 (3): 1033–1065. doi:10.2307/1143143. JSTOR 1143143.

33. ̂ Durant, Will and Ariel, The Story of Civilization, Volume IX: The Age of Voltaire New York, 1965, page 71

34. ̂ Durant, Will and Ariel, The Story of Civilization, Volume IX: The Age of Voltaire New York, 1965, page 72,

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Penalty". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 December 2012.38. ̂ South Africa: Constitutional Court (6 June 1995). S v Makwanyane and Another

(CCT3/94) (1995) ZACC 3; 1995 (6) BCLR 665; 1995 (3) SA 391; (1996) 2 CHRLD 164; 1995 (2) SACR 1. Southern African Legal Information Institute. Retrieved 4 December 2012.

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39. ̂ "• Travel & Exploration • A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • CHAPTER VII. ISPAHAN – SHIRAZ". Explorion.net. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

40. ̂ Article from the Connecticut Courant (1 December 1803)41. ̂ The Execution of Caleb Adams, 200342. ̂ "Encyclopedia of Shinto". kokugakuin.ac.jp. Retrieved 5 September 2011.43. ̂ "Venezuela: A Country Study (The Century of Caudillismo)". countrystudies.us.

Retrieved 4 August 2012.44. ̂ "Death Penalty". Newsbatch.com. 1 March 2005. Retrieved 23 August 2010.45. ̂ "History of Capital Punishment". Stephen-stratford.co.uk. Retrieved 23 August 2010.46. ̂ See Caitlin pp. 420–42247. ̂ "Connecticut governor signs death penalty repeal". CBS News. 25 April 2012.

Retrieved 25 April 2012.48. ̂ "Troy Davis' execution and the limits of Twitter". BBC News. 23 September 2011.49. ̂ "In U.S., 64% Support Death Penalty in Cases of Murder". Gallup.com. Retrieved 30

April 2012.50. ̂ "Death Penalty: Hands Off Cain Announces Abolition In Gabon". Handsoffcain.info.

Retrieved 2012-12-12.51. ̂ "Abolish the death penalty". Amnesty International. Retrieved 23 August 2010.52. ̂ "Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries". Amnesty International. Retrieved 10 June

2008.53. ̂ "THE DEATH PENALTY IN 2011". Amnesty.org. Retrieved 2012-12-12.54. ̂ http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ACT50/001/2012/en/241a8301-05b4-41c0-

bfd9-2fe72899cda4/act500012012en.pdf55. ̂ Hogg, Chris (29 December 2009). "China executions shrouded in secrecy". BBC News.

Retrieved 14 April 2010.56. ̂ "The most important facts of 2008 (and the first six months of 2009)".

Handsoffcain.info. Retrieved 23 August 2010.57. ̂ "Dui Hua Estimates 4,000 Executions in China, Welcomes Open Dialogue". Dui Hua

Foundation. Retrieved June 2012.58. ̂ "Document - Singapore should join global trend and establish a moratorium on

executions". Amnesty International. Retrieved 2012-12-12.59. ̂ Martin Luther King, Jr (16 March 2010). "Heroin smuggler challenges Singapore death

sentence". Yoursdp.org. Retrieved 30 April 2012.60. ̂ http://www.smh.com.au/world/shift-in-attitude-against-death-penalty-in-indonesia-

20100820-138xa.html61. ̂ "International Polls & Studies". The Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved 1

April 2008.62. ̂ "China Against Death Penalty ( CADP)". Cadpnet.com. 2012-03-31. Retrieved 2012-

12-12.63. ^ a b Given that nearly all surviving Nazi perpetrators of the Shoah are in their 80s or 90s,

it seems unlikely that there will any more executions.64. ̂ "AIUK   : Sri Lanka: President urged to prevent return to death penalty after 29-year

moratorium". Amnesty.org.uk. Retrieved 23 August 2010.65. ̂ Brian Evans, "The Death Penalty In 2011: Three Things You Should Know", Amnesty

International, 26 March 2012, in particular the map, "Executions and Death Sentences in 2011"

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66. ̂ "Mongolia takes ‘vital step forward’ in abolishing the death penalty", Amnesty International, 5 January 2011

67. ̂ "Akmal Shaikh told of execution for drug smuggling". BBC News. 28 December 2009. Retrieved 29 December 2009.

68. ̂ " 毒品危害防制條例 " . 20 May 2009. Retrieved 4 May 2010.69. ̂ US Code (18 U.S.C. 3591), Federal Death Penalty Act of 199470. ̂ "Juvenile executions (except US)". Internationaljusticeproject.org. Retrieved 23 August

2010.71. ^ a b c "Iran changes law for execution of juveniles". Iranwpd.com. 10 February 2012.

Retrieved 30 April 2012.72. ^ a b " زیر افراد برای قصاص شد 18 مجازات ممنوع Ghanoononline.ir. Retrieved . " سال

2012-12-12.73. ̂ "Executions of juveniles since 1990". Amnesty International. Retrieved 2012-12-12.74. ̂ "Stop Child Executions! Ending the death penalty for child offenders". Amnesty

International. 2004. Archived from the original on 22 December 2007. Retrieved 12 February 2008.

75. ̂ "Execution of Juveniles in the U.S. and other Countries". Deathpenaltyinfo.org. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

76. ̂ Rob Gallagher, Table of juvenile executions in British America/United States, 1642–1959

77. ̂ Supreme Court bars executing mentally retarded CNN.com Law Center. 25 June 200278. ̂ "HRW Report". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 23 August 2010.79. ̂ UNICEF, Convention of the Rights of the Child – FAQ: "The Convention on the

Rights of the Child is the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history. Only two countries, Somalia and the United States, have not ratified this celebrated agreement. Somalia is currently unable to proceed to ratification as it has no recognised government. By signing the Convention, the United States has signaled its intention to ratify, but has yet to do so."

80. ̂ Iranian activists fight child executions[dead link], Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press, 17 September 2008. Retrieved 22 September 2008.

81. ̂ O'Toole, Pam (2007-06-27). "Iran rapped over child executions". BBC News. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

82. ̂ "Iran Does Far Worse Than Ignore Gays, Critics Say". Foxnews.com. September 25, 2007. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

83. ̂ Iranian hanged after verdict stay; BBCnews.co.uk; 2007-12-06; Retrieved 6 December 2007

84. ̂ "Somali woman executed by stoning". BBC News. 27 October 2008. Retrieved 31 October 2008.

85. ̂ "Stoning victim 'begged for mercy'". BBC News. 4 November 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2010.

86. ̂ "Somalia: Girl stoned was a child of 13". Amnesty International. 31 October 2008. Retrieved 31 October 2008.

87. ̂ "UNICEF lauds move by Somalia to ratify child convention". Xinhua News Agency. 20 November 2009. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

88. ̂ "Methodes of execution by country". Nutzworld.com. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

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89. ̂ "Methods of execution – Death Penalty Information Center". Deathpenaltyinfo.org. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

90. ̂ "Death penalty Bulletin No. 4-2010" (in (Norwegian)). Translate.google.no. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

91. ̂ "INFORMATION ON DEATH PENALTY" (in (Norwegian)). Amnesty International. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

92. ̂ "execution methods by country". Executions.justsickshit.com. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

93. ̂ Brian Evans, "The Death Penalty In 2011: Three Things You Should Know", Amnesty International, March 26, 2012, in particular the map, "Executions and Death Sentences in 2011"

94. ̂ ACLU Capital Punishment Project (CPP)95. ̂ James Pitkin. ""Killing Time" | January 23rd, 2008". Wweek.com. Retrieved 23 August

2010.96. ̂ Film Robert Blecker want me dead, about retributive justice and capital punishment97. ̂ "The High Cost of the Death Penalty". Death Penalty Focus. Retrieved 27 June 2008.98. ̂ http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/99. ̂ Joel Feinberg: Voluntary Euthanasia and the Inalienable Right to Life The Tanner

Lecture on Human Values, 1 April 1977.100. ̂ "Innocence and the Death Penalty". Deathpenaltyinfo.org. Retrieved 23 August

2010.101. ̂ Capital Defense Weekly[dead link] Archived 4 August 2007 at the Wayback

Machine[dead link]

102. ̂ "Executed Innocents". Justicedenied.org. Retrieved 23 August 2010.103. ̂ "Wrongful executions". Mitglied.lycos.de. Retrieved 23 August 2010.104. ̂ "The Innocence Project – News and Information: Press Releases".

