CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to
death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be
punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual enforcement is an
execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or
capital offenses. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally "regarding
the head" (referring to execution by beheading).
[1]

Capital punishment has, in the past, been practiced by most societies, as a punishment
for criminals, and political or religious dissidents. Historically, the carrying out of the
death sentence was often accompanied by torture, and executions were most often
public.
[2]

Currently 58 nations actively practice capital punishment, 98 countries have abolished it
de jure for all crimes, 7 have abolished it for ordinary crimes only (maintain it for
special circumstances such as war crimes), and 35 have abolished it de facto (have not
used it for at least ten years and/or are under moratorium).
[3]
Amnesty International
considers most countries abolitionist; overall, the organisation considers 140 countries
to be abolitionist in law or practice.
[3]
About 90% of all executions in the world take
place in Asia.
[4]

Nearly all countries in the world prohibit the execution of individuals who were under
the age of 18 at the time of their crimes; since 2009, only Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan
have carried out such executions.
[5]
Executions of this kind are prohibited under
international law.
[5]

Capital punishment is a matter of active controversy in various countries and states, and
positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region. In the European
Union member states, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
Union prohibits the use of capital punishment.
[6]
The Council of Europe, which has 47
member states, also prohibits the use of the death penalty by its members.
The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008 and 2010, non-
binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to
eventual abolition.
[7]
Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, over
60% of the world's population live in countries where executions take place, such as the
People's Republic of China, India, the United States of America and Indonesia, the four
most-populous countries in the world, which continue to apply the death penalty
(although in India, Indonesia and in many US states it is rarely employed). Each of
these four nations voted against the General Assembly resolutions
HISTORY
Execution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies
both to punish crime and to suppress political dissent. In most countries that practice
capital punishment it is reserved for murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military
justice. In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, adultery, incest and sodomy,
carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy in Islamic nations (the
formal renunciation of the state religion). In many countries that use the death penalty,
drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China, human trafficking and serious cases
of corruption are punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-
martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion,
insubordination, and mutiny.
[17]

The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history. Most
historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty
was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally
included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, shunning, banishment
and execution. Usually, compensation and shunning were enough as a form of
justice.
[18]
The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities
included formal apology, compensation or blood feuds.
A blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes fails or an
arbitration system is non-existent. This form of justice was common before the
emergence of an arbitration system based on state or organized religion. It may result
from crime, land disputes or a code of honour. "Acts of retaliation underscore the ability
of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies (as well as potential
allies) that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished."
[19]
However,
in practice, it is often difficult to distinguish between a war of vendetta and one of
conquest.
Severe historical penalties include breaking wheel, boiling to death, flaying, slow
slicing, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing (including crushing by
elephant), stoning, execution by burning, dismemberment, sawing, decapitation,
scaphism, necklacing or blowing from a gun.

ANCIENT HISTORY
Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done in a
religious context and compensation system. Compensation was based on the principle
of substitution which might include material (for example, cattle, slave) compensation,
exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the blood debt. Settlement rules could
allow for animal blood to replace human blood, or transfers of property or blood money
or in some case an offer of a person for execution. The person offered for execution did
not have to be an original perpetrator of the crime because the system was based on
tribes, not individuals. Blood feuds could be regulated at meetings, such as the Viking
things.
[20]
Systems deriving from blood feuds may survive alongside more advanced
legal systems or be given recognition by courts (for example, trial by combat). One of
the more modern refinements of the blood feud is the duel.
In certain parts of the world, nations in the form of ancient republics, monarchies or
tribal oligarchies emerged. These nations were often united by common linguistic,
religious or family ties. Moreover, expansion of these nations often occurred by
conquest of neighbouring tribes or nations. Consequently, various classes of royalty,
nobility, various commoners and slave emerged. Accordingly, the systems of tribal
arbitration were submerged into a more unified system of justice which formalized the
relation between the different "classes" rather than "tribes". The earliest and most
famous example is Code of Hammurabi which set the different punishment and
compensation according to the different class/group of victims and perpetrators. The
Torah (Jewish Law), also known as the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Christian
Old Testament), lays down the death penalty for murder, kidnapping, magic, violation
of the Sabbath, blasphemy, and a wide range of sexual crimes, although evidence
suggests that actual executions were rare.
[21]

