Pros and Cons on Capital Punishment policy

Nowadays the death penalty is often called capital punishment whereas a criminal is being executed on a legal governmental basis. This action is treated as a punishment for a crime and is regarded as the most severe penalty. The death penalty has been practiced since the dawn of civilization by the majority of societies on our Planet. It has been practiced and is still being practiced not only on a legal basis but at the discretion of some group of people or community not authorized to take such kind of decision. A lot of people consider death penalty as inhumane and cruel act that cannot be accepted by modern society, so 98 countries have abolished such way of punishment de Juro and 35 counties have canceled such way of punishment de facto (which means that they haven’t been applying capital punishment over 10 years), nevertheless, 58 countries are still practicing the death penalty. (Amnesty International, 2010). Anyways, Amnesty International states that in 2012 the world has seen 21 registered executions. (Amnesty International, 2012) The argues in regards to whether our world should get rid of the death penalty or should it be applied still continue and may last for many years. Today the world is trying to compromise between the controversial standpoints connected with capital punishment; meanwhile, criminals are still being executed and have been executed for many centuries. We will not discuss pros and cons of this punishment, the paper will pour light on some of the ways of committing death penalty, the reasons why such ways of punishment were invented and social background that influenced on the invention of methods of executing criminals. This paper was initially intended to address the most widespread and well-known ways of the death penalty, however, later on I made a decision to make a research on some ancient ways of execution which belong to the times when such procedure was only invented. 

The very first way of death penalty we will talk about is execution by the elephant. All of us know that elephant is a huge and very strong animal that has been exploited in many aspects of life: elephants as a way of transport, elephants as cargo carriers and so on. But one can hardly imagine that such a beautiful animal was taught to kill people. 

Today we have a lot of historical evidence of elephants being used as death penalty executors which were depicted in kinds of literature. This is how Battuta describes it in his book “The Travels of Ibn Battuta”: “Upon a certain day, when I myself was present, some men were brought out who had been accused of having attempted the life of the Vizier. They were ordered, accordingly, to be thrown to the elephants, which had been taught to cut their victims to pieces. Their hoofs were cased with sharp iron instruments, and the extremities of these were like knives. On such occasions the elephant-driver rode upon them: and, when a man was thrown to them, they would wrap the trunk about him and toss him up, then take him with the teeth and throw him between their forefeet upon the breast, and do just as the driver should bid them, and according to the orders of the Emperor. If the order was to cut him to pieces, the elephant would do so with his irons, and then throw the pieces among the assembled multitude: but if the order was to leave him, he would be left lying before the Emperor, until the skin should be taken off, and stuffed with hay, and the flesh given to the dogs”. (Battuta). One can imagine quite a disgusting scene after reading it; moreover, one’s impression may become stronger after realizing that similar incidents really took place. Executions with the help of elephants were latterly practiced in the southeastern part of Asia, especially in India. Animals were taught to kill people in different ways, providing both immediate death and tortures which could last for a long period of time. Let us refer to cultural and social aspects to this particular method of the death penalty. Elephants were considered to be the smartest of animals by Indian people. Since those animals are extremely intelligent it was rather easy to train them and, taking into account their natural strength (which is an advantage comparing to other animals, like horses), elephants were most optimal to be exploited in multiple purposes. So, here we can regard that exploration of elephants was based more on practical bases rather than on cultural aspects. Elephants were used by the Roman Empire for military purposes, which again prove their practical supremacy comparing to other animals. This way of the death penalty was used for such a long period of time that it’s absolutely impossible to define the exact number of victims executed by elephants.

Another terrible way of committing the death penalty which is no longer used in our times but was largely practiced in the Middle Ages is boiling to death. This method of the death penalty is quite painful as the victim is immersed in boiling water or oil, whereas boiling oil was regarded as a more severe punishment and oil is a thick liquid. 

The main reason why this method was practiced as it requires no particular skills from the executor, but still remains severe punishment. One needs to be really skillful to cut off the head with a sword while immersing the prisoner in a liquid requires no skills. In Europe boiling to death was considered to be a very spectacular even, do, a lot of people gathered to see how it happens. Would you see how someone is being executed instead of going to the cinema and watching a newly released movie? I doubt. But people whose time had no cinematography and citizens of European countries never lost a chance to see how a person is boiled to death or a young girl is out on fire because the society decided that she a witch. Henry the 8th, a British king of the 16th century has proclaimed boiling as a legitimate death penalty. Those times Richard Rice was boiled to death as he was accused to poison people with porridge. The chronicles of 16th century state that he was executed in February 1531 and describe his death as follows: “He roared mighty loud, and diverse women who were big with child did feel sick at the sight of what they saw, and were carried away half dead; and other men and women did not seem frightened by the boiling alive, but would prefer to see the headsman at his work” (Bruke, 1870).

