This is a list of methods of capital punishment, also known as execution.

Current methods

Method Description
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. Notably used by India, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Iran.
  • In Iran, short-drop hanging is used. This involves pulling a stool out from below the condemned. The drop is too short to cause breakage of the neck, resulting in a slower death from strangulation.
Shooting The other most prevalent method. Can be applied:
Lethal injection First used in the United States in 1982, lethal injection has since been adopted by China, Taiwan, Thailand, Guatemala, and Vietnam.
Nitrogen hypoxia Only ever used by the United States. Only adopted by Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma as a secondary method.
Electrocution Only ever used by the United States and Philippines. Now only legal in Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee as a secondary method.
Gas chamber Only ever used by the United States and Lithuania. Now only legal in Arizona, California, Oklahoma, 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 pummelled by stones thrown by a group of people with the injuries leading to death. It is legal in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Northern Nigeria, Mauritania, Iran, Yemen, and since 2014, in Brunei.

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.

Method Description
Animals
Asphyxia
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 to death 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
  • At the stake. Infamous as a method of execution for heretics and witches. A slower method of applying single pieces of burning wood was used by Native Americans to torture their captives to death.[8]
  • Molten metal. Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pavlo Pavliuk were supposedly killed this way. The execution method is associated with counterfeits (by pouring down the neck) or traitors (by pouring on the head).[9]
  • Brazen bull. The victim was put inside an iron bull statue and then cooked alive after a fire was lit under it (of disputed historicity).
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".
  • Pendulum.[11] A machine with an axe head for a weight that slices closer to the victim's torso over time (of disputed historicity).
Starvation
  • Crucifixion. Roping or nailing to a wooden cross or similar apparatus (such as a tree) and leaving to perish. The crucifixion of Jesus is the most notable instance of this method.
  • Gibbeting. The victim is placed in cage hanging from a gallows-type structure in a public location and left to die to deter other existing or potential criminals.
  • Immurement. The confinement of the victim by walling in. Though this was also used as a form of imprisonment for life, in which case, the victim was usually fed.

See also

References

  1. ^ "North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un's executions: anti-aircraft guns, flamethrowers, mortars". foxnews.com. 22 September 2017.
  2. ^ "North Korean defector reveals horror of Kim Jong-un's teenage sex slaves". independent.co.uk. 21 September 2017.
  3. ^ McKirdy, Euan (February 28, 2017). "N. Korea executed 5 security officials, S. Korea says". cnn.com.
  4. ^ "This Won't Hurt a Bit: A Painlessly Short (and Incomplete) Evolution of Execution". neatorama.com.
  5. ^ Penney, David G. (2000) Carbon Monoxide Toxicity, CRC Press, p. 5, ISBN 0-8493-2065-8.
  6. ^ Saunders, J. J. (1 March 2001). The History of the Mongol Conquests. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 53. ISBN 0812217667 – via Google Books.
  7. ^ The Secret History of the Mongols, book 8, chapter 201.
  8. ^ Frederick Drimmer (ed.) "Captured by the Indians - 15 Firsthand Accounts, 1750-1870", Dover Publications, Mineola, N.Y., 1985.
  9. ^ "Here is what happened during an execution by molten gold | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine".
  10. ^ Xenophon, "Hellenica", book I, chapter VII.
  11. ^ 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.

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