Innoccenceproject.org. Retrieved 23 August 2010.105. ̂ Lundin, Leigh (10 July 2011). "Casey Anthony Trial– Aftermath". Capital

Punishment. Orlando: Criminal Brief. "With 400 condemned on death row, Florida is an extremely aggressive death penalty state, a state that will even execute for drug trafficking."

106. ̂ "Executed But Possibly Innocent | Death Penalty Information Center". Deathpenaltyinfo.org. Retrieved 30 April 2012.

107. ̂ Amnesty International, "Singapore – The death penalty: A hidden toll of executions" (January 2004)

108. ̂ http://www.nyls.edu/faculty/faculty_profiles/robert_blecker/109. ̂ Thomas Hubert (29 June 2007). "Journée contre la peine de mort   : le monde

décide!" (in French). Coalition Mondiale.110. ̂ "Abolish the death penalty | Amnesty International". Web.amnesty.org.

Retrieved 2012-12-12.111. ̂ "UN set for key death penalty vote". Amnesty International. 9 December 2007.

Retrieved 12 February 2008.112. ̂ "Directorate of Communication – The global campaign against the death

penalty is gaining momentum – Statement by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe". Wcd.coe.int. 2007-11-16. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

113. ̂ "UN General Assembly - News Stories". Un.org. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

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114. ̂ "U.N. Assembly calls for moratorium on death penalty". Reuters. 18 December 2007.

115. ̂ "Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR". Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. Retrieved 8 December 2007.

116. ̂ "Death Penalty: Ratification of international treaties | Amnesty International". Amnesty.org. 2012-03-23. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

117. ̂ "Italy abolishes the death penalty in all circumstances". Worldcoalition.org. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

118. ̂ "Dhammika Sutta: Dhammika". Accesstoinsight.org. 11 July 2010. Retrieved 30 April 2012.

119. ̂ "Japan hangs two more on death row (see also paragraph 11)". BBC News. 28 October 2008. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

120. ̂ "Thai Buddhist perspective on the death penalty". Seminar of Monks at Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University, Chiangmai. Death Penalty Thailand.

121. ̂ "Second Seminar on Buddhist Perspectives on Death Penalty". seminar of monks at Wat Mahasawatnakphutaram in Ubon Ratchathani. Death Penalty in Thailand. Retrieved 16 April 2012.

122. ̂ Collins, Steven (1998). Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali imaginaire. Cambridge University Press. pp. 419–420.

123. ̂ Collins, Steven (1998). Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali imaginaire. Cambridge University Press. pp. 486–487.

124. ̂ "NETBible: John 7". Bible.org. Retrieved 17 October 2009. See note 139 on that page.

125. ̂ Keith, Chris (2008). "Recent and Previous Research on the Pericope Adulterae (John 7.53—8.11)". Currents in Biblical Research 6 (3): 377–404. doi:10.1177/1476993X07084793.

126. ̂ 'Pericope adulterae', in FL Cross (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

127. ̂ "What The Christian Scriptures Say About The Death Penalty – Capital Punishment". Religioustolerance.org. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

128. ̂ "BBC – Religion & Ethics – Capital punishment: Introduction". BBC. 3 August 2009. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

129. ̂ "The Basis of the Social Concept, IX. 3". Mospat.ru. Retrieved 23 August 2010.130. ̂ Heindel, Max (1910s), The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions and Answers –

Volume II: Question no.33: Rosicrucian Viewpoint of Capital Punishment, ISBN 0-911274-90-1

131. ̂ The Rosicrucian Fellowship: Obsession, Occult Effects of Capital Punishment132. ̂ "THE CATECHISM OF TRENT: The Fifth Commandment". Cin.org.

Retrieved 23 August 2010.133. ̂ Papal encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, 25 March 1995134. ̂ Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully

determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

135. ̂ "Abortion – Pro Life – Cardinal Ratzinger on Voting, Abortion, and Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion". Priestsforlife.org. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

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136. ̂ "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Capital Punishment (Death Penalty)". Newadvent.org. 1 June 1911. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

137. ̂ "SBC Resolution: On Capital Punishment". Southern Baptist Convention. Retrieved 26 October 2010.

138. ̂ "Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, 1988, Resolution 33, paragraph 3. (b)". Lambethconference.org. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

139. ̂ "The United Methodist Church: Capital Punishment". Archives.umc.org. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

140. ̂ "The United Methodist Church: Official church statements on capital punishment". Archives.umc.org. 6 November 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2011.

141. ̂ "ELCA Social Statement on the Death Penalty". Elca.org. 4 September 1991. Retrieved 23 August 2010.

142. ̂ RLDS World Conference, Resolution 1273, Adopted April 8, 2000, entitled "Healing Ministry and Capital Punishment"

143. ̂ [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20061214111249/http://www.equip.org/free/CP1304.htm

144. ̂ Roberts (1902, p. 435)145. ̂ "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Public Issues".

Newsroom.lds.org. Retrieved 23 August 2010.146. ̂ "Why The Death Penalty is un-Islamic? – Kashif Shahzada 2010". Retrieved 20

November 2010.147. ̂ Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 2a148. ̂ Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 41 a)149. ̂ Goldstein, Warren (2006). Defending the human spirit: Jewish law's vision for

a moral society. Feldheim Publishers. p. 269. ISBN 978-1-58330-732-8. Retrieved 22 October 2010.

150. ̂ Moses Maimonides, The Commandments, Neg. Comm. 290, at 269–271 (Charles B. Chavel trans., 1967).

Bibliography

Kronenwetter, Michael (2001). Capital Punishment: A Reference Handbook (2 ed.). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-432-9.

Further reading

Gaie, Joseph B. R (2004). The ethics of medical involvement in capital punishment   : a philosophical discussion. Kluwer Academic. ISBN 1-4020-1764-2.

Johnson, David T.; Zimring, Franklin E. (2009). The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533740-2.

Kronenwetter, Michael (2001). Capital punishment: a reference handbook (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-432-3.

McCafferty, James A (2010). Capital Punishment. AldineTransaction. ISBN 978-0-202-36328-8.

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Mandery, Evan J (2005). Capital punishment: a balanced examination. Jones and Bartlett Publishers. ISBN 0-7637-3308-3.

Marzilli, Alan (2008). Capital Punishment – Point-counterpoint (2nd ed.). Chelsea House. ISBN 978-0-7910-9796-0.

Woolf, Alex (2004). World issues – Capital Punishment. Chrysalis Education. ISBN 1-59389-155-5.

Simon, Rita (2007). A comparative analysis of capital punishment   : statutes, policies, frequencies, and public attitudes the world over. Lexington Books. ISBN 0-7391-2091-3.

External links

Wikinews has news related to: Death penalty

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Death penalty

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Capital punishment

About.com's Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty and Capital Punishment 1000+ Death Penalty links all in one place Updates on the death penalty generally and capital punishment law specifically Texas Department of Criminal Justice: list of executed offenders and their last statements Answers.com entry on capital punishment "How to Kill a Human Being" , BBC Horizon TV programme documentary, 2008 U.S. and 50 State death penalty/capital punishment law and other relevant links Megalaw Two audio documentaries covering execution in the United States: Witness to an

Execution The Execution Tapes

Opposing

World Coalition Against the Death Penalty Death Watch International International anti-death penalty campaign group Campaign to End the Death Penalty Anti-Death Penalty Information : includes a monthly watchlist of upcoming executions

and death penalty statistics for the United States. The Death Penalty Information Center : Statistical information and studies Amnesty International – Abolish the death penalty Campaign : Human Rights

organisation European Union : Information on anti-death penalty policies IPS Inter Press Service International news on capital punishment Death Penalty Focus : American group dedicated to abolishing the death penalty Reprieve.org : United States based volunteer program for foreign lawyers, students, and

others to work at death penalty defense offices American Civil Liberties Union : Demanding a Moratorium on the Death Penalty National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

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NSW Council for Civil Liberties : an Australian organisation opposed to the Death Penalty in the Asian region

Winning a war on terror: eliminating the death penalty Electric Chair at Sing Sing , a 1900 photograph by William M. Vander Weyde,

accompanied by a poem by Jared Carter.

