public execution

File:Brooklyn Museum - The Death of Jesus (La mort de Jésus) - James Tissot.jpg, as depicted by James Tissot]]

People were crucified in ancient Macedonia, Persia, Jerusalem, Phoenicia, Rome, and Carthage.{{Cite journal |last=Plutarch |date=1916 |title=Lives. Fabius Maximus |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4159/dlcl.plutarch-lives_fabius_maximus.1916 |access-date=2022-09-19 |website=Digital Loeb Classical Library|doi=10.4159/dlcl.plutarch-lives_fabius_maximus.1916 |url-access=subscription }}

Public executions were common in China from at least the Tang Dynasty.{{Cite book |author=Benn, Charles D. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/845680499 |title=China's golden age everyday life in the Tang dynasty |year=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-517665-0 |oclc=845680499}}

There are reports of public executions in early Islam.{{Cite web |title=Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica |url=https://iranicaonline.org/ |access-date=2022-09-19 |website=iranicaonline.org |language=en-US}}{{where|date=September 2024}}

Documented public executions date back to at least the late medieval period, and peaked in the later sixteenth century. This peak was due in part to the witch trials of the early modern period. In the late Middle Ages, executioners used increasingly brutal methods designed to inflict pain on the victim while still alive and to generate a spectacle in order to deter others from committing crimes. The cruelty of the mode of execution (including the amount victims were tortured before the actual execution) was also more or less extreme depending on the crime itself.{{Cite book |last=Royer |first=Katherine |date=2015-10-06 |title=The English Execution Narrative, 1200–1700 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315654676 |doi=10.4324/9781315654676|isbn=9781317319788 }} Punishments often invoked the "purifying" powers of earth (burial), water (drowning), and fire (burning alive). Victims were also decapitated, quartered, hanged, and beaten.{{Cite book |last=van. |first=Dülmen, Richard |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/229423501 |title=Theatre of horror : crime and punishment in early modern Germany |date=1991 |publisher=Basil Blackwell |isbn=0-7456-0616-4 |oclc=229423501}} Bodies or body parts were often displayed in public places and authorities took pains to ensure that remains would stay visible for as long as possible.{{Cite journal |last1=Ruff |first1=Julius R. |last2=Spierenburg |first2=Pieter |date=June 1986 |title=The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression; From a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1869169 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=91 |issue=3 |pages=652 |doi=10.2307/1869169 |jstor=1869169 |issn=0002-8762|url-access=subscription }}

However, the death penalty was not used in all parts of Europe. Vladimir the Great abolished the death penalty in Kievan Rus' following his conversion to Christianity in 988.

File:ASC Leiden - F. van der Kraaij Collection - The Hanging of the Harper Seven, Liberia - 16 February 1979 - 03.jpg in Liberia in 1979]]

During the 1970s, Liberian president William Tolbert used public hangings as a deterrent against crime, with sixteen convicted murderers hanged between 1971 and 1979. The public execution of the Harper Seven in 1979 over a series of witchcraft-related ritual murders attracted particular attention.{{cite news|url=https://liberiapastandpresent.org/MarylandRitualMurders10.htm|title=The Maryland Ritual Murders: After the Hanging|publisher=Liberia Past and Present|first=Fred|last=van der Kraaij|access-date=29 September 2024}}

According to Amnesty International, in 2012 "public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia."{{cite news |last1=Rogers |first1=Simon |last2=Chalabi |first2=Mona |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/death-penalty-countries-world |title=Death penalty statistics, country by country |work=The Guardian |date=2013-12-13 |access-date=2015-12-13 }} Amnesty International does not include Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen in their list of public execution countries, but there have been reports of public executions carried out there by state and non-state actors, such as ISIL.{{cite web|url=https://www.foxnews.com/world/isis-extremist-reportedly-kills-his-mother-in-public-execution-in-syria/ |title=ISIS extremist reportedly kills his mother in public execution in Syria |publisher=Fox News |date=2016-01-08 |access-date=2016-05-30}}{{cite news |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts/index.html |title=ISIS Fast Facts |date=3 September 2018 |access-date=9 October 2018 |work=Cable News Network |publisher=Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.}}{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/08/world/asia/afghanistan-public-execution/ |title=Video: Taliban shoot woman 9 times in public execution as men cheer |publisher=CNN |date=2012-07-09 |access-date=2016-05-30}}

{{main|Public executions in Iran}}

File:Public execution of a convicted to murder, Tehran - 13 February 2013 14.jpg]]

Kuwait has sometimes executed people in public. The prisoners are taken to the gallows and once a senior police officer gives the signed warrant, the prisoners are hanged.{{cite web | url=https://www.arabianbusiness.com/gallery/kuwait-executes-three-for-murder-warning-graphic-images-496354 | title=Kuwait executes three for murder (WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES) | date=2 April 2013 | access-date=2024-02-08}}

