Capital punishment

From Hobson's Choice

This article is under construction

Usually described as the "ultimate penalty": the putting to death of persons for the alleged commission of a crime. Technically, up until the 1840's in Europe, and much later in other countries, there existed an entire hierarchy of execution methods, with the harshest for the lower classes and the "mildest" for the aristocracy, or for lesser crimes.

1 Context
2 Methods
3 Notes
4 See Also
5 External Links

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Context

Attitudes about crime and punishment have changed considerably over the centuries. Today, most nations under a minimal level of civil order have a criminal justice system with at least a pretense of universal recourse. In theory, at least, anyone who is the victim of a crime has access to some redress under the law. When this theory is not realistic, people develop a contempt for the criminal justice system and regard it as an instrument of class warfare.

In the years before the development of democratic norms, universal recourse to the law not only did not exist, it was not even accepted as an ideal. At that time, it was indeed regarded as an incontrovertible fact that the state was engaged in a sort of feud with the lower classes, and criminal justice did take the form of systematic state terror. The main instrument of this terror was public execution and public maiming of alleged wrong-doers, and the wrong-doers likely to suffer this penalty were those who transgressed against the persons, properties, or interests of the most powerful.^[1] Efforts to combat crimes against commoners were usually spotty and careless, while proceedings on behalf of the powerful were obsessive and all-consuming.

A revolution in method occurred during the French Revolution, when the enormously powerful and influential government of France abolished all forms of execution except beheading, which was soon after performed exclusively with the device known as the "guillotine" (heretofore known as the "the maiden").^[2]

It is doubtful that this single invention really instigated the modern terror, which (in the 1790's) was prosecuted about as much with primitive firing squads as with the guillotine. Indeed, the tradition that persisted was an ugly divide between totalitarian regimes, which relied on industrialized slaughter of "objective enemies," and conservative ones in which executions were largely an index of the victim's status relative to the criminal.

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Methods

Usually it is the Middle Ages in Europe (4th-14th centuries) that are associated with barbarism, but it may come as a surprise for readers to learn that the Early Modern Period was really the one in which state terror flourished. Even burning at the stake was fairly unusual during this period. (Under the Roman Empire, it was much more common).^[3]

Drawing and quartering (actually, "drawing, hanging, and quartering") refers to a peculiarly English form of execution in which a person was "drawn" (i.e., dragged on a wooden frame) to the place of execution, hanged by the neck until nearly dead, cut down, emasculated and disemboweled (i.e., the living person was lain on a table in a spread-eagle position, fastened there; his genitalia was sliced off and burned in front of him; he was then cut open with an incision in the gut, and his organs were removed and also burned). After the person was disemboweled, his head was cut off and his body sliced into quarters, and publicly displayed.

It is rather astonishing that this was in fact a practice; also astonishing is that it was performed in England as late as 1814, after which the victim was hanged until dead and then disemboweled and quartered. In practice, it appears that by the last time this was actually done under law in England as described was 1690, to Thomas Castle , Peter Vallard and Thomas Rogers; in the period that followed, prisoners were either hanged to death, or else partly strangled and then beheaded.^[4] There were a few cases of quartering of dead bodies in Upper Canada (War of 1812), and the practice seems to have survived in England until 1812 (with the posthumous dissection of John Bellingham). The last people sentenced to the full punishment were Edward Marcus Despard, John Francis, John Wood, Thomas Broughton, James Sedgwick Wratton, John Macnamara, and Arthur Graham (all in 1803) for a highly improbable attempt to kidnap George III and overthrow the English government.^[5]

On the continent, the supreme torment was the breaking wheel. This device was a large wheel, and it was applied by crushing the bones in the victim's arms and legs, then winding them around the spokes and raising it on an immense pike; or else, as in the 18th century, the victim was strapped to the wheel and bludgeoned until his limbs were shattered.^[6] Wheeling is almost invariably referred to as a Medieval form of execution, although its usage is scantily documented until the Renaissance. Its use in France ended abruptly in 1788 when a man being executed on the wheel was freed by the bystanders and the wheel broken. It was used in several Northern European countries during the 18th century, and was observed in the terrorization of slaves.

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Notes

↑ For a vivid illustration of this, please see "The Proceedings of the Old Bailey," which allows one to look up detailed accounts of criminal proceedings and punishments by crime, punishment, year (1674-1834), and so on. An example is the crime of "petty treason," which includes the murdering of an employer by his employee or the murder of a husband by his wife. According to legal theory of the day, this subverted the natural hierarchy, so men found guilty were drawn and quartered, while women were burned at the stake. It appears the great majority of those burned at the stake were guilty of coining, or clipping coins.
↑ Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (no "e") was a member of the national assembly who proposed that beheading be the sole method of execution in France; this was an unqualified improvement over the status quo, which included the use of the cruelest techniques ever devised (e.g., the "catherine wheel"). Guillotin did not invent the device that bears his name; it was already in common use in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and was known as "the maiden" (in Scotland) and the "Halifax Gibbet" in England (where the term "gibbet" meant any instrument of capital punishment. See timeline from the Guillotine Headquarters and entry for Dr. Guillotin.
↑ Wikipedia reports (evidently inaccurately) that the Emperor Justinian prescribed execution by burning for heresy. We find in the Pandects of Justinian a decree, "heretics shall not acquire immovable property, under any circumstances, from churches or private individuals, nor erect buildings for the celebration of the rites of their faith" (XIII), among other such decrees. Please note the Pandects were the civil and criminal code of the Byzantine Empire. However, I find that the Roman jurist Julius Paulus (2nd cent. CE) does mention the execution of magicians by burning (XXIII); Ulpianus, On the Duties of Proconsul, Book VII (citation) likewise mentions that some proconsuls (pre-Christian, obviously) burned persons alive for sacrilege.

The above-linked Wikipedia article mentions that the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) affirmed the burning of heretics, although no such mention of burning is mentioned in the "The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215" (there is mention of "exterminating" of heresy, but also elaborate countermeasures that do not specifically mention execution. Likewise, the Synod of Verona mentions "handing heretics over to be punished" by the authorities, but it was actually a concurrent papal bull, not the council itself, that proposed an "episcopal inquisition" for the trying and possible immolation of heretics.
↑ "Punishment summary from The Old Bailey Proceedings," 15th October, 1690
↑ See Newgate Calendar, "Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, John Francis, John Wood, Thomas Broughton, James Sedgwick Wratton, Arthur Graham & John Macnamara." Curiously, little subsequent effort appears to have been made to establish if the charges brought the seven were true. The men were hanged and their bodies beheaded.
↑ George Ryley Scott, History of Torture Throughout the Ages, Kessinger Publishing (2003), p.180