A further example comes from Ancient Greece, where the Athenian legal system was
first written down by Draco in about 621 BC: the death penalty was applied for a
particularly wide range of crimes, though Solon later repealed Draco's code and
published new laws, retaining only Draco's homicide statutes.
[22]
The word draconian
derives from Draco's laws. The Romans also used death penalty for a wide range of
offenses
TANG DINASTY
Although many are executed in the People's Republic of China each year in the present
day, there was a time in the Tang dynasty when the death penalty was abolished.
[25]
This
was in the year 747, enacted by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712756). When
abolishing the death penalty Xuanzong ordered his officials to refer to the nearest
regulation by analogy when sentencing those found guilty of crimes for which the
prescribed punishment was execution. Thus depending on the severity of the crime a
punishment of severe scourging with the thick rod or of exile to the remote Lingnan
region might take the place of capital punishment. However, the death penalty was
restored only 12 years later in 759 in response to the An Lushan Rebellion.
[26]
At this
time in the Tang dynasty only the emperor had the authority to sentence criminals to
execution. Under Xuanzong capital punishment was relatively infrequent, with only 24
executions in the year 730 and 58 executions in the year 736.
[25]

The two most common forms of execution in the Tang dynasty were strangulation and
decapitation, which were the prescribed methods of execution for 144 and 89 offenses
respectively. Strangulation was the prescribed sentence for lodging an accusation
against one's parents or grandparents with a magistrate, scheming to kidnap a person
and sell them into slavery and opening a coffin while desecrating a tomb. Decapitation
was the method of execution prescribed for more serious crimes such as treason and
sedition. Interestingly, and despite the great discomfort involved, most of the Tang
Chinese preferred strangulation to decapitation, as a result of the traditional Tang
Chinese belief that the body is a gift from the parents and that it is therefore
disrespectful to one's ancestors to die without returning one's body to the grave intact.
Some further forms of capital punishment were practiced in the Tang dynasty, of which
the first two that follow at least were extralegal. The first of these was scourging to
death with the thick rod which was common throughout the Tang dynasty especially in
cases of gross corruption. The second was truncation, in which the convicted person
was cut in two at the waist with a fodder knife and then left to bleed to death.
[27]
A
further form of execution called Ling Chi (slow slicing), or death by/of a thousand cuts,
was used from the close of the Tang dynasty (around 900) to its abolition in 1905.
When a minister of the fifth grade or above received a death sentence the emperor might
grant him a special dispensation allowing him to commit suicide in lieu of execution.
Even when this privilege was not granted, the law required that the condemned minister
be provided with food and ale by his keepers and transported to the execution ground in
a cart rather than having to walk there.
Nearly all executions under the Tang dynasty took place in public as a warning to the
population. The heads of the executed were displayed on poles or spears. When local
authorities decapitated a convicted criminal, the head was boxed and sent to the capital
as proof of identity and that the execution had taken place.
MIDDLE AGES
In medieval and early modern Europe, before the development of modern prison
systems, the death penalty was also used as a generalized form of punishment. During
the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been
executed.
[28]

During early modern Europe, a massive moral panic regarding witchcraft swept across
Europe and later the European colonies in North America. During this period, there
were widespread claims that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized
threat to Christendom. As a result, tens of thousands of women were prosecuted and
executed through the witch trials of the early modern period (between the 15th and 18th
centuries).
The death penalty also targeted sexual offenses such as sodomy. In England, the
Buggery Act 1533 stipulated hanging as punishment for "buggery". James Pratt and
John Smith were the last two Englishmen to be executed for sodomy in 1835.
[29]

Despite the wide use of the death penalty, calls for reform were not unknown. The 12th
century Jewish legal scholar, Moses Maimonides, wrote, "It is better and more
satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent man to
death." He argued that executing an accused criminal on anything less than absolute
certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would
be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice". Maimonides' concern was
maintaining popular respect for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more
threatening than errors of omission.
[30]