Public executions were a frequent practice in Saudi Arabia until 2022; since then, executions in Saudi Arabia take place in private.{{Cite news |last=Hawley |first=Caroline |date=2023-01-31 |title=Secretive Saudi executions leave families in the dark |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-64338876 |access-date=2025-03-23 |language=en-GB}} Deera Square was formerly a noteworthy site of public executions in the capital Riyadh, but since 2019 it has been discontinued as an execution site.{{Cite news |last=Kalin |first=Stephen |date=December 9, 2019 |title=Amid flurry of Saudi reforms, mocktails on order in execution square |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/world/amid-flurry-of-saudi-reforms-mocktails-on-order-in-execution-square-idUSKBN1YD11G/ |access-date=2025-03-24 |work=Reuters}}

{{main|Public executions in North Korea}}

During the seventeenth century, the use of premortem torture decreased; instead bodies were desecrated after death and for display purposes. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of capital punishments in Western Europe had fallen by about 85% from the previous century as the legal system shifted toward one that considered human rights as well as a more rational approach to criminal justice that centered around identifying the best methods for deterrence.{{Cite journal |last=Maestro |first=Marcello |date=1973 |title=A Pioneer for the Abolition of Capital Punishment: Cesare Beccaria |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2708966 |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=463–468 |doi=10.2307/2708966 |jstor=2708966 |issn=0022-5037|url-access=subscription }} However, there were several resurgences throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially during times of social unrest. Executions were condemned by eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria.{{Cite journal |last=Bedau |first=Hugo |date=1983-01-01 |title=Bentham's Utilitarian Critique of the Death Penalty |url=https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol74/iss3/12 |journal=Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=1033–1065|doi=10.2307/1143143 |jstor=1143143 |url-access=subscription }} Enlightenment thinkers were not universally opposed to public executions—many anatomists found executions useful because they supplied healthy body parts to study and experiment on.{{Cite journal |last1=Marland |first1=Hilary |last2=Richardson |first2=Ruth |date=February 1990 |title=Death, Dissection, and the Destitute. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2163011 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=95 |issue=1 |pages=119–120 |doi=10.2307/2163011 |jstor=2163011 |pmc=5379396 |issn=0002-8762}} People also found postmortem torture (which was typically part of a public execution) disrespectful to the dead and believed that it could prevent the victim from getting into heaven.{{Cite book |last=BANNER |first=STUART |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjght8w |title=The Death Penalty |date=2009-06-30 |publisher=Harvard University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctvjght8w |isbn=978-0-674-02051-1}}

File:1879-01-18, Le Monde illustré, Une exécution en Espagne, Le supplice du garrot, Exécution de Oliva Moncasi, au Campo de Guardia, le 4 janvier, Vierge (cropped).jpg of 23-year-old {{interlanguage link|Juan Oliva Moncusí|es}}, on 4 January 1879 at the Campo de Guardias in Madrid, for having {{interlanguage link|Atentados contra Alfonso XII|es|lt=attempted to assassinate}} the King of Spain Alfonso XII. ]]

The first modern abolition of capital punishment was in Tuscany in 1786.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

In Europe, the 19th and early 20th centuries saw a shift away from the spectacle of public capital punishment and toward private executions and the deprivation of liberty (e.g. incarceration, probation, community service, etc.).{{cite book |author=William J. Chambliss |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NMF1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 |title=Corrections |publisher=SAGE Publications |year=2011 |isbn=978-1452266435 |pages=4–5}} This coincided with a general tendency to shield all death from public view.{{Cite book |last=Chambliss |first=William J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NMF1AwAAQBAJ |title=Corrections |date=2011-05-03 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-1-4522-6643-5 |language=en}}

In France, authorities continued public executions up until 1939. Executions were made private after a secret film of serial killer Eugen Weidmann's death by guillotine emerged and scandalized the process. Disturbing reports emerged of spectators soaking up Weidmann's blood in rags for souvenirs, and in response President Albert Lebrun banned public executions in France for "promoting baser instincts of human nature."{{Cite book |last1=Steiker |first1=Carol S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=owzADwAAQBAJ&q=Eugen+weidmann+French+capital+punishment&pg=PA167 |title=Comparative Capital Punishment |last2=Steiker |first2=Jordan M. |date=2019 |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing |isbn=978-1-78643-325-1 |pages=167 |language=en}}

Nazi Germany utilized public execution by hanging, shooting, and decapitation.{{Cite book |last=Dandō |first=Shigemitsu |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gN0QgcW4Td0C&pg=PA289 |title=The Criminal Law of Japan: The General Part |date=1997 |publisher=F.B. Rothman |isbn=978-0-8377-0653-5 |language=en}}

In Great Britain, 1801 saw the last public execution at Tyburn Hill, after which all executions in York took place within the walls of York Castle (but still publicly) so that "the entrance to the town should not be annoyed by dragging criminals through the streets."{{Cite web |title=Executions in York: History of York |url=http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/executions-in-york |access-date=2020-04-13 |website=www.historyofyork.org.uk}} In London, those sentenced to death at the Old Bailey would remain at Newgate Prison and wait for their sentences to be carried out in the street. As at Tyburn, the crowds who would come to watch continued to be large and unruly. The last public execution in Great Britain occurred in 1868, after which capital punishment was carried out in the privacy of prisons. The last public execution (Hanging) in Scotland was that of Robert Smith in Dumfries in 1868.{{cite web |title=Scotlands Last execution |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-43966378 |website=BBC News}}

The last public execution in the United States occurred in 1936. As in Europe, the practice of execution was moved to the privacy of chambers. Viewing remains available for those related to the person being executed, victims' families, and sometimes reporters.