In favour

The REAL Death Penalty in the US: A Review Studies showing the death penalty saves lives Criminal Justice Legal Foundation Keep life without parole and death penalty intact Why the death penalty is needed Pro Death Penalty.com Pro Death Penalty Resource Page 119 Pro DP Links The Death Penalty is Constitutional The Paradoxes of a Death Penalty Stance by Charles Lane in the Washington Post Clark County, Indiana, Prosecutor's Page on capital punishment In Favor of Capital Punishment – Famous Quotes supporting Capital Punishment Studies spur new death penalty debate

Religious views

The Dalai Lama – Message supporting the moratorium on the death penalty Buddhism & Capital Punishment from The Engaged Zen Society Orthodox Union website: Rabbi Yosef Edelstein: Parshat Beha'alotcha: A Few

Reflections on Capital Punishment Priests for Life – Lists several Catholic links The Death Penalty: Why the Church Speaks a Countercultural Message by Kenneth R.

Overberg, S.J., from AmericanCatholic.org Wrestling with the Death Penalty by Andy Prince, from Youth Update on

AmericanCatholic.org  "Capital Punishment". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

1913. Catholics Against Capital Punishment : offers a Catholic perspective and provides

resources and links Kashif Shahzada 2010 : Why The Death Penalty Is un-Islamic?

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ntroduction to capital punishment

Capital punishment is the practice of executing someone as punishment for a specific crime after a proper legal trial.

It can only be used by a state, so when non-state organisations speak of having 'executed' a person they have actually committed a murder.

It is usually only used as a punishment for particularly serious types of murder, but in some countries treason, types of fraud, adultery and rape are capital crimes.

The phrase 'capital punishment' comes from the Latin word for the head. A 'corporal' punishment, such as flogging, takes its name from the Latin word for the body.

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Capital punishment is used in many countries around the world. According to Amnesty International as at May 2012, 141 countries have abolished the death penalty either in law on in practice. Source: Amnesty

In 2008, there was a growing reluctance among those countries that do retain the death penalty to use it in practice. In 2008, only 25 out of 59 countries that retain the death penalty carried out executions.

Amnesty International, March 2009

China executes the most people per year overall, with an estimated figure of 1,718 in 2008. Amnesty International also states that in 2008 Iran executed at least 346 people, the USA 111, Saudi Arabia 102 and Pakistan 36.

Details of which countries are abolitionist and which are retentionist can be found on the Amnesty website.

In China, at least 1,718 people were executed and at least 7,003 people were known to have been sentenced to death in 2008. These figures represent minimum estimates - real figures are undoubtedly higher. However, the continued refusal by the Chinese authorities to release public information on the use of the death penalty means that in China the death penalty remains shrouded in secrecy.

Amnesty International, March 2009

There is now steadily increasing support for abolishing capital punishment.

On 18 December 2008, the United Nations adopted resolution 63/168, which is a reaffirmation of its call for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty (62/149) passed in December the previous year. The resolution calls for states to freeze executions with a view to eventual abolition.

The World Coalition against the Death Penalty was created in Rome in 2002, and 10th October 2006 was World Day against the Death Penalty.

IN FAVOUR OF

Retribution

First a reminder of the basic argument behind retribution and punishment:

all guilty people deserve to be punished only guilty people deserve to be punished guilty people deserve to be punished in proportion to the severity of their crime

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This argument states that real justice requires people to suffer for their wrongdoing, and to suffer in a way appropriate for the crime. Each criminal should get what their crime deserves and in the case of a murderer what their crime deserves is death.

The measure of punishment in a given case must depend upon the atrocity of the crime, the conduct of the criminal and the defenceless and unprotected state of the victim.

Imposition of appropriate punishment is the manner in which the courts respond to the society's cry for justice against the criminals.

Justice demands that courts should impose punishment befitting the crime so that the courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime.

Justices A.S. Anand and N.P. Singh, Supreme Court of India, in the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee

Many people find that this argument fits with their inherent sense of justice.

It's often supported with the argument "An eye for an eye". But to argue like that demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what that Old Testament phrase actually means. In fact the Old Testament meaning of "an eye for an eye" is that only the guilty should be punished, and they should punished neither too leniently or too severely.

The arguments against retribution

Capital punishment is vengeance rather than retribution and, as such, is a morally dubious concept

The anticipatory suffering of the criminal, who may be kept on death row for many years, makes the punishment more severe than just depriving the criminal of life

o That's certainly true in the USA, but delay is not an inherent feature of capital punishment; some countries execute people within days of sentencing them to death

Some people are prepared to argue against retribution as a concept, even when applied fairly.

Top

Deterrence

Capital punishment is often justified with the argument that by executing convicted murderers, we will deter would-be murderers from killing people.

The arguments against deterrence

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The statistical evidence doesn't confirm that deterrence works (but it doesn't show that deterrence doesn't work either)

Some of those executed may not have been capable of being deterred because of mental illness or defect

Some capital crimes are committed in such an emotional state that the perpetrator did not think about the possible consequences

No-one knows whether the death penalty deters more than life imprisonment

Deterrence is most effective when the punishment happens soon after the crime - to make an analogy, a child learns not to put their finger in the fire, because the consequence is instant pain.

The more the legal process distances the punishment from the crime - either in time, or certainty - the less effective a deterrent the punishment will probably be.

Cardinal Avery Dulles has pointed out another problem with the deterrence argument.

Executions, especially where they are painful, humiliating, and public, may create a sense of horror that would prevent others from being tempted to commit similar crimes...

...In our day death is usually administered in private by relatively painless means, such as injections of drugs, and to that extent it may be less effective as a deterrent. Sociological evidence on the deterrent effect of the death penalty as currently practiced is ambiguous, conflicting, and far from probative.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, Catholicism and Capital Punishment, First Things 2001

Some proponents of capital punishment argue that capital punishment is beneficial even if it has no deterrent effect.

If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.

John McAdams: Marquette University, Department of Political Science

Top

Rehabilitation

Of course capital punishment doesn't rehabilitate the prisoner and return them to society. But there are many examples of persons condemned to death taking the opportunity of the time before execution to repent, express remorse, and very often experience profound spiritual rehabilitation.

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Thomas Aquinas noted that by accepting the punishment of death, the offender was able to expiate his evil deeds and so escape punishment in the next life.

This is not an argument in favour of capital punishment, but it demonstrates that the death penalty can lead to some forms of rehabilitation.

Top

Prevention of re-offending

It is undeniable that those who are executed cannot commit further crimes.

Many people don't think that this is sufficient justification for taking human life, and argue that there are other ways to ensure the offenders do not re-offend, such as imprisonment for life without possibility of parole.

Although there have been cases of persons escaping from prison and killing again, these are extremely rare.

But some people don't believe that life imprisonment without parole protects society adequately. The offender may no longer be a danger to the public, but he remains a danger to prison staff and other inmates. Execution would remove that danger.

Top

Closure and vindication

It is often argued that the death penalty provides closure for victims' families.

This is a rather flimsy argument, because every family reacts differently. As some families do not feel that another death will provide closure, the argument doesn't provide a justification for capital punishment as a whole.

Top

Incentive to help police

Plea bargaining is used in most countries. It's the process through which a criminal gets a reduced sentence in exchange for providing help to the police.

