Capital punishment is forbidden in Switzerland under article 10, paragraph 1 of the Swiss Federal Constitution. Capital punishment was abolished from federal criminal law in 1942, but remained available in military criminal law until 1992. The last actual executions in Switzerland took place during World War II.
In the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, the most common method of execution, at least for males, was decapitation with a sword. The archivist Gerold Meyer von Knonau has provided statistics for the canton of Zurich from the 15th century up to and including the 18th century. 1,445 persons were condemned to death (1,198 men, 247 women). 915 of these were sentenced to be beheaded, 270 hanged, 130 burnt alive, 99 drowned, 26 broken on the wheel, 1 quartered alive, 2 buried alive, 1 immured, and the last one was impaled. The last three execution methods were in use in the 15th century, drowning was discontinued in 1613. [1]
In 1835, the guillotine was added, although many cantons allowed the condemned person to choose between these two methods. One of the last people to be executed with a sword was Niklaus Emmenegger in Lucerne on 6 July 1867. Geneviève Guénat, the last woman to be executed, was beheaded by this method in Delsberg, Bern on 7 September 1862, Héli Freymond in Vaud on 11 January 1868. [2] In 1848 the death penalty for political crimes was forbidden by the constitution. In 1874, with the introduction of the new federal constitution in 1874, it was generally abolished throughout the country. However, because of an increase in crime – much due to the economic depression at the time – capital punishment was re-introduced in 1879. The revocation of the ban, however, was not obligatory and only a number of cantons chose to reinstate the penalty on the cantonal level.
On 21 December 1937 the Federal Assembly of Switzerland adopted the first national criminal code. It abolished capital punishment, which had been provided for by several cantonal criminal codes. The new code was ratified by referendum on 3 July 1938 and entered into force on 1 January 1942. The last person to be sentenced to death by a civil court and executed was Hans Vollenweider, convicted of three murders and then executed on 18 October 1940 in Sarnen, Obwalden. Because of the impending abolition, Vollenweider's verdict – performed with a guillotine borrowed from Lucerne – was controversial.
Swiss military law, however, still provided for capital punishment for treason and certain other military offenses such as desertion in the face of the enemy. During World War II, 33 people were sentenced to death for spying for Nazi Germany, 15 of them in absentia. Seventeen of those condemned were executed before the end of the war. With the exception of one man from Liechtenstein (Alfred Quaderer), all of those executed were Swiss. [3] This law was abolished by the Federal Assembly on 20 March 1992 after a parliamentary initiative by Massimo Pini of the Free Democratic Party of Switzerland. The 1999 Swiss Federal Constitution then banned capital punishment at the constitutional level.
In 1979, National Council member Valentin Oehen from Swiss Democrats, DS) submitted a parliamentary initiative that would have introduced the death penalty for murder and terrorism involving hostage-taking . The National Council rejected this by 131 votes to 3. [4]
Two initiatives have so far been launched to amend the Constitution to provide for the reintroduction of capital punishment. The first, in 1985, would have made drug dealing punishable by death. It did not manage to collect the required 100,000 signatures for a binding national referendum. [5]
In August 2010, family members of a murder victim launched another constitutional amendment initiative to provide for capital punishment in cases of murder combined with sexual violence. [5] The initiative quickly found itself at the center of public attention and was roundly rejected by political leaders; it was withdrawn a day after its official publication. [6]
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods, including hanging, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, electrocution, and gassing.
A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with a pillory at the bottom of the frame, holding the position of the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly and forcefully decapitating the victim with a single, clean pass; the head falls into a basket or other receptacle below.
Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 7, as well as the federal government and military, subject to moratoriums.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Belarus. At least one execution was carried out in the country in 2022.
Capital punishment in France is banned by Article 66-1 of the Constitution of the French Republic, voted as a constitutional amendment by the Congress of the French Parliament on 19 February 2007 and simply stating "No one can be sentenced to the death penalty". The death penalty was already declared illegal on 9 October 1981 when President François Mitterrand signed a law prohibiting the judicial system from using it and commuting the sentences of the seven people on death row to life imprisonment. The last execution took place by guillotine, being the main legal method since the French Revolution; Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian citizen convicted of torture and murder on French soil, was put to death in September 1977 in Marseille.
Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, when Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law. The law took effect on July 1, 2021. Virginia is the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, and the first southern state in United States history to do so.
Capital punishment in Sweden was last used in 1910, though it remained a legal sentence for at least some crimes until 1973. It is now outlawed by the Swedish Constitution, which states that capital punishment, corporal punishment, and torture are strictly prohibited. At the time of the abolition of the death penalty in Sweden, the legal method of execution was beheading. It was one of the last states in Europe to abolish the death penalty.
Capital punishment in Germany has been abolished for all crimes, and is now explicitly prohibited by the constitution. It was abolished in West Germany in 1949, in the Saarland in 1956, and East Germany in 1987. The last person executed in Germany was the East German Werner Teske, who was executed at Leipzig Prison in 1981.
Capital punishment in Australia has been abolished in all jurisdictions since 1985. Queensland abolished the death penalty in 1922. Tasmania did the same in 1968. The Commonwealth abolished the death penalty in 1973, with application also in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Victoria did so in 1975, South Australia in 1976, and Western Australia in 1984. New South Wales abolished the death penalty for murder in 1955, and for all crimes in 1985. In 2010, the Commonwealth Parliament passed legislation prohibiting the re-establishment of capital punishment by any state or territory. Australian law prohibits the extradition or deportation of a prisoner to another jurisdiction if they could be sentenced to death for any crime.
Capital punishment in Armenia was a method of punishment that was implemented within Armenia's Criminal Code and Constitution until its eventual relinquishment in the 2003 modifications made to the Constitution. Capital punishment's origin in Armenia is unknown, yet it remained present in the Armenia Criminal Code of 1961, which was enforced and applied until 1999. Capital punishment was incorporated into Armenian legislation and effectuated for capital crimes, which were crimes that were classified to be punishable by death, including treason, espionage, first-degree murder, acts of terrorism and grave military crimes.
Capital punishment in Belgium was formally abolished on August 1, 1996, for all crimes, in both peacetime and wartime. The last execution for crimes committed in peacetime took place in July 1863, when in Ypres a farmer was executed for murder. The last execution for an ordinary crime took place on 26 March 1918 at Veurne Prison when Emile Ferfaille, a military officer found guilty of killing his pregnant girlfriend, was guillotined. This was the first execution to be carried out since 1863. The guillotine that was used had to be imported from France.
Capital punishment in modern Greece was carried out using the guillotine or by firing squad. It was last applied in 1972 during the military junta. The death penalty was abolished in stages between 1975 and 2005.
Hans Vollenweider was a Swiss criminal. He was the last person to be sentenced to death and executed by a civilian court in Switzerland.
Capital punishment is no longer a legal punishment in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
Capital punishment in Montenegro was first prescribed by law in 1798. It was abolished on 19 June 2002. The last execution, by shooting, took place on 29 January 1981, and the two last death sentences were pronounced on 11 October 2001. Montenegro is bound by the following international conventions prohibiting capital punishment : Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as Protocols No. 6 and No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 26 of the Montenegrin Constitution (2007) that outlawed the death penalty states: "In Montenegro, capital punishment punishment is forbidden”.
Capital punishment in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, is abolished. However, a number of people were executed in the territory before abolition. A person who commits a federal crime in Puerto Rico can receive the death penalty.
Drowning as a method of execution is attested very early in history, for a large variety of cultures and as the method of execution for many types of offences.
Paul Irniger was a Swiss serial killer. He was the last person to be sentenced to death and executed in Switzerland after a criminal trial in the canton of Zug and the penultimate non-military execution in Switzerland, preceding Hans Vollenweider. He is also the last person sentenced to death in several cantons, before a new Penal Code, without capital punishment for civilian crimes, was adopted in 1942.
Capital punishment remains a legal penalty for multiple crimes in the Gambia. However, the country has taken recent steps towards abolishing the death penalty.
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