Islam on the whole accepts capital punishment,
[31]
and the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad,
such as Al-Mu'tadid, were often cruel in their punishments.
[32]
Nevertheless, mercy is
considered preferable in Islam
[33]
and in Sharia law the victim's family can choose to
spare the life of the killer, which is not uncommon.
[34]
In the One Thousand and One
Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights, the fictional storyteller Sheherazade is
portrayed as being the "voice of sanity and mercy", with her philosophical position
being generally opposed to punishment by death. She expresses this through several of
her tales, including "The Merchant and the Jinni", "The Fisherman and the Jinni", "The
Three Apples", and "The Hunchback"
MODERN ERA
The last several centuries have seen the emergence of modern nation-states. Almost
fundamental to the concept of nation state is the idea of citizenship. This caused justice
to be increasingly associated with equality and universality, which in Europe saw an
emergence of the concept of natural rights. Another important aspect is that emergence
of standing police forces and permanent penitential institutions. The argument that
deterrence, rather than retribution, is the main justification for punishment is a hallmark
of the rational choice theory and can be traced to Cesare Beccaria whose well-known
treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), condemned torture and the death penalty
and Jeremy Bentham who twice critiqued the death penalty.
[36]
Moving executions there
inside prisons and away from public view was prompted by official recognition of the
phenomenon reported first by Beccaria in Italy and later by Charles Dickens and Karl
Marx of increased violent criminality at the times and places of executions.
By 1820 in Britain, there were 160 crimes that were punishable by death, including
crimes such as shoplifting, petty theft, stealing cattle, or cutting down trees in public
place.
[37]
The severity of the so-called Bloody Code, however, was often tempered by
juries who refused to convict, or judges, in the case of petty theft, who arbitrarily set the
value stolen at below the statutory level for a capital crime.
CONTEMPORARY ERA
The 20th century was a violent period. Tens of millions were killed in wars between
nation-states as well as genocide perpetrated by nation states against political opponents
(both perceived and actual), ethnic and religious minorities; the Turkish assault on the
Armenians, Hitler's attempt to exterminate the European Jews, the Khmer Rouge
decimation of Cambodia, the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, to cite four of the most
notorious examples. A large part of execution was summary execution of enemy
combatants. In Nazi Germany there were three types of capital punishment; hanging,
decapitation and death by shooting.
[39]
Also, modern military organisations employed
capital punishment as a means of maintaining military discipline. The Soviets, for
example, executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during World War II.
[40]
In the past,
cowardice, absence without leave, desertion, insubordination, looting, shirking under
enemy fire and disobeying orders were often crimes punishable by death (see
decimation and running the gauntlet). One method of execution since firearms came
into common use has almost invariably been firing squad.
Various authoritarian states for example those with fascist or communist
governmentsemployed the death penalty as a potent means of political oppression.
According to Robert Conquest, the leading expert on Stalin's purges, more than 1
million Soviet citizens were executed during the Great Terror of 193738, almost all by
a bullet to the back of the head.
[41]
Mao Zedong publicly stated that "800,000" people
had been executed after the Communist Party's victory in 1949. Partly as a response to
such excesses, civil rights organizations have started to place increasing emphasis on
the concept of human rights and abolition of the death penalty.
Among countries around the world, almost all European and many Pacific Area states
(including Australia, New Zealand and Timor Leste), and Canada have abolished capital
punishment. In Latin America, most states have completely abolished the use of capital
punishment, while some countries, such as Brazil, allow for capital punishment only in
exceptional situations, such as treason committed during wartime. The United States
(the federal government and 32 of the states), Guatemala, most of the Caribbean and the
majority of democracies in Asia (for example, Japan and India) and Africa (for
example, Botswana and Zambia) retain it. South Africa's Constitutional Court, in
judgment of the case of State v Makwanyane and Another, unanimously abolished the
death penalty on 6 June 1995.
[42][43]

Abolition was often adopted due to political change, as when countries shifted from
authoritarianism to democracy, or when it became an entry condition for the European
Union. The United States is a notable exception: some states have had bans on capital
punishment for decades (the earliest is Michigan, where it was abolished in 1846), while
others actively use it today. The death penalty there remains a contentious issue which
is hotly debated.
In abolitionist countries, debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders,
though few countries have brought it back after abolishing it. However, a spike in
serious, violent crimes, such as murders or terrorist attacks, has prompted some
countries (such as Sri Lanka and Jamaica) to effectively end the moratorium on the
death penalty. In retentionist countries, the debate is sometimes revived when a
miscarriage of justice has occurred, though this tends to cause legislative efforts to
improve the judicial process rather than to abolish the death penalty.
MOVEMENTS TOWARD HUMAN EXECUTION
Trends in most of the world have long been to move to less painful, or more humane,
executions. France developed the guillotine for this reason in the final years of the 18th
century, while Britain banned drawing and quartering in the early 19th century.
Hanging by turning the victim off a ladder or by kicking a stool or a bucket, which
causes death by suffocation, was replaced by long drop "hanging" where the subject is
dropped a longer distance to dislocate the neck and sever the spinal cord. Shah of Persia
introduced throat-cutting and blowing from a gun as quick and painless alternatives to
more tormentous methods of executions used at that time.
[44]
In the U.S., the electric
chair and the gas chamber were introduced as more humane alternatives to hanging, but
have been almost entirely superseded by lethal injection, which in turn has been
criticised as being too painful. Nevertheless, some countries still employ slow hanging
methods, beheading by sword and stoning.
In early New England, public executions were a very solemn and sorrowful occasion,
sometimes attended by large crowds, who also listened to a Gospel message
[45]
and
remarks by local preachers and politicians. The Connecticut Courant records one such
public execution on 1 December 1803, saying, "The assembly conducted through the
whole in a very orderly and solemn manner, so much so, as to occasion an observing
gentleman acquainted with other countries as well as this, to say that such an assembly,
so decent and solemn, could not be collected anywhere but in New England.
MODERN DAY PUBLIC OPINION
The public opinion on the death penalty varies considerably by country and by the
crime in question, despite the evidence against its power as a deterrent.
[47]
Countries
where a majority of people are against execution include New Zealand, where 55
percent of the population oppose its use,
[48]
Australia where only 23 percent support the
death penalty,
[49]
and Norway where only 25 percent are in favour.
[50]
Most French,
Finns and Italians also oppose the death penalty.
[51]