Where the possible sentence is death, the prisoner has the strongest possible incentive to try to get their sentence reduced, even to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, and it's argued that capital punishment therefore gives a useful tool to the police.

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This is a very feeble justification for capital punishment, and is rather similar to arguments that torture is justified because it would be a useful police tool.

Top

A Japanese argument

This is a rather quirky argument, and not normally put forward.

Japan uses the death penalty sparingly, executing approximately 3 prisoners per year.

A unique justification for keeping capital punishment has been put forward by some Japanese psychologists who argue that it has an important psychological part to play in the life of the Japanese, who live under severe stress and pressure in the workplace.

The argument goes that the death penalty reinforces the belief that bad things happen to those who deserve it. This reinforces the contrary belief; that good things will happen to those who are 'good'.

In this way, the existence of capital punishment provides a psychological release from conformity and overwork by reinforcing the hope that there will be a reward in due time.

Oddly, this argument seems to be backed up by Japanese public opinion. Those who are in favour currently comprise 81% of the population, or that is the official statistic. Nonetheless there is also a small but increasingly vociferous abolitionist movement in Japan.

From an ethical point of view this is the totally consequentialist argument that if executing a few people will lead to an aggregate increase in happiness then that is a good thing.

Retribution

First a reminder of the basic argument behind retribution and punishment:

all guilty people deserve to be punished only guilty people deserve to be punished guilty people deserve to be punished in proportion to the severity of their crime

This argument states that real justice requires people to suffer for their wrongdoing, and to suffer in a way appropriate for the crime. Each criminal should get what their crime deserves and in the case of a murderer what their crime deserves is death.

The measure of punishment in a given case must depend upon the atrocity of the crime, the conduct of the criminal and the defenceless and unprotected state of the victim.

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Imposition of appropriate punishment is the manner in which the courts respond to the society's cry for justice against the criminals.

Justice demands that courts should impose punishment befitting the crime so that the courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime.

Justices A.S. Anand and N.P. Singh, Supreme Court of India, in the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee

Many people find that this argument fits with their inherent sense of justice.

It's often supported with the argument "An eye for an eye". But to argue like that demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what that Old Testament phrase actually means. In fact the Old Testament meaning of "an eye for an eye" is that only the guilty should be punished, and they should punished neither too leniently or too severely.

The arguments against retribution

Capital punishment is vengeance rather than retribution and, as such, is a morally dubious concept

The anticipatory suffering of the criminal, who may be kept on death row for many years, makes the punishment more severe than just depriving the criminal of life

o That's certainly true in the USA, but delay is not an inherent feature of capital punishment; some countries execute people within days of sentencing them to death

Some people are prepared to argue against retribution as a concept, even when applied fairly.

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Deterrence

Capital punishment is often justified with the argument that by executing convicted murderers, we will deter would-be murderers from killing people.

The arguments against deterrence

The statistical evidence doesn't confirm that deterrence works (but it doesn't show that deterrence doesn't work either)

Some of those executed may not have been capable of being deterred because of mental illness or defect

Some capital crimes are committed in such an emotional state that the perpetrator did not think about the possible consequences

No-one knows whether the death penalty deters more than life imprisonment

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Deterrence is most effective when the punishment happens soon after the crime - to make an analogy, a child learns not to put their finger in the fire, because the consequence is instant pain.

The more the legal process distances the punishment from the crime - either in time, or certainty - the less effective a deterrent the punishment will probably be.

Cardinal Avery Dulles has pointed out another problem with the deterrence argument.

Executions, especially where they are painful, humiliating, and public, may create a sense of horror that would prevent others from being tempted to commit similar crimes...

...In our day death is usually administered in private by relatively painless means, such as injections of drugs, and to that extent it may be less effective as a deterrent. Sociological evidence on the deterrent effect of the death penalty as currently practiced is ambiguous, conflicting, and far from probative.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, Catholicism and Capital Punishment, First Things 2001

Some proponents of capital punishment argue that capital punishment is beneficial even if it has no deterrent effect.

If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.

John McAdams: Marquette University, Department of Political Science

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Rehabilitation

Of course capital punishment doesn't rehabilitate the prisoner and return them to society. But there are many examples of persons condemned to death taking the opportunity of the time before execution to repent, express remorse, and very often experience profound spiritual rehabilitation.

Thomas Aquinas noted that by accepting the punishment of death, the offender was able to expiate his evil deeds and so escape punishment in the next life.

This is not an argument in favour of capital punishment, but it demonstrates that the death penalty can lead to some forms of rehabilitation.

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Prevention of re-offending

It is undeniable that those who are executed cannot commit further crimes.

Many people don't think that this is sufficient justification for taking human life, and argue that there are other ways to ensure the offenders do not re-offend, such as imprisonment for life without possibility of parole.

Although there have been cases of persons escaping from prison and killing again, these are extremely rare.

But some people don't believe that life imprisonment without parole protects society adequately. The offender may no longer be a danger to the public, but he remains a danger to prison staff and other inmates. Execution would remove that danger.

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Closure and vindication

It is often argued that the death penalty provides closure for victims' families.

This is a rather flimsy argument, because every family reacts differently. As some families do not feel that another death will provide closure, the argument doesn't provide a justification for capital punishment as a whole.

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Incentive to help police

Plea bargaining is used in most countries. It's the process through which a criminal gets a reduced sentence in exchange for providing help to the police.

Where the possible sentence is death, the prisoner has the strongest possible incentive to try to get their sentence reduced, even to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, and it's argued that capital punishment therefore gives a useful tool to the police.

This is a very feeble justification for capital punishment, and is rather similar to arguments that torture is justified because it would be a useful police tool.

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A Japanese argument

This is a rather quirky argument, and not normally put forward.

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Japan uses the death penalty sparingly, executing approximately 3 prisoners per year.

A unique justification for keeping capital punishment has been put forward by some Japanese psychologists who argue that it has an important psychological part to play in the life of the Japanese, who live under severe stress and pressure in the workplace.

The argument goes that the death penalty reinforces the belief that bad things happen to those who deserve it. This reinforces the contrary belief; that good things will happen to those who are 'good'.

In this way, the existence of capital punishment provides a psychological release from conformity and overwork by reinforcing the hope that there will be a reward in due time.

Oddly, this argument seems to be backed up by Japanese public opinion. Those who are in favour currently comprise 81% of the population, or that is the official statistic. Nonetheless there is also a small but increasingly vociferous abolitionist movement in Japan.

From an ethical point of view this is the totally consequentialist argument that if executing a few people will lead to an aggregate increase in happiness then that is a good thing.

AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

Arguments against capital punishmentA breakdown of the arguments given in favour of abolishing (or against reintroducing) the death penalty.

On this page

Value of human life Right to live Execution of the innocent Retribution is wrong Failure to deter Brutalising society Expense People not responsible for their acts Applied unfairly Cruel, inhumane, degrading Unnecessary Free will

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Value of human life

Everyone thinks human life is valuable. Some of those against capital punishment believe that human life is so valuable that even the worst murderers should not be deprived of the value of their lives.

They believe that the value of the offender's life cannot be destroyed by the offender's bad conduct - even if they have killed someone.

Some abolitionists don't go that far. They say that life should be preserved unless there is a very good reason not to, and that the those who are in favour of capital punishment are the ones who have to justify their position.

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Right to live

Everyone has an inalienable human right to life, even those who commit murder; sentencing a person to death and executing them violates that right.

This is very similar to the 'value of life' argument, but approached from the perspective of human rights.

The counter-argument is that a person can, by their actions, forfeit human rights, and that murderers forfeit their right to life.

Another example will make this clear - a person forfeits their right to life if they start a murderous attack and the only way the victim can save their own life is by killing the attacker.

The medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas made this point very clearly:

Therefore if any man is dangerous to the community and is subverting it by some sin, the treatment to be commended is his execution in order to preserve the common good... Therefore to kill a man who retains his natural worthiness is intrinsically evil, although it may be justifiable to kill a sinner just as it is to kill a beast, for, as Aristotle points out, an evil man is worse than a beast and more harmful.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae

Aquinas is saying that certain contexts change a bad act (killing) into a good act (killing to repair the violation of justice done by the person killed, and killing a person who has forfeited their natural worthiness by killing).