The third capital punishment that we will refer to is burying alive. The very first traces of this awful way of execution took place in ancient German tribes, who practiced two ways of the death penalty: hanging and burying alive, whereas the first method was used towards prisoners who committed regular crimes and the second one was used as a punishment for dishonesty and unfaithful deeds. The victim was usually placed into the mud with his or her face down and afterward buried. 

Roman Empire has a lot of examples of buried alive prisoners: women, who betrayed their husbands, military traitors and many other cases. But, I believe, this way of capital punishment is more eminent for its religious aspects. What I mean is that a lot of Catholic saints were executed by burying alive, including Saint Vitalis of Milan and Saint Castulus. (Webster, 1912). It’s worth mentioning that the Catholic saints that have been executed were actually innocent. They were sentenced to the death penalty due to the Christian tradition of that time as no person can become a saint until he or she comes through sufferings. So, the most interesting about this is that capital punishment was not based on any kind of crime; it was regarded as the only way to receive the status of a saint. Another fact that I believe is worth mentioning about burying alive is that it was actually practiced in the 20th century by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War. That even was called Nanking Massacre, when Japanese soldiers buried alive peaceful civilians from China. The average number of victims was estimated to exceed 300 000 Chinese citizens. 

As we can see, most of the Middle Age methods of execution presupposed the continuous suffering of the victim. Nowadays most of the capital punishments are painless, but a couple of centuries ago human sufferings were used both as an entertainment and as a preventive measure to scare people and avoid criminal activity in the future. Another effective method of getting rid of criminals and teaching a good lesson to those who haven’t committed any crime yet was the breaking wheel. The victim was roped to a wooden wheel, his/her body was stretched bones were broken and death came after many long hours of tortures. I believe this torture is especially inhuman and painful. Let’s refer to Lorentz Hagen, who described the execution process of Johan Patkul, a Swedish citizen, who was sentenced to breaking wheel because of betraying his king, Charles 12th in the year of 1707: “...Here the executioner gave him the first stroke. His cries were terrible. "O, Jesus! Jesus, have mercy upon me!" This cruel scene was much lengthened out, and of the utmost horror; for as the headsman had no skill in his business, the wretch under his hands received upwards of fifteen several blows, with each of which were intermixed the most piteous groans, and invocations of the name of God. At length, after two strokes given on the breast, his strength and voice failed him. In a faltering dying tone, he was just heard to say, " Cut off my head !" and the executioner still lingering, he himself placed his head on the scaffold: in a word, after four strokes with a hatchet, the head was separated from the body, and the body quartered. Such was the end of the renowned Patkul: and may God have mercy on his soul!” (Hagen, 1761). The distinguishing feature of a breaking wheel is that it had various technical modifications in different countries. For instance, French executors used two beams made of wood and an iron hammer, where the victim’s limbs were placed between the beams and then the executioner broke the limbs using the hammer. The Roman Empire used a regular wheel and a torque to torture the victim. By the way, Romans sentenced to breaking wheel only those prisoners, who committed so-called aggravated murder. It’s a murder which occurred while the criminal was committing a different kind of crime, e.g. the initial aim was robbery, but the criminal had to kill someone who tried to prevent the robbery. 

The fifth and final capital punishment discussed in this paper will concern stoning. As we all know stoning is a form of death penalty, whereas a group of people threw stones at a victim until he or she dies. Stoning is a very old method of execution, even ancient Greece was familiar with it. The most astonishing about this way of execution is that it remains official capital punishment in many eastern countries, such as Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and others. Indonesia Survey Institute has conducted an interview among the citizen and estimated that 43% of people living in Indonesia support stoning as capital punishment. Stoning has mostly religious origins and comes from Islam and Judaism. Most of the cases which lead to stoning occur on sexual betrayal or forbidden by religion sexual relations. If we refer to Jewish Encyclopedia, we’ll find that Mishna highlights the following cases when a person should be sentenced to stoning: a person had relations with his mother, with his father’s wife, with his daughter in law, with a human male, with cattle and so on. (Jewish Encyclopedia). Though different countries sentenced to stoning due to many different reasons, the procedure itself remains unchanged for many centuries.  The number of Asian women and man who were executed with stoning is extremely big and it keeps growing up to date. 

We have slightly discussed just a few methods of the death penalty, but in fact, the number of ways criminal and even innocent people can execute is great. Unfortunately, the death penalty cannot be completed erased from our planet and humanity still continues bloody activity in different parts of the world, but at this point, I would like to admit that things got better in recent times. If we compare most of the modern capital punishment methods with those that were used centuries ago, we’ll see that the death penalty has become less cruel.  It does not mean that the number of crimes has decreased, on the contrary, hundreds of crimes take place every day as the population of today’s world much exceeds the population of Middle Age times, however, severe punishments now happen less often.  I strongly believe that human life is the greatest value; therefore it should be preserved by all branches of power. In case of death penalty is not abolished, it should become more human and should convey judgment but not cruelty. I think that stoning should be abolished, though modern methods of US capital punishment are much more acceptable comparing to those used in the middle east. Once again, the punishment should be based on justice and equality of rights and should not have any intention to shock or scare people.