Evolution of Capital Punishment

Evolution of Capital Punishment

Capital punishment can be defined as the penalty of death for the commission of a crime. The death sentence has been a traditional form of justice through time. But time, trade and geography has altered its form. In many countries today, capital punishment is a fundamental part of criminal justice systems. The death sentence is a major way of ensuring respect and instilling fear in people. It was not until recent times that the punishment of death was reserved for murder and other major offences. Throughout time, capital punishment has evolved from an extremely gruesome public display, to a more painless and serene type of penalty. Capital punishment has been around since approximately 1500 BCE (Laurence 2). The criminal condemned was found “guilty of magic” and was sentenced to death. The exact mode of his death was “left to the culprit, who was his own executioner.” (Laurence 2). In England, there is no record of capital punishment earlier than 450 BCE, when it was “the custom to throw those condemned to die in a quagmire.” (Laurence 2). A quagmire is a soft, wet, yielding land. The Mosaic law is “full of mention of the punishment of death . . . the principal mode of execution being stoning”. (Laurence 2). Forms of capital punishment that were common in early times are: the pouring of molten lead on the criminal, starvation in dungeons, tearing to death by “read-hot pincers and sawing asunder”, plus many others. (Laurence 2). The death penalty was not always used for major offences. In the Twelve Tables, from the Roman Empire from approximately 450 CE, many misdemeanors were recognized to be punished by death. Some of these include: “Publishing libels and insulting songs . . . burning a house or a stack of corn near a house . . . cheating, by a Patron, of his client . . . making disturbances in the City at night”. Many of the penalties were carried out by burning at the stake, or in one instance, being “clubbed to death”. (Laurence 3). In the time of Paul, around 60 CE, crucifixion, burning and decapitation were in use. One of the “cruelties inflicted by Nero on those sentenced to death was impalement”. (Laurence 3). Such an atrocity was practiced as late as 1876 in the Balkan peninsula, “while under Charles V criminals were thrown into their open graves and impaled by pointed stakes”. (Laurence 3). Capital Punishment in the Roman empire for parricides, people who killed their own parents, was malicious, yet strange. They were “thrown into the water in a sack, which contained a dog, a cock, a viper and an ape”. Parricide has always been selected for special punishment in all countries and ages. The Romans also inflicted the death penalty by “drowning at sea; precipitation from the Tarpeian rock; burial alive and burning to death”. (Laurence 3). In all countries capital punishment “was, with comparatively rare exceptions, public.” (Laurence 4). When criminals are executed, the “most public places are chosen, where there will be the greatest number of spectators, and so the most for the fear of punishment to work upon them.” (Laurence 4). This statement states that most executions were held in public, so fear can be instilled to every person, trying to keep them from committing a crime. Crucifixion was a practice that “originated with the Persians and was later passed on to the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians.” The Romans perfected it as “a method of capital punishment, which caused maximum pain and suffering over a significant period of time.” (Crucifixion). In crucifixion, the criminal would have his or her hands and feet nailed to a cross in the shape of a ‘T’ and left to die. This form of execution is “widely associated with Christianity” because it was “the way in which Jesus Christ was put to death.” (Forms of Execution). Burning at the stake dates back to the Christian era, where in 643, an edict declared it illegal to burn witches. This was a popular form of death that was used mostly for heretics, witched and suspicious women. (Bobit). The suspected offender was tied to a wooden stake which was encircled by sticks at the bottom. The sticks were then lit, with flames engulfing the culprit. An old practice was that “before the faggots were lighted round them they were strangled at the stake.” (Laurence 3). The Iron Maiden was a form of capital punishment in medieval times. The offender would be placed inside female effigies constructed of iron, sometimes wood, with the inside hollowed out and filled with sharp iron spikes. The person would then be embraced by the iron maiden, being impaled by the stakes. Often, the effigy would be opened, pulling out the spikes, and then closed again, causing more pain and suffering. (Forms of Execution). The statutory punishment for treason in England from 1283 to 1867 was drawing and quartering. First