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Execution of the innocent

The most common and most cogent argument against capital punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system.

Witnesses, (where they are part of the process), prosecutors and jurors can all make mistakes. When this is coupled with flaws in the system it is inevitable that innocent people will be convicted of crimes. Where capital punishment is used such mistakes cannot be put right.

The death penalty legitimizes an irreversible act of violence by the state and will inevitably claim innocent victims. As long as human justice remains fallible, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated

Amnesty International

There is ample evidence that such mistakes are possible: in the USA, 130 people sentenced to death have been found innocent since 1973 and released from death row. Source: Amnesty

The average time on death row before these exonerations was 11 years. Source: Death Penalty Information Center

Things were made worse in the USA when the Supreme Court refused to hold explicitly that the execution of a defendant in the face of significant evidence of innocence would be unconstitutional [Herrera v. Collins, 560 U.S. 390 (1993)]. However many US lawyers believe that in practice the court would not permit an execution in a case demonstrating persuasive evidence of "actual innocence".

The continuous threat of execution makes the ordeal of those wrongly convicted particularly horrible.

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Retribution is wrong

Many people believe that retribution is morally flawed and problematic in concept and practice.

We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing.

U.S. Catholic Conference

To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice.

Attributed to Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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Vengeance

The main argument that retribution is immoral is that it is just a sanitised form of vengeance. Scenes of howling mobs attacking prison vans containing those accused of murder on their way to and from court, or chanting aggressively outside prisons when an offender is being executed, suggest that vengeance remains a major ingredient in the public popularity of capital punishment.

But just retribution, designed to re-establish justice, can easily be distinguished from vengeance and vindictiveness.

In any case, is vengeance necessarily a bad thing?

The Victorian legal philosopher James Fitzjames Stephens thought vengeance was an acceptable justification for punishment. Punishment, he thought, should be inflicted:

for the sake of ratifying the feeling of hatred-call it revenge, resentment, or what you will-which the contemplation of such [offensive] conduct excites in healthily constituted minds.

Sir James Fitzjames Stephens, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Retribution and the innocent

But the issue of the execution of innocent persons is also a problem for the retribution argument - if there is a serious risk of executing the innocent then one of the key principles of retribution - that people should get what they deserve (and therefore only what they deserve) - is violated by the current implementation of capital punishment in the USA, and any other country where errors have taken place.

Uniqueness of the death penalty

It's argued that retribution is used in a unique way in the case of the death penalty. Crimes other than murder do not receive a punishment that mimics the crime - for example rapists are not punished by sexual assault, and people guilty of assault are not ceremonially beaten up.

Camus and Dostoevsky argued that the retribution in the case of the death penalty was not fair, because the anticipatory suffering of the criminal before execution would probably outweigh the anticipatory suffering of the victim of their crime.

Others argue that the retribution argument is flawed because the death penalty delivers a 'double punishment'; that of the execution and the preceding wait, and this is a mismatch to the crime.

Many offenders are kept 'waiting' on death row for a very long time; in the USA the average wait is 10 years. Source: Death Penalty Information Center

In Japan, the accused are only informed of their execution moments before it is scheduled. The result of this is that each day of their life is lived as if it was their last.

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Capital punishment is not operated retributively

Some lawyers argue that capital punishment is not really used as retribution for murder, or even consistently for a particular kind of murder.

They argue that, in the USA at least, only a small minority of murderers are actually executed, and that imposition of capital punishment on a "capriciously selected random handful" of offenders does not amount to a consistent programme of retribution.

Since capital punishment is not operated retributively, it is inappropriate to use retribution to justify capital punishment.

This argument would have no value in a society that applied the death penalty consistently for particular types of murder.

Capital punishment is not retribution enough

Some people who believe in the notion of retribution are against capital punishment because they feel the death penalty provides insufficient retribution. They argue that life imprisonment without possibility of parole causes much more suffering to the offender than a painless death after a short period of imprisonment.

Another example is the planner of a suicide bombing - execution might make that person a martyr, and therefore would be a lesser retribution than life imprisonment.

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Failure to deter

The death penalty doesn't seem to deter people from committing serious violent crimes. The thing that deters is the likelihood of being caught and punished.

The general consensus among social scientists is that the deterrent effect of the death penalty is at best unproven.

In 1988 a survey was conducted for the UN to determine the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates. This was then updated in 1996. It concluded:

...research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment. Such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. The evidence as a whole still gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis.

The key to real and true deterrence is to increase the likelihood of detection, arrest and conviction.

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The death penalty is a harsh punishment, but it is not harsh on crime.

Amnesty International

NB: It's actually impossible to test the deterrent effect of a punishment in a rigorous way, as to do so would require knowing how many murders would have been committed in a particular state if the law had been different during the same time period.

Deterrence is a morally flawed concept

Even if capital punishment did act as a deterrent, is it acceptable for someone to pay for the predicted future crimes of others?

Some people argue that one may as well punish innocent people; it will have the same effect.

This isn't true - if people are randomly picked up off the street and punished as scapegoats the only consequence is likely to be that the public will be frightened to go out.

To make a scapegoat scheme effective it would be necessary to go through the appearance of a legitimate legal process and to present evidence which convinced the public that the person being punished deserved their punishment.

While some societies have operated their legal systems on the basis of fictional evidence and confessions extracted by torture, the ethical objections to such a system are sufficient to render the argument in the second paragraph pointless.

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Brutalising society

Brutalising individuals

Statistics show that the death penalty leads to a brutalisation of society and an increase in murder rate. In the USA, more murders take place in states where capital punishment is allowed. In 2010, the murder rate in states where the death penalty has been abolished was 4.01 per cent per 100,000 people. In states where the death penalty is used, the figure was 5.00 per cent. These calculations are based on figures from the FBI. The gap between death penalty states and non-death penalty states rose considerably from 4 per cent difference in 1990 to 25 per cent in 2010. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report, from Death Penalty Information Center

Disturbed individuals may be angered and thus more likely to commit murder.

It is also linked to increased number of police officers murdered.

Brutalising the state

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Capital punishment may brutalise society in a different and even more fundamental way, one that has implications for the state's relationship with all citizens.

...the state's power deliberately to destroy innocuous (though guilty) life is a manifestation of the hidden wish that the state be allowed to do anything it pleases with life.

George Kateb, The Inner Ocean 1992

Brutalising the law

Capital punishment is said to produce an unacceptable link between the law and violence.

But in many ways the law is inevitably linked with violence - it punishes violent crimes, and it uses punishments that 'violently' restrict human freedoms. And philosophically the law is always involved with violence in that its function includes preserving an ordered society from violent events.

Nonetheless, a strong case can be made that legal violence is clearly different from criminal violence, and that when it is used, it is used in a way that everyone can see is fair and logical.

Capital punishment 'lowers the tone' of society

Civilised societies do not tolerate torture, even if it can be shown that torture may deter, or produce other good effects.

In the same way many people feel that the death penalty is an inappropriate for a modern civilised society to respond to even the most dreadful crimes.

The murder that is depicted as a horrible crime is repeated in cold blood, remorselessly

Beccaria, C. de, Traité des Délits et des Peines, 1764

Because most countries - but not all - do not execute people publicly, capital punishment is not a degrading public spectacle. But it is still a media circus, receiving great publicity, so that the public are well aware of what is being done on their behalf.

However this media circus takes over the spectacle of public execution in teaching the public lessons about justice, retribution, and personal responsibility for one's own actions.

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Expense

In the USA capital punishment costs a great deal.

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For example, the cost of convicting and executing Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City Bombing was over $13 million.

