Related Research Articles
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey. Hanging is also a method of suicide.
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom predates the formation of the UK, having been used in Britain and Ireland 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 person to be executed for treason was William Joyce, 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.
Capital punishment was abolished in 2019 in New Hampshire for persons convicted of capital murder. It remains a legal penalty for crimes committed prior to May 30, 2019.
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.
The use of capital punishment by the United States military is a legal punishment in martial criminal justice. Despite its legality, capital punishment has not been carried out by the U.S. military in over sixty years.
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.
Rhode Island was one of the earliest states in the United States to abolish capital punishment, having abolished it for all crimes in 1852. The death penalty was reintroduced in 1872, but it was never carried out before being abolished again in 1984. Of all the states, Rhode Island has had the longest period with no executions, none having taken place since 1845.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Dakota.
Ann Bilansky was an American housewife convicted in 1859 of poisoning her husband with arsenic. She is the only woman in Minnesota to receive the death penalty and the first white person in the state to be executed by hanging.
John David Bessler is an American attorney and academic. He is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He is the husband of U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.
William Williams was a Cornish miner and the last person executed by the state of Minnesota in the United States. Williams was convicted for the 1905 murders of 16-year old John Keller and his mother, Mary Keller in Saint Paul, and his subsequent botched execution led to increased support for the abolition of capital punishment in Minnesota in 1911.
Capital punishment was outlawed in the State of New York after the New York Court of Appeals declared that the statute as written was not valid under the state's constitution in 2004. However certain crimes occurring in the state that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government are subject to the federal death penalty.
Hanging has been practiced legally in the United States of America from before the nation's birth, up to 1972 when the United States Supreme Court found capital punishment to be in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Four years later, the Supreme Court overturned its previous ruling, and in 1976, capital punishment was again legalized in the United States. Currently, only New Hampshire has a law specifying hanging as an available secondary method of execution, now only applicable to one person, who was sentenced to capital punishment by the state prior to its repeal in 2019.
Capital punishment was abolished in the U.S. state of North Dakota in 1973. Historically, a total of eight people have been executed in North Dakota, including one execution prior to North Dakota attaining statehood.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Arizona. 95 executions have been carried out since Arizona became a state in 1914 and there are currently 111 people on death row. In November 2024, Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that the state would resume executions in 2025 after a 2-year pause.
Capital punishment in Minnesota was abolished in 1911. Between 1854 and Minnesota's final execution in 1906, at least 70 people were executed in the Minnesota Territory and the State of Minnesota, all by hanging.
References
- ↑ "Governor Walz makes historic apology for 1862 mass hanging in Mankato". ICT News. Indian Country Today. January 7, 2020. Archived from the original on 2025-01-08. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
- ↑ Bessler, John (March 2004). "The Botched Hanging of William Williams: How Too Much Rope and Minnesota's Newspapers Brought an End to the Death Penalty in Minnesota". University of Baltimore School of Law Journal– via ScholarWorks.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Bessler, John D. (1996). "The "Midnight Assassination Law" and Minnesota's Anti-Death Penalty Movement, 1849–1911". William Mitchell Law Review. 22 (2): 577–730.
- ↑ "Minnesota: History of the Death Penalty". Death Penalty Information Center . Archived from the original on 2025-01-08. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
- ↑ Cartwright, R. L. (2023-01-30). "Execution of William Williams". MNopedia. Archived from the original on 2025-01-08. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
- ↑ "Minnesota Executions". Before the Needles. Archived from the original on 2009-08-01. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
- ↑ "Minnesota: History of the Death Penalty". Death Penalty Information Center . Archived from the original on 2025-01-08. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
- ↑ "The Trials & Hanging". The US-Dakota War of 1862. Archived from the original on 2025-01-09. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ↑ "Stern Justice Dealt Out to Murderer George Kelly. Hanged at Center City Shortly After Midnight". The Saint Paul Globe. 1897-03-23. p. 1. Archived from the original on 2025-01-08. Retrieved 2025-01-08– via Newspapers.com.