This is a list of methods of capital punishment, also known as execution.
Current methods
Method | Description |
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Hanging | One of the two most prevalent methods, in use in most countries still retaining capital punishment, usually with a calculated drop to cause neck fracture and instant loss of consciousness. Used by Afghanistan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Gaza Strip, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Singapore, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria.
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Shooting | The other most prevalent method. Can be applied:
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Lethal injection | First used in the United States in 1982, lethal injection has since been adopted by China, Guatemala, Maldives, Nigeria, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. |
Electrocution | Only ever used by the United States and Philippines. Only South Carolina has it as the primary method. Now only legal in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee as a secondary method. |
Gas chamber (including nitrogen hypoxia) | Only ever used by the United States and Lithuania. First used in the United States in 2024, nitrogen hypoxia has since been adopted by Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma as a secondary method. The gas chamber in general is legal in Arizona, California, Missouri, and Wyoming as a secondary method. |
Decapitation | Used at various points in history in many countries. One of the most famous methods was the guillotine. Now only used in Saudi Arabia with a sword. |
Stoning | The victim is battered by stones thrown by a group of people, with the injuries leading to death. It is legal in Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. |
Former methods
Many of the former methods combine execution with torture, often intending to make a spectacle of pain and suffering with overtones of sadism, cruelty, intimidation, and dehumanisation, at times aimed at attempting to deter the commission of offences.
Method | Description |
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Animals |
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Asphyxia |
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Back-breaking | A Mongolian method of execution that avoided the spilling of blood on the ground[6] (example: the Mongolian leader Jamukha was probably executed this way in 1206).[7] |
Blowing from a gun | Tying to the mouth of a cannon, which is then fired. |
Blood eagle | Cutting the skin of the victim by the spine, breaking the ribs so they resembled blood-stained wings, and pulling the lungs out through the wounds in the victim's back. Possibly used by the Vikings (of disputed historicity). |
Boiling | Carried out using a large cauldron filled with water, oil, tar, tallow, or even molten lead. |
Breaking wheel | Also known as the Catherine wheel, after Catherine of Alexandria who was executed by this method. |
Burning |
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Crushing | By a weight, abruptly or as a slow ordeal. Giles Corey and John Darren Caymo were killed this way. |
Disembowelment | Often employed as a supplementary part of the execution, e.g., with drawing in hanging, drawing, and quartering. |
Dismemberment | Used as punishment for high treason in the Ancien régime; also used by several others countries at various points in history. |
Drowning | Execution by drowning is attested very early in history, by a large variety of cultures, and as the method of execution for many different offences. |
Drawing and quartering | English method of execution for high treason. |
Falling | The victim is thrown off a height or into a hollow (example: the Barathron in Athens, into which the Athenian generals condemned for their part in the battle of Arginusae were cast).[10] In Argentina during the Dirty War, those secretly abducted were later drugged and thrown from an airplane into the ocean. |
Flaying | The removal of the entire skin. |
Impalement | The penetration of the body by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by complete or partial perforation of the torso. |
Keelhauling | European maritime punishment of dragging the victim against the barnacles on a ship. (Not usually intended to be lethal.) |
Poisoning | Before modern times, sayak (사약, 賜藥) was the method used for nobles (yangban) and royals during the Joseon Dynasty in Korea due to the Confucianist belief that one may kill a seonbi but may not insult him (사가살불가욕, 士可殺不可辱). Poisoning by drinking an infusion of hemlock was used as a method of execution in Ancient Greece (e.g., the death of Socrates). |
Sawing | Practiced by sawing or cutting a victim in half, either sagittally (usually midsagittally), or transversely. |
Scaphism | An Ancient Persian method of execution in which the condemned was placed in between two boats, force-fed a mixture of milk and honey, and left floating in a stagnant pond. The victim would then suffer from severe diarrhoea, which would attract insects that would burrow and nest in the victim, eventually causing death from sepsis. Of disputed historicity. |
Slow slicing | The methodical removal of portions of the body over an extended period of time, usually with a knife, eventually resulting in death. Sometimes known as "death by a thousand cuts". |
Starvation |
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See also
References
- ^ "North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un's executions: anti-aircraft guns, flamethrowers, mortars". foxnews.com. 22 September 2017.
- ^ "North Korean defector reveals horror of Kim Jong-un's teenage sex slaves". independent.co.uk. 21 September 2017.
- ^ McKirdy, Euan (February 28, 2017). "N. Korea executed 5 security officials, S. Korea says". cnn.com.
- ^ "This Won't Hurt a Bit: A Painlessly Short (and Incomplete) Evolution of Execution". neatorama.com.
- ^ Penney, David G. (2000) Carbon Monoxide Toxicity, CRC Press, p. 5, ISBN 0-8493-2065-8.
- ^ Saunders, J. J. (1 March 2001). The History of the Mongol Conquests. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 53. ISBN 0812217667 – via Google Books.
- ^ The Secret History of the Mongols, book 8, chapter 201.
- ^ Frederick Drimmer (ed.) "Captured by the Indians - 15 Firsthand Accounts, 1750-1870", Dover Publications, Mineola, N.Y., 1985.
- ^ "Here is what happened during an execution by molten gold | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine".
- ^ Xenophon, "Hellenica", book I, chapter VII.
- ^ R.D. Melville (1905), "The Use and Forms of Judicial Torture in England and Scotland," The Scottish Historical Review, vol. 2, p. 228; Geoffrey Abbott (2006) Execution: the guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death, MacMillan, ISBN 0-312-35222-0, p. 213. Both of these refer to the use of the pendulum (pendola) by inquisitorial tribunals. Melville, however, refers only to its use as a torture method, while Abbott suggests that the device was purposely allowed to kill the victim if he refused to confess.
External links
- Death Penalty Worldwide: Archived 2013-11-13 at the Wayback Machine Academic research database on the laws, practice, and statistics of capital punishment for every death penalty country in the world.
- Smile of death: China History Punishment