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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.
Capital punishment, also called the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as a punishment for a crime. It has historically been used in almost every part of the world. Since the mid-19th century many countries have abolished or discontinued the practice. In 2022, the five countries that executed the most people were, in descending order, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States.
Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading, is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are usually readily available and a gunshot to a vital organ, such as the brain or heart, most often will kill relatively quickly.
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a common 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.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty in 27 states, throughout the country at the federal level, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in the other 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 China. It is applicable to offenses ranging from murder to drug trafficking. Executions are carried out by lethal injection or by shooting. A survey conducted by TheNew York Times in 2014 found the death penalty retained widespread support in Chinese society.
The Riverbend Maximum Security Institution (RMSI) is a prison in Nashville, Tennessee, operated by the Tennessee Department of Correction. The prison opened in 1989 and replaced its 100-year-old neighbor, the Tennessee State Penitentiary. RMSI, which is made up by 20 different buildings, sits on 132 acres (0.53 km2) located off Cockrill Bend Boulevard in Nashville. Riverbend's designated capacity is 714 offenders. Of that number, 480 are classified as high risk.
Old Smokey is a euphemistic name given to the state prison electric chair in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. The term has sometimes been used to refer to electric chairs in general, and not the one used in any specific state.
Capital punishment in Iraq is a legal penalty. It was commonly used by the government of Saddam Hussein, was temporarily halted after the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq that deposed Hussein, and has since been reinstated. Executions are carried out by hanging.
Daryl Keith Holton was a convicted child murderer who was executed by electrocution by the state of Tennessee on September 12, 2007, in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment unparoled. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.
Capital punishment in Norway has been constitutionally prohibited since 2014. Before that, it had been fully abolished in 1979, and earlier, from 1905, the penal code had abolished capital punishment in peacetime.
In 2010, 356 people were murdered in the U.S. state of Tennessee. In 2009 and 2010, Tennessee had the highest rate of violent gun crime of any US state, although less than that of Washington D.C. Tennessee ranked highest in the nation for the rate of aggravated assaults with a firearm, and ranked fifth-worst in robberies.
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.
Edmund George Zagorski was an American convicted murderer from Michigan who was executed by the state of Tennessee for the 1983 murders of John Dotson and Jimmy Porter in Robertson County. Zagorski lured the two men into a wooded hunting ground under the pretense of selling them 100 lb (45 kg) of marijuana before shooting them and slitting their throats.
Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in Chad on April 28, 2020, following a unanimous vote by the National Assembly of Chad. Prior to April 2020, Chad's 003/PR/2020 "anti-terrorism" law maintained capital punishment for terrorism-related offenses. Chad's new penal code, which was adopted in 2014 and promulgated in 2017, had abolished capital punishment for all other crimes.
References
- ↑ "Tennessee Executions". www.tn.gov. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
- TN Executions. Tennessee Department of Correction. Retrieved on 2023-10-25.
- 'I did not kill them' condemned man says. The Tennessean, February 3, 2009. Retrieved on 2009-02-04.
- 'I commend my life into your hands' Tenn. inmate sings hymns as execution is carried out. Fox 17 Nashville. Retrieved on 2019-05-17.