Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime, usually following an authorised, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. 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.
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom predates the formation of the UK, having been used within the British Isles from ancient times until the second half of the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964; capital punishment for murder was suspended in 1965 and finally abolished in 1969. Although unused, the death penalty remained a legally defined punishment for certain offences such as treason until it was completely abolished in 1998; the last execution for treason took place in 1946. In 2004, Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom; it prohibits the restoration of the death penalty as long as the UK is a party to the convention.
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Parricide refers to the deliberate killing of one's own father and mother, spouse, children, and/or close relative. However, the term is sometimes used more generally to refer to the intentional killing of a near relative. It is an umbrella term that can be used to refer to acts of matricide and patricide.
Capital punishment – the process of sentencing convicted offenders to death for the most serious crimes and carrying out that sentence, as ordered by a legal system – first appeared in New Zealand in a codified form when New Zealand became a British colony in 1840. It was first carried out with a public hanging in Victoria Street, Auckland in 1842, while the last execution occurred in 1957 at Mount Eden Prison, also in Auckland. In total, 85 people have been lawfully executed in New Zealand.
In legal history, an animal trial was the criminal trial of a non-human animal. Such trials are recorded as having taken place in Europe from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth. The most documented of these trials being from France, but they also occurred in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and other countries. In modern times, it is considered in most criminal justice systems that non-human animals lack moral agency and so cannot be held culpable for an act.
The major world religions have taken varied positions on the morality of capital punishment and, as such, they have historically impacted the way in which governments handle such punishment practices. Although the viewpoints of some religions have changed over time, their influence on capital punishment generally depends on the existence of a religious moral code and how closely religion influences the government. Religious moral codes are often based on a body of teachings, such as the Old Testament or the Qur'an.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Sri Lanka.
A death in custody is a death of a person in the custody of the police, other authorities or in prison. In the 21st century, death in custody remains a controversial subject, with the authorities often being accused of abuse, neglect and cover-ups of the causes of these deaths.
Capital punishment in Iceland was practiced until 1830, with 240 individuals executed between 1551 and 1830. The methods of execution included beheading, hanging, burning, and drowning. Danish laws were influential, particularly after Lutheranism's adoption in the 17th century. The last execution occurred in 1830, and the death penalty was abolished in 1928. Infanticide was a common crime, often committed by women, and many were sentenced to death, but their sentences were commuted. The last execution of an Icelander happened in Denmark in 1913. The death penalty was officially abolished in Iceland in 1928, and its reintroduction has been rendered unconstitutional since a 1995 constitutional revision.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Pakistan. Although there have been numerous amendments to the Constitution, there is yet to be a provision prohibiting the death penalty as a punitive remedy.
Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times.
Capital punishment in Mexico was officially outlawed on 15 March 2005, having not been used in civil cases since 1957, and in military cases since 1961. Mexico is the world's most populous country to have completely abolished the death penalty.
Capital punishment in Slovakia was abolished in 1990 and the most severe punishment permissible by law is life imprisonment. Before that, capital punishment was common in Czechoslovakia, the Slovak State, Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Hungary and probably all previous political entities that existed in the area of today's Slovakia. Since 1989, no one has been executed in Slovakia save for a few controversial political killings by the Slovak Secret Service in the 1990s. Since then, there have been no reports of the government or its agents committing arbitrary or unlawful killings.
Capital punishment is no longer a legal punishment in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
Capital punishment in Cambodia is prohibited by the Constitution of the country. Cambodia abolished the death penalty in 1989.
Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. 92 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court, in an 8–1 ruling, applied the rule of Ring v. Arizona to the Florida capital sentencing scheme, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. In Florida, under a 2013 statute, the jury made recommendations but the judge decided the facts.
The relationship between race and capital punishment in the United States has been studied extensively. As of 2014, 42 percent of those on death row in the United States were Black. As of October 2002, there were 12 executions of White defendants where the murder victim was Black, however, there were 178 executed defendants who were Black with a White murder victim. Since then, the number of white defendants executed where the murder victim was black has increased to just 21, whereas the number of Black defendants executed where the murder victim was White has increased to 299. 54 percent of people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in the United States are black.
Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It is a legal punishment in several countries and regions, all of which have sharia–based criminal laws, except for Uganda.
Robert Charles Gleason Jr. was an American serial killer who was sentenced to death and executed in Virginia for two separate murders of two of his cellmates. Gleason, who was already serving a life sentence for another murder, was an execution volunteer who vowed to continue killing in prison if he was not put to death. Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, officially making Gleason the last person to be executed in Virginia by electrocution.