Use of capital punishment is growing in India in the 2010s
[52]
due to both a growth in
right wing politics and due to anger over several recent brutal cases of rape.
[52]
While
support for the death penalty for murder is still high in China executions have dropped
precipitously, with only 3000 executed in 2012 versus 12,000 in 2002.
[53]
A poll in
South Africa found that 76 percent of millennium generation South Africans support re-
introduction of the death penalty, which is abolished in South Africa.
ABOLITIONISM
The death penalty was banned in China between 747 and 759. In Japan, Emperor Saga
abolished the death penalty in 818 under the influence of Shinto and it lasted until
1156.
[55]

In England, a public statement of opposition was included in The Twelve Conclusions
of the Lollards, written in 1395. Sir Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, debated
the benefits of the death penalty in dialogue form, coming to no firm conclusion. More
recent opposition to the death penalty stemmed from the book of the Italian Cesare
Beccaria Dei Delitti e Delle Pene ("On Crimes and Punishments"), published in 1764.
In this book, Beccaria aimed to demonstrate not only the injustice, but even the futility
from the point of view of social welfare, of torture and the death penalty. Influenced by
the book, Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg, famous enlightened monarch and future
Emperor of Austria, abolished the death penalty in the then-independent Grand Duchy
of Tuscany, the first permanent abolition in modern times. On 30 November 1786, after
having de facto blocked capital executions (the last was in 1769), Leopold promulgated
the reform of the penal code that abolished the death penalty and ordered the destruction
of all the instruments for capital execution in his land. In 2000 Tuscany's regional
authorities instituted an annual holiday on 30 November to commemorate the event.
The event is commemorated on this day by 300 cities around the world celebrating
Cities for Life Day.
The Roman Republic banned capital punishment in 1849. Venezuela followed suit and
abolished the death penalty in 1854
[56]
and San Marino did so in 1865. The last
execution in San Marino had taken place in 1468. In Portugal, after legislative proposals
in 1852 and 1863, the death penalty was abolished in 1867.
Abolition occurred in Canada in 1976, in France in 1981, and in Australia in 1973
(although the state of Western Australia retained the penalty until 1984). In 1977, the
United Nations General Assembly affirmed in a formal resolution that throughout the
world, it is desirable to "progressively restrict the number of offenses for which the
death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this
punishment".
[57]

In the United Kingdom, it was abolished for murder (leaving only treason, piracy with
violence, arson in royal dockyards and a number of wartime military offences as capital
crimes) for a five-year experiment in 1965 and permanently in 1969, the last execution
having taken place in 1964. It was abolished for all peacetime offences in 1998.
[58]

In the United States, Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty, on 18 May
1846.
[59]
The death penalty was declared unconstitutional between 1972 and 1976 based
on the Furman v. Georgia case, but the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case once again
permitted the death penalty under certain circumstances. Further limitations were placed
on the death penalty in Atkins v. Virginia (death penalty unconstitutional for people with
an intellectual disability) and Roper v. Simmons (death penalty unconstitutional if
defendant was under age 18 at the time the crime was committed). Currently, as of 2
May 2013, 18 states of the U.S. and the District of Columbia ban capital punishment,
with Maryland the most recent state to ban the practice.
[60]
A 2010 Gallup poll shows
that 64% of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder,
down from 65% in 2006 and 68% in 2001.
[61][62]
Of the states where the death penalty is
permitted, California has the largest number of inmates on death row. Texas has
performed the most executions (since the US Supreme Court allowed capital
punishment to resume in 1976, 40% of all US executions have taken place in Texas),
[63]

and Oklahoma has had (through mid-2011) the highest per capita execution rate.
[64]

