A public execution is a form of capital punishment which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend." [1] This definition excludes the presence of only a small number of witnesses called upon to assure executive accountability. [2] The purpose of such displays has historically been to deter individuals from defying laws or authorities. Attendance at such events was historically encouraged and sometimes even mandatory.
While today most countries regard public executions with distaste, they have been practiced at some point in history nearly everywhere. [3] At many points in the past, public executions were preferred to executions behind closed doors because of their capacity for deterrence. [4] However, the actual efficacy of this form of terror is disputed. [5] They also allowed the convicted the opportunity to make a final speech, gave the state the chance to display its power in front of those who fell under its jurisdiction, and granted the public what was considered to be a great spectacle. [6] Public executions also permitted the state to project its superiority over political opponents. [6] [4]
People were crucified in ancient Macedonia, Persia, Jerusalem, Phoenicia, Rome, and Carthage. [7]
Public executions were common in China from at least the Tang Dynasty. [8]
There are reports of public executions in early Islam. [9]
Documented public executions date back to at least the late medieval period, and peaked in the later sixteenth century. [3] This peak was due in part to the witch trials of the early modern period. In the late Middle Ages, executioners used increasingly brutal methods designed to inflict pain on the victim while still alive and to generate a spectacle in order to deter others from committing crimes. The cruelty of the mode of execution (including the amount victims were tortured before the actual execution) was also more or less extreme depending on the crime itself. [10] Punishments often invoked the "purifying" powers of earth (burial), water (drowning), and fire (burning alive). Victims were also decapitated, quartered, hanged, and beaten. [11] Bodies or body parts were often displayed in public places and authorities took pains to ensure that remains would stay visible for as long as possible. [12] [3]
However, the death penalty was not used in all parts of Europe. Vladimir the Great abolished the death penalty in Kievan Rus' following his conversion to Christianity in 988.
During the seventeenth century, the use of premortem torture decreased; instead bodies were desecrated after death and for display purposes. [3] By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of capital punishments in Western Europe had fallen by about 85% from the previous century as the legal system shifted toward one that considered human rights as well as a more rational approach to criminal justice that centered around identifying the best methods for deterrence. [3] [13] However, there were several resurgences throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially during times of social unrest. [3] Executions were condemned by eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. [14] Enlightenment thinkers were not universally opposed to public executions—many anatomists found executions useful because they supplied healthy body parts to study and experiment on. [15] People also found postmortem torture (which was typically part of a public execution) disrespectful to the dead and believed that it could prevent the victim from getting into heaven. [16] [3]
The first modern abolition of capital punishment was in Tuscany in 1786.
In Europe, the 19th and early 20th centuries saw a shift away from the spectacle of public capital punishment and toward private executions and the deprivation of liberty (e.g. incarceration, probation, community service, etc.). [17] This coincided with a general tendency to shield all death from public view. [18]
In Great Britain, 1801 saw the last public execution at Tyburn Hill, after which all executions in York took place within the walls of York Castle (but still publicly) so that "the entrance to the town should not be annoyed by dragging criminals through the streets." [19] In London, those sentenced to death at the Old Bailey would remain at Newgate Prison and wait for their sentences to be carried out in the street. As at Tyburn, the crowds who would come to watch continued to be large and unruly. The last public execution in Great Britain occurred in 1868, [17] after which capital punishment was carried out in the privacy of prisons.
In France, authorities continued public executions up until 1939. [17] Executions were made private after a secret film of serial killer Eugen Weidmann's death by guillotine emerged and scandalized the process. Disturbing reports emerged of spectators soaking up Weidmann's blood in rags for souvenirs, and in response President Albert Lebrun banned public executions in France for "promoting baser instincts of human nature." [20]
Nazi Germany utilized public execution by hanging, shooting, and decapitation. [21]
The last public execution in the United States occurred in 1936. [17] As in Europe, the practice of execution was moved to the privacy of chambers. Viewing remains available for those related to the person being executed, victims' families, and sometimes reporters.
Frances Larson wrote in her 2014 book Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found:
"For as long as there were public executions, there were crowds to see them. In London in the early 19th century, there might have been 5,000 to watch a standard hanging, but crowds of up to 100,000 came to see a famous felon killed. The numbers hardly changed over the years. An estimated 20,000 watched Rainey Bethea hang in 1936, in what turned out to be the last public execution in the U.S." [22]
Most countries have abolished the death penalty entirely, either in law or in practice. [23]
According to Amnesty International, in 2012 "public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia." [24] Amnesty International does not include Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen in their list of public execution countries, but there have been reports of public executions carried out there by state and non-state actors, such as ISIL. [25] [26] [27] Kuwait has sometimes executed people in public. The prisoners are taken to the gallows and once a senior police officer gives the signed warrant, the prisoners are hanged. [28]
In the US, members of the public can visit the jail where an execution is about to take place. [29]
Amnesty International's Interim Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Rawya Rageh, criticized Kuwait's execution of five individuals, including one for a drug-related offense, as a return to executions with "vigour," urging the establishment of a moratorium on executions towards abolishing the death penalty. The executions were announced on 27 July 2023, after a pause of five years starting from 2017. [30]
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.
Tyburn was a manor (estate) in the county of Middlesex, England, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. Tyburn took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne. The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne, means 'boundary stream'.
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. By the 2020s, many countries had abolished or discontinued the practice. In 2022, the 5 countries that executed the most people were, in descending order, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States.
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 is 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.
Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria, Marquis of Gualdrasco and Villareggio was an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, economist and politician, who is widely considered one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. He is well remembered for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology and the Classical School of criminology. Beccaria is considered the father of modern criminal law and the father of criminal justice.
Penology is a subfield of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice of various societies in their attempts to repress criminal activities, and satisfy public opinion via an appropriate treatment regime for persons convicted of criminal offences.
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.
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 states currently have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums.
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 "Bloody Code" was a series of laws in England, Wales and Ireland in the 18th and early 19th centuries which mandated the death penalty for a wide range of crimes. It was not referred to by this name in its own time; the name was given later owing to the sharply increased number of people given the death penalty, even for crimes considered minor by 21st century standards.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Japan. In practice, it is applied only for aggravated murder, but the current Penal Code and several laws list 14 capital crimes, including conspiracy to commit civil war; conspiracy with a foreign power to provoke war against Japan; murder; obstruction of the operation of railroads, ships, or airplanes resulting in the death of the victim; poisoning of the water supply resulting in the death of the victim; intentional flooding; use of a bomb; and arson of a dwelling; all resulting in the death of the victim. Executions are carried out by long drop hanging, and take place at one of the seven execution chambers located in major cities across the country.
Capital punishment is a legal punishment in Iran.
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 Romania was abolished in 1990, and has been prohibited by the Constitution of Romania since 1991.
Capital punishment was abolished in Turkey in 2004, and no prisoners have been executed since October 1984. Before that, over 500 convicts sentenced to death were executed. The method of execution was hanging.
To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn behind a horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
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. As of 2023, only New Hampshire has a law specifying hanging as an available secondary method of execution, and even then only for the one remaining capital punishment sentence in the state.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Nigeria.
Capital punishment in Islam is traditionally regulated by the Islamic law (sharīʿa), which derived from the Quran, ḥadīth literature, and sunnah. Crimes according to the sharīʿa law which could result in capital punishment include apostasy from Islam, murder, rape, adultery, homosexuality, etc. Death penalty is in use in many Muslim-majority countries, where it is utilised as sharīʿa-prescribed punishment for crimes such as apostasy from Islam, adultery, witchcraft, murder, rape, and publishing pornography.
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.
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