Frances Larson wrote in her 2014 book Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found:

"For as long as there were public executions, there were crowds to see them. In London in the early 19th century, there might have been 5,000 to watch a standard hanging, but crowds of up to 100,000 came to see a famous felon killed. The numbers hardly changed over the years. An estimated 20,000 watched Rainey Bethea hang in 1936, in what turned out to be the last public execution in the U.S."{{Cite news |last=Larson |first=Frances |date=November 2014 |title=Very Short Book Excerpt: The Allure of Execution |page=27 |work=The Atlantic |type=This passage was adapted from the book 'Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found.'}}

In the US, members of the public can visit the jail where an execution is about to take place.{{Cite web |last=Cameron |first=Claire |date=2020-12-12 |title='There's nothing to prepare you': what it's like to witness an execution |url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/death-penalty-us-executions-witness-statements |access-date=2022-12-02 |website=the Guardian |language=en}}

File:CrowdKnatchbullExecution1844.jpg in Sydney in 1844]]

During the Australian colonial period, public executions continued until the second half of the 19th century, largely coinciding with the end of the convict era. They were abolished by the colonies of New South Wales (including present-day Queensland), Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) and Victoria in 1855, by South Australia in 1858, and by Western Australia in 1871.{{cite thesis|url=https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/132169/1/Anderson2016_PhD.pdf|title=Death of a Spectacle: The Transition from Public to Private Executions in Colonial Australia|first=Steven|last=Anderson|year=2016|type=Ph.D. thesis|publisher=University of Adelaide|page=5}} Public executions of Indigenous offenders continued in some jurisdictions in violation of the legislation.{{Cite web|last=Lennan and Williams|date=2012|title=The Death Penalty in Australian Law|url=http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SydLawRw/2012/31.pdf|url-status=live|website=Australasian Legal Information Institute|publisher=Sydney Law Review|page=665|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191116021215/http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/SydLawRw/2012/31.pdf |archive-date=16 November 2019 }}

In South Australia and Western Australia, public executions were subsequently reintroduced solely for Indigenous Australian offenders, in 1861 and 1875 respectively, on the basis that they were needed as a deterrent against frontier violence against white settlers.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|p=106}}{{sfn|Anderson|2016|pp=113-114}} The last public execution in Western Australia took place in February 1892, where three Indigenous men convicted of murder were hanged at the scene of the crime near Halls Creek, Western Australia, in front of around 70 witnesses.{{sfn|Anderson|2017|p=117}} The legislation allowing for public executions for Indigenous offenders was not formally abolished until 1952 in Western Australia and 1971 in South Australia, although those provisions had been long considered dormant.{{sfn|Anderson|2016|p=118}}

Public executions were abolished in New Zealand by the Executions of Criminals Act 1858, which specified that executions had to be carried out "within the walls or the enclosed yard of some gaol, or within some other enclosed space".{{Cite web|title=Execution of Criminals Act 1858 (21 and 22 Victoriae 1858 No 10)|url=http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/eoca185821a22v1858n10372/|url-status=live|website=New Zealand Legal Information Institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121006140551/http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/eoca185821a22v1858n10372/ |archive-date=6 October 2012 }} The act came into force on 3 June 1858, three months after the country's last public hanging in central Auckland.{{Cite book|last=Derby|first=Mark|title=Rock College: An unofficial history of Mount Eden Prison|publisher=Massey University Press|year=2020|isbn=978-0-9951318-5-9}}

In the Australian-administered Territory of New Guinea, legally a League of Nations mandate after 1920, public executions were used as a "tool of government". In 1933, a district officer reported that two executions in New Britain had been carried out before crowds of hundreds of people, and that "execution of the murderers on the spot has done much to make these natives fall in with the wishes of the government".{{cite journal |first=Mark |last=Finnane |title='Upholding the Cause of Civilization': The Australian Death Penalty in War and Colonialism |doi=10.5204/ijcjsd.2473 |journal=International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy |year=2022 |volume=11 |number=3 |page=26|hdl=10072/418380 |hdl-access=free }}

Following the Japanese occupation of New Guinea, 22 New Guinean civilians convicted of collaboration offences – members of the Orokaiva people – were publicly executed by the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) in 1943 and 1944.{{sfn|Finnane|2022|p=27}} The hangings were intended as a deterrent against other prospective collaborationists, with the offenders "hung two at a time from early in the morning until late in the afternoon in front of thousands of local people".{{Cite book|title=Roars from the Mountain: Colonial Management of the 1951 Volcanic Disaster at Mount Lamington|last=Johnson|first=R. Wally|publisher=ANU Press|year=2020|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv103xdsm|editor-mask=|series=Pacific Series|jstor=j.ctv103xdsm|isbn=9781760463557|page=58}}

• Public executions in Iran
• Public executions in North Korea

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Category:Capital punishment

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