One of the latest countries to abolish the death penalty for all crimes was Gabon, in
February 2010.
[65]

Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it "cruel, inhuman, and
degrading punishment". Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate denial of
Human Rights"
CONTEMPORARY USE
GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION
Since World War II there has been a trend toward abolishing the death penalty. In 1977,
16 countries were abolitionist. According to information published by Amnesty
International in 2012, 97 countries had abolished capital punishment altogether, 8 had
done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 36 had not used it for at
least 10 years or were under a moratorium. The other 57 retained the death penalty in
active use. According to Amnesty International, only 21 countries were known to have
had executions carried out in 2012.
[69]
In addition, there are countries which do not
publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China.
[70]
At
least 18,750 people worldwide were under sentence of death at the beginning of 2012.
The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly restrained in some retentionist
countries including Taiwan and Singapore.
[72]
Indonesia carried out no executions
between November 2008 and March 2013.
[73]
Japan and 32 out of 50 states in the
United States are the only OECD members that are classified by Amnesty International
as 'retentionist' (South Korea is classified as 'abolitionist in practice').
[67]
Nearly all of
retentionist countries are situated in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
[67]
The only
retentionist country in Europe is Belarus. The death penalty was overwhelmingly
practised in poor and authoritarian states, which often employed the death penalty as a
tool of political oppression. During the 1980s, the democratisation of Latin America
swelled the rank of abolitionist countries.
This was soon followed by the fall of Communism in Europe. Many of the countries
which restored democracy aspired to enter the EU. The European Union and the
Council of Europe both strictly require member states not to practise the death penalty
(see Capital punishment in Europe). Public support for the death penalty in the EU
varies.
[74]
The last execution on the present day territory of the Council of Europe has
taken place in 1997 in Ukraine.
[75][76]
On the other hand, rapid industrialisation in Asia
has been increasing the number of developed retentionist countries. In these countries,
the death penalty enjoys strong public support, and the matter receives little attention
from the government or the media; in China there is a small but growing movement to
abolish the death penalty altogether.
[77]
This trend has been followed by some African
and Middle Eastern countries where support for the death penalty is high.
Some countries have resumed practicing the death penalty after having suspended
executions for long periods. The United States suspended executions in 1972 but
resumed them in 1976, then again on 25 September 2007 to 16 April 2008; there was no
execution in India between 1995 and 2004; and Sri Lanka declared an end to its
moratorium on the death penalty on 20 November 2004, although it has not yet
performed any executions. The Philippines re-introduced the death penalty in 1993 after
abolishing it in 1987, but abolished it again in 2006.
In May 2013, Papua New Guinea lawmakers voted to introduce the death penalty for
crimes such as rape, robbery and sorcery-related murder, and introduce punishments
such as electrocution, firing squad and suffocation.
In 2012, Japan and the US were the only countries in the G8 to have carried out
executions; and the US was the only country to have carried out executions in the
Americas.
[69]
In 2012, there were 43 executions in the US, which have taken place in
nine states: Arizona (6), Delaware (1), Florida (3), Idaho (1), Mississippi (6), Ohio (3),
Oklahoma (6), South Dakota (2), Texas (15).
The latest country to move towards abolition is Mongolia. In January 2012, its
Parliament adopted a bill providing for the death penalty to be abolished.
For further information about capital punishment in individual countries or regions, see:
Australia Canada People's Republic of China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau)
Europe India Iran Iraq Japan New Zealand Pakistan Philippines Russia
Singapore Taiwan United Kingdom United States
JUVENILE OFFENDERS
The death penalty for juvenile offenders (criminals aged under 18 years at the time of
their crime) has become increasingly rare. Considering the Age of Majority is still not
18 in some countries, since 1990 nine countries have executed offenders who were
juveniles at the time of their crimes: The People's Republic of China (PRC), Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United States
(see List of juvenile offenders executed in the United States), and Yemen.
[83]
The PRC,
Pakistan, the United States, Yemen and Iran have since raised the minimum age to
18.
[84][85]
Amnesty International has recorded 61 verified executions since then, in
several countries, of both juveniles and adults who had been convicted of committing
their offenses as juveniles.
[86]
The PRC does not allow for the execution of those under
18, but child executions have reportedly taken place.
Starting in 1642 within British America, an estimated 365juvenile offenders were
executed by the states and federal government of the United States.
[89]
The United States
Supreme Court abolished capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16 in
Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), and for all juveniles in Roper v. Simmons (2005). In
addition, in 2002, the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the
execution of individuals with an intellectual disability, in Atkins v. Virginia.
Between 2005 and May 2008, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen were
reported to have executed child offenders, the most being from Iran.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital
punishment for juveniles under article 37(a), has been signed by all countries and
ratified, except for Somalia and the United States (notwithstanding the latter's Supreme
Court decisions abolishing the practice).
[92]
The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion
and Protection of Human Rights maintains that the death penalty for juveniles has
become contrary to a jus cogens of customary international law. A majority of countries
are also party to the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (whose
Article 6.5 also states that "Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes
committed by persons below eighteen years of age...").
In Japan, the minimum age for the death penalty is 18 as mandated by the internationals
standards. But under Japanese law, anyone under 20 is considered a juvenile. There are
three men currently on death row for crimes they committed at age 18 or 19
CONTROVERSY AND DEBATE
There are many organizations worldwide, such as Amnesty International, and country-
specific, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), that have abolition of the
death penalty as a fundamental purpose.
Advocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, is a good tool for police and
prosecutors (in plea bargaining for example), makes sure that convicted criminals do not
offend again and is a just penalty for atrocious crimes such as child murders, serial
killers or torture murderers. Opponents of capital punishment argue that not all people
affected by murder desire a death penalty, that execution discriminates against
minorities and the poor, and that it encourages a "culture of violence" and that it violates
human rights.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Abolitionists believe capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because
the right to life is the most important, and judicial execution violates it without necessity
and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Albert Camus wrote in a 1956
book called Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion & Death:
An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a
concentration camp is from prison. [...] For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty
would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he
would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined
him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.
[115]

