Death Penalty
The Hessian constitution was written in 1946, and Article 21 permitted the use of the death penalty. But all uses of capital punishment in Germany are forbidden by the 1949 Federal Grundgesetz (basic law), which supersedes all state laws such as the Hessian constitution by the principle of "Bundesrecht bricht Landesrecht" ('Federal law breaks state law').
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Famous quotes containing the words death and/or penalty:
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.... Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“So the people will pay the penalty for their kings’ presumption, who, by devising evil, turn justice from her path with tortuous speech.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)