In New York and New Jersey, the high costs of capital punishment were one factor in those states' decisions to abandon the death penalty. New York spent about $170 million over 9 years and had no executions. New Jersey spent $253 million over a 25-year period and also had no executions. Source: Death Penalty Information Center

In countries with a less costly and lengthy appeals procedure, capital punishment seems like a much cheaper option than long-term imprisonment.

Counter-arguments

Those in favour of capital punishment counter with these two arguments:

It is a fallacy that capital punishment costs more than life without parole Justice cannot be thought of in financial terms

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People not responsible for their acts

This is not an argument against capital punishment itself, but against applying it wrongly.

Some countries, including the USA, have executed people proven to be insane.

It's generally accepted that people should not be punished for their actions unless they have a guilty mind - which requires them to know what they are doing and that it's wrong.

Therefore people who are insane should not be convicted, let alone executed. This doesn't prevent insane people who have done terrible things being confined in secure mental institutions, but this is done for public safety, not to punish the insane person.

To put it more formally: it is wrong to impose capital punishment on those who have at best a marginal capacity for deliberation and for moral agency.

A more difficult moral problem arises in the case of offenders who were sane at the time of their crime and trial but who develop signs of insanity before execution.

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Applied unfairly

There has been much concern in the USA that flaws in the judicial system make capital punishment unfair.

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One US Supreme Court Justice (who had originally supported the death penalty) eventually came to the conclusion that capital punishment was bound to damage the cause of justice:

The death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake ... Experience has taught us that the constitutional goal of eliminating arbitrariness and discrimination from the administration of death ... can never be achieved without compromising an equally essential component of fundamental fairness - individualized sentencing.

Justice Harry Blackmun, United States Supreme Court, 1994

Jurors

Jurors in many US death penalty cases must be 'death eligible'. This means the prospective juror must be willing to convict the accused knowing that a sentence of death is a possibility.

This results in a jury biased in favour of the death penalty, since no one who opposes the death penalty is likely to be accepted as a juror.

Lawyers

There's much concern in the USA that the legal system doesn't always provide poor accused people with good lawyers.

Out of all offenders who are sentenced to death, three quarters of those who are allocated a legal aid lawyer can expect execution, a figure that drops to a quarter if the defendant could afford to pay for a lawyer.

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Cruel, inhumane, degrading

Regardless of the moral status of capital punishment, some argue that all ways of executing people cause so much suffering to the condemned person that they amount to torture and are wrong.

Many methods of execution are quite obviously likely to cause enormous suffering, such as execution by lethal gas, electrocution or strangulation.

Other methods have been abandoned because they were thought to be barbaric, or because they forced the executioner to be too 'hands-on'. These include firing squads and beheading.

Lethal injection

Many countries that use capital punishment have now adopted lethal injection, because it's thought to be less cruel for the offender and less brutalising for the executioner.

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Those against capital punishment believe this method has serious moral flaws and should be abandoned.

The first flaw is that it requires medical personnel being directly involved in killing (rather than just checking that the execution has terminated life). This is a fundamental contravention of medical ethics.

The second flaw is that research in April 2005 showed that lethal injection is not nearly as 'humane' as had been thought. Post mortem findings indicated that levels of anaesthetic found in offenders were consistent with wakefulness and the ability to experience pain.

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Unnecessary

This is really more of a political argument than an ethical one. It's based on the political principle that a state should fulfil its obligations in the least invasive, harmful and restrictive way possible.

The state does have an obligation to punish crime, as a means to preserve an orderly and contented society, but it should do so in the least harmful way possible

Capital punishment is the most harmful punishment available, so the state should only use it if no less harmful punishment is suitable

Other punishments will always enable the state to fulfil its objective of punishing crime appropriately

Therefore the state should not use capital punishment

Most people will not want to argue with clauses 1 and 2, so this structure does have the benefit of focussing attention on the real point of contention - the usefulness of non-capital punishments in the case of murder.

One way of settling the issue is to see whether states that don't use capital punishment have been able to find other punishments that enable the state to punish murderers in such a ways as to preserve an orderly and contented society. If such states exist then capital punishment is unnecessary and should be abolished as overly harmful.

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Free will

The idea that we must be punished for any act of wrongdoing, whatever its nature, relies upon a belief in human free will and a person's ability to be responsible for their own actions.

If one does not believe in free will, the question of whether it is moral to carry out any kind of punishment (and conversely reward) arises.

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Arthur Koestler and Clarence Darrow argued that human beings never act freely and thus should not be punished for even the most horrific crimes.

The latter went on to argue for the abolition of punishment altogether, an idea which most people would find problematic.

apital punishmentLast updated 2009-08-03

For much of history, the Christian Churches accepted that capital punishment was necessary. In recent times many Christians have argued against the death penalty on the grounds that Christianity should support life.

On this page

Introduction In favour of the death penalty Against the death penalty Catholic Church Find out more

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Introduction

Christians argue both for and against the death penalty using secular arguments (see Ethics: Capital punishment), but like other religious people they often make an additional case based on the tenets of their faith.

For much of history, the Christian Churches accepted that capital punishment was a necessary part of the mechanisms of society.

Pope Innocent III, for example, put forward the proposition: "The secular power can, without mortal sin, exercise judgment of blood, provided that it punishes with justice, not out of hatred, with prudence, not precipitation."

The Roman Catechism, issued in 1566, stated that the power of life and death had been entrusted by God to the civil authorities. The use of this power did not embody the act of murder, but rather a supreme obedience to God's commandments.

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In the high Middle Ages and later, the Holy See authorized that heretics be turned over to the secular authorities for execution.

The law of Vatican City from 1929 to 1969 included the death penalty for anyone who tried to assassinate the Pope.

Research done in the 1990s in the USA found that Protestants (who interpret the Bible to be the literal word of God) were more likely to be in favour of the death penalty than members of other religious factions and denominations.

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In favour of the death penalty

It's in the Bible

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed

Genesis 9:6

Old Testament

The death penalty is consistent with Old Testament Biblical teaching, and suggests that God created the death penalty.

In total, the Old Testament specifies 36 capital offences including crimes such as idolatry, magic and blasphemy, as well as murder.

But many Christians don't think that is a convincing argument - they say that there are 35 capital offences, in addition to murder, described in the Old Testament. As these are no longer capital offences, Christians say it is inconsistent to preserve murder alone as a capital crime.

New Testament

The New Testament embodies what must be the most famous execution in history, that of Jesus on the cross. But paradoxically, although the tone of the whole of the New Testament is one of forgiveness, it seems to take the right of the state to execute offenders for granted.

In Matthew 7:2 we read "Whatever measure you deal out to others will be dealt back to you", though this is unspecific as to whether it is God who is doing the dealing, or the state.

In Matthew 15:4 Jesus says "He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die". Despite the fact that Jesus himself refrains from using violence, he at no point denies the

state's authority to exact capital punishment.

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At the moment that Pilate has to decide whether or not to crucify Jesus, Jesus tells him that the power to make this decision has been given to him by God. (John 19:11).

Paul has an apparent reference to the death penalty, when he writes that the magistrate who holds authority "does not bear the sword in vain; for he is the servant of God to execute His wrath on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:4).

Capital punishment affirms the commandment that 'thou shalt not kill' by affirming the seriousness of the crime of murder.

This argument is based on interpreting the commandment as meaning "thou shalt not murder", but some Christians argue that the 'Thou shalt not kill' commandment is an absolute prohibition on killing.

God authorises the death penalty

Christians who support the death penalty often do so on the ground that the state acts not on its own authority but as the agent of God, who does have legal power over life and death.

This argument is well expressed by St Augustine, who wrote:

The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions, as when God authorises killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time.

Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill' to wage war at God's bidding, or for the representatives of the State's authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.

Augustine, The City of God

Capital punishment is like suicide

This argument is that the criminal, by choosing to commit a particular crime has also chosen to surrender his life to the state if caught.

Even when there is question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual's right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already dispossessed himself of his right to life.

Pope Pius XII

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Against the death penalty

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Only God should create and destroy life

This argument is used to oppose abortion and euthanasia as well.

