capital punishment

Punishment by death. Capital punishment is retained in 87 countries and territories (2001), including the USA (38 states), China, and Islamic countries. Methods of execution include electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, shooting, lethal injection, garrotting, and decapitation. It was abolished in the UK in 1965 for all crimes except treason and piracy, and in 1998 it was entirely abolished in the UK.

Capital punishment is a hotly contested issue. Those opposed to it argue that it constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment, is inconsistent with fundamental democratic and civilized values, is as immoral as murder, is discriminatory because most of those executed, at least in the USA, are black and poor, that it is expensive, since it burdens the criminal justice system with lengthy appeals, that it does not deter crime, and that innocent people will be put to death.

Those in favour of capital punishment argue that it is a more effective deterrent to crime than imprisonment, is a just punishment for the crime of murder and in reality demonstrates a reverence for human life, that it guarantees that the condemned person will commit no further crimes, that it is necessary to provide retribution for the victim's families, and that it is more economic than life sentences.

Capital punishment in Britain

The first state to abolish capital punishment was Michigan, in 1847.

Florida executed its first woman in 150 years on 30 March 1998. Judy Buenoano, 54, was the first woman to die in Florida's electric chair, ‘Ol' Sparky’. Buenoano was the third woman to be executed since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. A judge's decision in 2000 gave prisoners on death row in Florida the choice of lethal injection or the electric chair. The decision was made, although a condemned man had challenged the method of lethal injection as unconstitutional. His appeal was rejected.

On 20 May 1999 Nebraska's legislators became the first US state lawmakers to approve a moratorium on executions, and in May 2000 New Hampshire became the first state to abolish capital punishment since the Supreme Court allowed the resumption of executions in 1976.

A total of 38 states have legalized capital punishment, and the USA is the only democracy among Western nations to use the penalty. Although in recent years there has been a downward trend in the number of executions carried out in the USA, it was announced that almost 100 people were executed in the USA during 1999, the highest number since 1951. In a study released in 2000 it was revealed that over two-thirds of death sentences were overturned on appeal because of judicial error, and that in 7% of re-trials of those on death row, the defendant was found not guilty. The study was released at a particularly sensitive time, owing to the unprecedented rate of executions championed by President George W Bush, who in his six years as governor of Texas presided over 136 capital cases, far more than any of his counterparts.

In 2001, the USA carried out two federal executions, the first since 1963. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in a bomb attack in Oklahoma City was executed on 11 June, and Juan Raul Garza, a gang leader involved in three drug-related murders, was executed eight days later.

Countries that have abolished the death penalty fall into three categories: those that have abolished it for all crimes (45 countries); those that retain it only for exceptional crimes such as war crimes (16 countries); and those that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes but have not executed anyone since 1980 (25 countries and territories). The first country in Europe to abolish the death penalty was Portugal in 1867. The Supreme Court in the USA declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972 (as a cruel and unusual punishment) but decided in 1976 that this was not so in all circumstances. The death penalty was therefore reintroduced in some states.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1977 ruled out imposition of the death penalty on those under the age of 18. The covenant was signed by President Carter on behalf of the USA, but in 1989 the US Supreme Court decided that it could be imposed from the age of 16 for murder, and that the mentally retarded could also face the death penalty. In 1990 there were over 2,000 prisoners on death row (awaiting execution) in the USA.

At a Council of Europe conference on the death penalty in Kiev in November 1996 it was revealed that 103 people had been executed in Russia in 1996. On joining the Council the previous year, Russia had promised to abolish the death penalty. Two prison camps have also been set up for people whose death sentences have been commuted to life imprisonment.

Many countries use capital punishment for crimes other than murder, such as drug offences (Malaysia and elsewhere). After the fall of communism, Czechoslovakia and Hungary abolished the death penalty in 1990. In June 1995 South Africa's highest court abolished the death penalty. During the apartheid era, hundreds of people had been executed there each year by hanging, and over 1,500 death sentences were passed in 1978–1987.

In Saudi Arabia execution is by beheading in public. In the first four months of 1995 there were 90 such executions, up from 53 in 1994. Nearly 70% of those executed were foreigners.

China carried out 2,468 documented judicial executions in 2001, about three-quarters of the world's total, according to a report by Amnesty International released in April 2002. The report showed that China's crackdown on crime had led to more than 1,700 people being put to death between April and June 2001 alone.