This is a list of methods of capital punishment.
Method | Description | |
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Animals |
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Back-breaking | A Mongolian method of execution that avoided the spilling of blood on the ground (example: the Mongolian leader Jamukha was probably executed this way in 1206). | |
Blowing from a gun | Tied to the mouth of a cannon, which is then fired. | |
Boiling to death | This penalty was 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 a saint who was allegedly sentenced to be executed by this method. | |
Buried alive | Traditional punishment for Vestal virgins who had broken their vows. | |
Burning | Most 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 in torturing captives to death. | |
Cooking | Brazen Bull | |
Crucifixion | Roping or nailing to a wooden cross or similar apparatus (such as a tree) and allowing to perish. | |
Crushing | By a weight, abruptly or as a slow ordeal. | |
Decapitation | Also known as beheading. One of the most famous execution methods is execution by guillotine. | |
Disembowelment | Often employed as a preliminary stage to the actual execution, e.g. by beheading; an integral part of seppuku (harakiri), which was sometimes used as a form of capital punishment. | |
Dismemberment | Being drawn and quartered sometimes resulted in dismemberment. | |
Drawing and quartering | English method of executing those found guilty of high treason. | |
Electrocution | The electric chair. | |
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). | |
Flaying | The skin is removed from the body. | |
Garrote | Used most commonly in Spain and in former Spanish colonies (e.g. the Philippines). | |
Gas | Death by asphyxiation or poison gas in a sealed chamber. | |
Hanging | One of the most common methods of execution, still in use in a number of countries. | |
Immurement | The confinement of a person by walling off any exits; since they were usually kept alive through an opening, this was more a form of imprisonment for life than of capital punishment (example: the countess Elisabeth Báthory, who lived for four more years after having been immured). | |
Impalement | ||
Keelhauling | European maritime punishment. | |
Lethal injection | ||
Pendulum | A type of machine with an axe head for a weight that slices closer to the victim's torso over time. (Of disputed historicity.) | |
Poisoning | Lethal injection is the modern form of poisoning and is used in some countries. | |
Sawing | (Of disputed historicity.) | |
Scaphism | ||
Shooting |
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Slow slicing | ||
Starvation / Dehydration | Immurement | |
Stoning | ||
Strangulation |
Famous quotes containing the words capital punishment, list of, list, methods, capital and/or punishment:
“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)
“I made a list of things I have
to remember and a list
of things I want to forget,
but I see they are the same list.”
—Linda Pastan (b. 1932)
“Weigh what loss your honor may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to sayand to feelYes, thats the way it is, or at least thats the way I feel it. Youre not as alone as you thought.”
—John Steinbeck (19021968)
“Like cellulite creams or hair-loss tonics, capital punishment is one of those panaceas that isnt. Only it costs a whole lot more.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“A poor widow, by the name of Baird, has a son in the Army that for some offence has been sentenced to serve a long time without pay, or at most, with very little pay. I do not like this punishment of withholding payit falls so very hard upon poor families.”
—Abraham Lincoln (18091865)