In the classic doctrine of natural rights as expounded by for instance Locke and
Blackstone, on the other hand, it is an important idea that the right to life can be
forfeited. As John Stuart Mill explained in a speech against an amendment to abolish
capital punishment for murder in 1868;
And we may imagine somebody asking how we can teach people not to inflict suffering
by ourselves inflicting it? But to this I should answer all of us would answer that to
deter by suffering from inflicting suffering is not only possible, but the very purpose of
penal justice. Does fining a criminal show want of respect for property, or imprisoning
him, for personal freedom? Just as unreasonable is it to think that to take the life of a
man who has taken that of another is to show want of regard for human life. We show,
on the contrary, most emphatically our regard for it, by the adoption of a rule that he
who violates that right in another forfeits it for himself, and that while no other crime
that he can commit deprives him of his right to live, this shall
WRONGFUL EXECUTION
It is frequently argued that capital punishment leads to miscarriage of justice through
the wrongful execution of innocent persons. Many people have been proclaimed
innocent victims of the death penalty.
Some have claimed that as many as 39 executions have been carried out in the face of
compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt from in the US from
1992 through 2004. Newly available DNA evidence prevented the pending execution of
more than 15 death row inmates during the same period in the US,
[122]
but DNA
evidence is only available in a fraction of capital cases.
[123]
However, since the death
penalty reinstatement in the United States during the 1970s, no inmate executed has
been granted posthumous pardon.
[124]

Also improper procedure may result in unfair executions. For example, Amnesty
International argues that in Singapore "the Misuse of Drugs Act contains a series of
presumptions which shift the burden of proof from the prosecution to the accused. This
conflicts with the universally guaranteed right to be presumed innocent until proven
guilty". This refers to a situation when someone is being caught with drugs. In this
situation, in almost any jurisdiction, the prosecution has a prima facie case.
RETRIBUTION
Supporters of the death penalty argued that death penalty is morally justified when
applied in murder especially with aggravating elements such as for multiple homicide,
child murderers, cop killers, torture murder and mass killing such as terrorism,
massacre, or genocide. Some even argue that not applying death penalty in latter cases
is patently unjust. This argument is strongly defended by New York Law School's
Professor Robert Blecker, who says that the punishment must be painful in proportion
to the crime. 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant sums it up as following;
But whoever has committed murder, must die. There is, in this case, no juridical
substitute or surrogate, that can be given or taken for the satisfaction of justice. There is
no likeness or proportion between life, however painful, and death; and therefore there
is no equality between the crime of murder and the retaliation of it but what is judicially
accomplished by the execution of the criminal.
Abolitionists argue that retribution is simply revenge and cannot be condoned. Others
while accepting retribution as an element of criminal justice nonetheless argue that life
without parole is a sufficient substitute. It is also argued that the punishing of a killing
with another killing is a relatively unique punishment for a violent act, because in
general violent crimes are not punished by subjecting the perpetrator to a similar act
(e.g. rapists are not punished by being sexually assaulted)
INTERNATIONAL VIEW
The United Nations introduced a resolution during the General Assembly's 62nd
sessions in 2007 calling for a universal ban. The approval of a draft resolution by the
Assembly's third committee, which deals with human rights issues, voted 99 to 52, with
33 abstentions, in favor of the resolution on 15 November 2007 and was put to a vote in
the Assembly on 18 December.
Again in 2008, a large majority of states from all regions adopted a second resolution
calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the UN General Assembly
(Third Committee) on 20 November. 105 countries voted in favor of the draft
resolution, 48 voted against and 31 abstained.
A range of amendments proposed by a small minority of pro-death penalty countries
were overwhelmingly defeated. It had in 2007 passed a non-binding resolution (by 104
to 54, with 29 abstentions) by asking its member states for "a moratorium on executions
with a view to abolishing the death penalty".
[138]





Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union affirms the
prohibition on capital punishment in the EU
A number of regional conventions prohibit the death penalty, most notably, the Sixth
Protocol (abolition in time of peace) and the 13th Protocol (abolition in all
circumstances) to the European Convention on Human Rights. The same is also stated
under the Second Protocol in the American Convention on Human Rights, which,
however has not been ratified by all countries in the Americas, most notably Canada
and the United States. Most relevant operative international treaties do not require its
prohibition for cases of serious crime, most notably, the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights. This instead has, in common with several other treaties, an optional
protocol prohibiting capital punishment and promoting its wider abolition.
Several international organizations have made the abolition of the death penalty (during
time of peace) a requirement of membership, most notably the European Union (EU)
and the Council of Europe. The EU and the Council of Europe are willing to accept a
moratorium as an interim measure. Thus, while Russia is a member of the Council of
Europe, and the death penalty remains codified in its law, it has not made use of it since
becoming a member of the Council - Russia has not executed anyone since 1996. With
the exception of Russia (abolitionist in practice), Kazakhstan (abolitionist for ordinary
crimes only), and Belarus (retentionist), all European countries are classified as
abolitionist.
Latvia abolished de jure the death penalty for war crimes in 2012, becoming the last EU
member to do so.
The Protocol no.13 calls for the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances
(including for war crimes). The majority of European countries have signed and ratified
it. Some European countries have not done this, but all of them except Belarus and
Kazakhstan have now abolished the death penalty in all circumstances (de jure, and
Russia de facto). Poland is the most recent country to ratify the protocol, on 28 August
2013.

The Protocol no.6 which prohibits the death penalty during peacetime has been ratified
by all members of the European Council, except Russia (which has signed, but not
ratified).
There are also other international abolitionist instruments, such as the Second Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has 78
parties;
[142]
and the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish
the Death Penalty (for the Americas; ratified by 13 states).
[143]

Turkey has recently, as a move towards EU membership, undergone a reform of its
legal system. Previously there was a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Turkey
as the last execution took place in 1984. The death penalty was removed from
peacetime law in August 2002, and in May 2004 Turkey amended its constitution in
order to remove capital punishment in all circumstances. It ratified Protocol no. 13 to
the European Convention on Human Rights in February 2006. As a result, Europe is a
continent free of the death penalty in practice, all states but Russia, which has entered a
moratorium, having ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human
Rights, with the sole exception of Belarus, which is not a member of the Council of
Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has been lobbying for
Council of Europe observer states who practise the death penalty, the U.S. and Japan, to
abolish it or lose their observer status. In addition to banning capital punishment for EU
member states, the EU has also banned detainee transfers in cases where the receiving
party may seek the death penalty.
[144]

Sub Saharan African countries which have recently abolished the death penalty include
Burundi, which abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2009,
[145]
and Gabon which
did the same in 2010.
[146]
On 5 July 2012, Benin has become part of the Second
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
which prohibits the use of the death penalty.
[147]

The newly created South Sudan is among the 111 UN member states that supported the
resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly that called for the removal
of the death penalty, therefore affirming its opposition to the practice. South Sudan,
however, has not yet abolished the death penalty and stated that it must first amend its
Constitution, and until that happens it will continue to use the death penalty.
[148]