Many Christians believe that God commanded "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 21:13), and that this is a clear instruction with no exceptions.

St. Augustine didn't agree, and wrote in The City of God:

The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time.

Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" to wage war at God's bidding, or for the representatives of the State's authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.

St Augustine, The City of God

But a modern Franciscan writer says there should be no exceptions to "thou shalt not kill".

In light of the word of God, and thus of faith, life--all human life--is sacred and untouchable. No matter how heinous the crimes ... [the criminal] does not lose his fundamental right to life, for it is primordial, inviolable, and inalienable, and thus comes under the power of no one whatsoever.

Father Gino Concetti, L'Osservatore Romano, 1977

The Bible teaching is inconsistent

The Bible speaks in favour of the death penalty for murder. But it also prescribes it for 35 other crimes that we no longer regard as deserving the death penalty. In order to be consistent, humanity should remove the death penalty for murder.

Secondly, modern society has alternative punishments available which were not used in Biblical times, and these make the death penalty unnecessary.

Christianity is based on forgiveness and compassion

Capital punishment is incompatible with a teaching that emphasises forgiveness and compassion.

Capital punishment is biased against the poor

Some Christians argue that in many countries the imposition of the death penalty is biased against the poor. Since Christian teaching is to support the poor, Christians should not support the death penalty.

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Abolition is in line with support for life

Capital punishment is inconsistent with the general Christian stand that life should always be supported. This stand is most often taught in issues such as abortion and euthanasia, but consistency requires Christians to apply it across the board.

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Catholic Church

The Catholic Church and capital punishment

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century the consensus amongst Catholic theologians remained in favour of capital punishment in those cases deemed suitably extreme. Until 1969, the Vatican had a penal code that included the death penalty for anyone who attempted to assassinate the Pope.

However, by the end of this century opinions were changing. In 1980, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops published an almost entirely negative statement on capital punishment, approved by a majority vote of those present, though not by the required two-thirds majority of the entire conference.

In 1997 the Vatican announced changes to the Catechism, thus making it more in line with John Paul II's 1995 encyclical The Gospel of Life. The amendments include the following statement concerning capital punishment:

Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offence incapable of doing harm--without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself--the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are rare, if not practically non-existent.

Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life

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The Caribbean

Hanging them high

Don’t bother to reform, just execute Dec 30th 2008 | Port of spain |From the print edition

ON DECEMBER 19th, as the small island state of St Kitts and Nevis prepared to celebrate Christmas and the annual Carnival, bells rang out from the prison in the heart of the capital, Basseterre. Charles Laplace was hanged that morning for stabbing his wife nearly five years earlier. His appeal was dismissed in October because it was filed after the legal deadline.

It was the first execution in the English-speaking Caribbean for eight years. The day before, the United Nations General Assembly had voted—by 106 nations to 46—for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Against the trend of world opinion, all 12 countries of the English-speaking Caribbean retain the death penalty on their statute books. They make up a substantial chunk of the execution lobby.

Hangings are rare. That is because most of the 12 retain the Privy Council in London as their court of final appeal. (Barbados and Guyana have switched to the new Caribbean Court of Justice, based in Port of Spain.) It has ruled that the gap between sentence and execution cannot be longer than five years—and successive appeals usually take longer.

In this section

Socialism with cheap oil Hanging them high

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The Caribbean: Sun, sea and murder Jan 31st 2008 The Caribbean: Hung up on getting strung up Oct 3rd 2002

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Social issues Jamaica Caribbean Criminal sentencing Crime and law

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But the political pressure for the death penalty is strong. That is partly because murders are common. With just under 50,000 people, St Kitts-Nevis suffered 23 murders in 2008. This is one of the highest rates, per head, in the world. With an election due in 2009, last August the prime minister, Denzil Douglas, took direct responsibility for national security. He notes that children as young as six ape the ways of well-armed youth gangs. But if he hoped the hanging would have an immediate deterrent effect, he was disappointed. The next day three gun attacks left victims badly wounded, and a youth was shot while attacking a policeman with a hammer.

To casual visitors, the islands still seem deceptively peaceful. An American travel advisory for St Kitts-Nevis gives warning only of petty crime. But on neighbouring Antigua, which suffers a similar crime wave, two newlywed British tourists were killed in July.

In Jamaica, gang violence has been endemic for several decades. Jamaica has seen no executions since 1988. But the country's parliament recently voted to keep the death penalty. There is talk of legislation to overturn the Privy Council's rulings, and of using methods of execution other than hanging.

None of this is likely to have a deterrent effect. Cynics note that the police have shot almost 500 Jamaicans in the past two years. But a murderer's chances of suffering arrest, trial and the death sentence are minimal. Some of the politicians with most experience of fighting crime, such as Jamaica's security minister and one of his predecessors, voted against the death penalty; they stress police and judicial reform. But that takes longer and wins fewer headlines.

From the print edition: The Americas

The Economist

Major Death Penalty Cases in the US Supreme Court1972 - 2008

The US Supreme Court verdicts below represent the current legal guidelines that permit and limit the death penalty in the United States. We start from Furman v. Georgia in 1972 because it marked the first time in US history where the US Supreme Court found capital punishment to violate the US Constitution. All eight cases remain non-reversed as of Oct. 6, 2008  

1. Kennedy v. Louisiana , June 25, 2008 2. Baze v. Rees , Apr. 16, 2008 3. Roper v. Simmons , Mar. 1, 2005 4. Ring v. Arizona , June 24, 2002

5. Atkins v. Virginia , June 20, 2002 6. Coker v. Georgia , June 29, 1977 7. Gregg v. Georgia , July 2, 1976 8. Furman v. Georgia, June 29, 1972

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

1. Kennedy v. Louisiana (PDF 82KB)US Supreme Court, 554 U.S.___June 25, 2008

Petitioner Patrick Kennedy was convicted and sentenced to death in Louisiana for the aggravated rape of his then 8 year-old stepdaughter. A Louisiana state

"Patrick Kennedy, the petitioner here, seeks to set aside his death sentence under the Eighth Amendment. He was charged by the respondent, the State of Louisiana, with the aggravated rape

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statute authorized capital punishment for the rape of a child under 12. The State Supreme Court affirmed the statute, rejecting petitioner’s reliance on Coker v. Georgia, which prevented the use of capital punishment for the rape of an adult woman. The Supreme Court concluded that the Eighth Amendment bars Louisiana from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim’s death.

of his then-8-year-old stepdaughter. After a jury trial petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death under a state statute authorizing capital punishment for the rape of a child under 12 years of age...

This case presents the question whether the Constitution bars respondent from imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in death of the victim. We hold the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for this offense. The Louisiana statute is unconstitutional."

Kennedy v. Louisiana, p. 1

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

2. Baze v. Rees (PDF 356KB)

U.S. Supreme Court, 553 U.S. ___Apr. 16, 2008

Petitioners Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling, convicted for murder and sentenced to death in Kentucky state court, filed suit asserting that the lethal injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment’s constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishments.” The state trial court upheld it as constitutional. Later, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the lethal injection protocol was substantially safe from "wanton" and "unnecessary infliction of pain," torture, or "lingering death." The Supreme Court affirmed the lethal injection protocol as constitutional.

"Kentucky has adopted a method of execution believed to be the most humane available, one it shares with 35 other States... Throughout our history, whenever a method of execution has been challenged in this Court as cruel and unusual, the Court has rejected the challenge. Our society has nonetheless steadily moved to more humane methods of carrying out capital punishment. The firing squad, hanging, the electric chair, and the gas chamber have each in turn given way to more humane methods, culminating in today’s consensus on lethal injection...

The broad framework of the Eighth Amendment has accommodated this progress toward more humane methods of execution, and our approval of a particular method in the past has not precluded legislatures from taking the steps they deem appropriate, in light of new developments, to ensure humane capital punishment. There is no reason to suppose that today’s decision will be any different. The judgment below concluding that Kentucky’s procedure is consistent with the

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Eighth Amendment is, accordingly, affirmed. It is so ordered."