Among non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch are noted for their opposition to capital punishment. A number of such
NGOs, as well as trade unions, local councils and bar associations formed a World
Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2002.
RELIGIOUS VIEW
Views on the death penalty in Christianity run a spectrum of opinions, from complete
condemnation of the punishment, seeing it as a form of revenge and as contrary to
Christ's message of forgiveness, to enthusiastic support based primarily on Old
Testament law.
Among the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew,
the message to his followers that one should "Turn the other cheek" and his example in
the story Pericope Adulterae, in which Jesus intervenes in the stoning of an adulteress,
are generally accepted as his condemnation of physical retaliation (though most
scholars
[155][156]
agree that the latter passage was "certainly not part of the original text
of St John's Gospel"
[157]
) More militant Christians consider Romans 13:34 to support
the death penalty. Many Christians have believed that Jesus' doctrine of peace speaks
only to personal ethics and is distinct from civil government's duty to punish crime.
In the Old Testament, Leviticus Leviticus 20:227 provides a list of transgressions in
which execution is recommended. Christian positions on these passages vary.
[158]
The
sixth commandment (fifth in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches) is translated
as "Thou shalt not kill" by some denominations and as "Thou shalt not murder" by
others. As some denominations do not have a hard-line stance on the subject, Christians
of such denominations are free to make a personal decision.
[159]

Eastern Orthodox Christianity does not officially condemn or endorse capital
punishment. It states that it is not a totally objectionable thing, but also that its
abolishment can be driven by genuine Christian values, especially stressing the need for
mercy.
[160]

The Rosicrucian Fellowship and many other Christian esoteric schools condemn capital
punishment in all circumstances.
[161][162]

Roman Catholic Church
St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, accepted the death penalty as a deterrent
and prevention method but not as a means of vengeance. (See Aquinas on the death
penalty.) The Roman Catechism stated this teaching thus:
Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted
power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the
guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime
of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits
murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life.
Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of
crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage
and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked
of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.
[163]

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II suggested that capital punishment should be
avoided unless it is the only way to defend society from the offender in question,
opining that punishment "ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except
in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise
to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the
organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-
existent."
[164]
The most recent edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church restates
this view.
[165]
That the assessment of the contemporary situation advanced by John Paul
II is not binding on the faithful was confirmed by Cardinal Ratzinger when he wrote in
2004 that,
if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital
punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered
unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts
civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in
imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel
an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate
diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death
penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
[166]

The 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia suggested that Catholics must hold that
"the infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic
Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives
much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians", but that the
matter of "the advisability of exercising that power is, of course, an affair to be
determined upon other and various considerations."
[167]

Protestants
The Religious Society of Friends or Quaker Church is one of the earliest American
opponents of capital punishment and unequivocally opposes execution in all its forms.
Southern Baptists support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment for those
guilty of murder or treasonous acts, so long as it does not constitute as an act of
personal revenge or discrimination.
[168]

The Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops condemned the death penalty in 1988:
This Conference: ... 3. Urges the Church to speak out against: ... (b) all governments
who practise capital punishment, and encourages them to find alternative ways of
sentencing offenders so that the divine dignity of every human being is respected and
yet justice is pursued;....
[169]

The United Methodist Church, along with other Methodist churches, also condemns
capital punishment, saying that it cannot accept retribution or social vengeance as a
reason for taking human life.
[170]
The Church also holds that the death penalty falls
unfairly and unequally upon marginalised persons including the poor, the uneducated,
ethnic and religious minorities, and persons with mental and emotional illnesses.
[171]

The General Conference of the United Methodist Church calls for its bishops to uphold
opposition to capital punishment and for governments to enact an immediate
moratorium on carrying out the death penalty sentence.
In a 1991 social policy statement, the ELCA officially took a stand to oppose the death
penalty. It states that revenge is a primary motivation for capital punishment policy and
that true healing can only take place through repentance and forgiveness.
[172]

Community of Christ, the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints (RLDS), is opposed to capital punishment. The first stand against capital
punishment was taken by the church's Presiding High Council in 1995. This was
followed by a resolution of the World Conference in 2000. This resolution, WC 1273,
states:
[W]e stand in opposition to the use of the death penalty; and ... as a peace church we
seek ways to achieve healing and restorative justice. Church members are encouraged to
work for the abolition of the death penalty in those states and nations that still practise
this form of punishment.
Several key leaders early in the Protestant Reformation, including Martin Luther and
John Calvin, followed the traditional reasoning in favour of capital punishment, and the
Lutheran Church's Augsburg Confession explicitly defended it. Some Protestant groups
have cited Genesis 9:56, Romans 13:34, and Leviticus 20:127 as the basis for
permitting the death penalty.
Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and Friends have opposed the death penalty since
their founding, and continue to be strongly opposed to it today. These groups, along
with other Christians opposed to capital punishment, have cited Christ's Sermon on the
Mount (transcribed in Matthew Chapter 57) and Sermon on the Plain (transcribed in
Luke 6:1749). In both sermons, Christ tells his followers to turn the other cheek and to
love their enemies, which these groups believe mandates nonviolence, including
opposition to the death penalty.