Baze v. Rees, pp. 23-24

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

3. Roper v. Simmons (PDF 420KB)US Supreme Court, 543 U.S. 551Mar. 1, 2005

Petitioner Donald P. Roper, Superintendent at Potosi Correctional Center, challenged the Missouri Supreme Court agreement to set aside Christopher Simmons' death sentence in favor of life imprisonment without eligibility for release. At age 17, Simmons planned and committed a capital murder. After he had turned 18, he was sentenced to death. Simmons succeded in a new petition for state post-conviction relief, arguing that Atkins v. Virginia's reasoning established that the US Constitution prohibits the execution of a juvenile who was under 18 when he committed his crime. The Supreme Court held in favor of Simmons that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.

"It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty, resting in large part on the understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of young people may often be a factor in the crime... The opinion of the world community, while not controlling our outcome, does provide respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions...

It does not lessen our fidelity to the Constitution or our pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples simply underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom. The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed. The judgment of the Missouri Supreme Court setting aside the sentence of death imposed upon Christopher Simmons is affirmed. It is so ordered."

Roper v. Simmons, p.11

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

4. Ring v. Arizona (PDF

151KB) US Supreme Court, 536 U.S. 584June 24, 2002

Petitioner Timothy Ring was convicted of first-degree murder by an Arizona jury and sentenced to life in prison. A state judge then increased the penalty to death. Mr. Ring's death penalty was held by the Arizona Supreme Court using Walton v. Arizona as legal precedent affirming the state

"For the reasons stated, we hold that Walton v. Arizona, and Apprendi v. New Jersey, are irreconcilable; our Sixth Amendment jurisprudence cannot be home to both. Acordingly, we overrule Walton to the extent that it allows a sentencing judge, sitting without a jury, to find an

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judge's power to increase the penalty to death. The US Supreme Court granted Ring's petition for certiorari and reversed the Arizona Supreme Court's judgment because in the year 2000 in Apprendi v. New Jersey the US Supreme Court had held that any fact that increases the punishment above the statutory maximum punishment must be either submitted to a jury or admitted by the defendant.

aggravating circumstance necessary for imposition of the death penalty. Because Arizona’s enumerated aggravating factors operate as 'the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense,' the Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury...

The right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment would be senselessly diminished if it encompassed thefactfinding necessary to increase a defendant’s sentence by two years, but not the factfinding necessary to put him to death. We hold that the Sixth Amendment applies to both. The judgment of the Arizona Supreme Court is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered."

 

Ring v. Arizona, p. 609

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

5. Atkins v. Virginia (PDF 260KB)US Supreme Court, 536 U.S. 304June 20, 2002

Petitioner Daryl Atkins and his accomplice, William Jones, were convicted for murder. The jury convicted Atkins of capital murder even though the defense presented Atkins's school records and IQ score of 59 alleging that he was 'mildly mentally retarded.' On appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the sentence. The US Supreme Court reviewed and reversed the Virginia Supreme Court's judgment on the grounds that judgments of state legislatures regarding punishment of the mentally retarded had become more lenient since Penry v. Lynaugh in 1989

 

"Our independent evaluation of the issue reveals no reason to disagree with the judgment of 'the legislatures that have recently addressed the matter' and concluded that death is not a suitable punishment for a mentally retarded criminal. We are not persuaded that the execution of mentally retarded criminals will measurably advance the deterrent or the retributive purpose of the death penalty.

Construing and applying the Eighth Amendment in the light of our 'evolving standards of decency,' we therefore conclude that such punishment is excessive and that the Constitution 'places a substantive restriction on the State's power to take the life' of a

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mentally retarded offender. The judgment of the Virginia Supreme Court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered."

Atkins v. Virginia, pp. 5-6

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

6. Coker v. Georgia (PDF 162KB)US Supreme Court, 433 U.S. 584June 29, 1977

Petitioner Erlich Anthony Coker, while serving sentences for murder, rape, kidnapping, and assault, escaped from a Georgia jail. He broke into a house, raped and kidnapped the resident woman and took her car. Later Coker released the victim without any further physical injuries. He was eventually caght. The state of Georgia sentenced Coker to death on the rape charge. The US Supreme Court reversed that judgment on the grounds that death is an excesive penalty for rape.

"Rape is without doubt deserving of serious punishment; but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, it does not compare with murder, which does involve the unjustified taking of human life. Although it may be accompanied by another crime, rape, by definition, does not include the death of or even the serious injury to another person. The murderer kills; the rapist, if no more than that, does not. Life is over for the victim of the murderer; for the rape victim, life may not be nearly so happy as it was, but it is not over, and normally is not beyond repair. We have the abiding conviction that the death penalty, which 'is unique in its severity and irrevocability,' is an excessive penalty for the rapist who, as such, does not take human life. irrespective of malice. But even where the killing is deliberate, it is not punishable by death absent proof of aggravating circumstances...

It is difficult to accept the notion, and we do not, that the rapist, with or without aggravating circumstances, should be punished more heavily than the deliberate killer as long as the rapist does not himself take the life of his victim. The judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court upholding the death sentence is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. So ordered."

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Coker v. Georgia, pp. 432-433

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

7. Gregg v. Georgia (PDF 347KB)

US Supreme Court, 428 U.S. 153July 2, 1976

Petitioner Troy Leon Gregg was found guilty of armed robbery and murder and then sentenced to death by a Georgia grand jury. On appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence, excluding its imposition for the robbery conviction. Gregg challenged his remaining death sentence for murder at the US Supreme Court, claiming that his capital sentence was a 'cruel and unusual' punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because the jury "wantonly and freakishly" imposed the death sentence. The Court rejected the claim and affirmed the sentence.

"The basic concern of Furman [v. Georgia] centered on those defendants who were being condemned to death capriciously and arbitrarily. Under the procedures before the Court in that case, sentencing authorities were not directed to give attention to the nature or circumstances of the crime committed or to the character or record of the defendant. Left unguided, juries imposed the death sentence in a way that could only be called freakish.

The new Georgia sentencing procedures, by contrast, focus the jury's attention on the particularized nature of the crime and the particularized characteristics of the individual defendant. While the jury is permitted to consider any aggravating or mitigating circumstances, it must find and identify at least one statutory aggravating factor before it may impose a penalty of death. In this way the jury's discretion is channeled. No longer can a jury wantonly and freakishly impose the death sentence; it is always circumscribed by the legislative guidelines.

In addition, the review function of the Supreme Court of Georgia affords additional assurance that the concerns that prompted our decision in Furman are not present to any significant degree in the Georgia procedure applied here. For the reasons expressed in this opinion, we hold that the statutory system under which Gregg was sentenced to death does not violate the Constitution. Accordingly, the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court is affirmed. It is so ordered."

Gregg v. Georgia, p. 16

LEGAL CASE CASE SUMMARY COURT RULING EXCERPTS

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8. Furman v. Georgia (PDF 898KB)

US Supreme Court, 408 U.S. 238June 29, 1972

Petitoner William Henry Furman was dicovered burglarizing a home. When attempting to escape, his weapon went off and killed a resident in the house. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Two other death penalty cases were decided along with Furman: Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas. These cases deal with the constitutionality of the death penalty for rape and murder convictions. The US Supreme Court held that the imposition of the death penalty in these cases constituted cruel and unusual punishment and violated Constitutional rights.

"Petitioner in No. 69-5003 [William Henry Furman] was convicted of murder in Georgia, and was sentenced to death ... Petitioner in No. 69-5030 [Jackson v. Georgia] was convicted of rape in Georgia, and was sentenced to death... Petitioner in No. 69-5031 [Branch v. Texas] was convicted of rape in Texas, and was sentenced to death...

Certiorari was granted limited to the following question: 'Does the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in [these cases] constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?' The Court holds that the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The judgment in each case is therefore reversed insofar as it leaves undisturbed the death sentence imposed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings. So ordered."

Furman v. Georgia, p. 1