Capital punishment is one of the most controversial and debated topics in modern history, but executions have been a part of most societies from just about the birth of humankind. Here are some of the most interesting, educative and downright horrific facts about execution.
41. Chinese Numbers
China has a dirty secret: their government keeps the number of executions carried out a secret. Amnesty International estimates that they carry out thousands of executions every year, which is more than the rest of the world combined, and it is linked to an incredibly high rate of unfair trials, often without lawyers present. They keep this a state secret as a way to hide the horrifying truth.
40. World Leaders
The top five countries committed to the act of capital punishment are Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Americans may find this surprising, but when you consider the fact that the country has the highest prison population in the world, along with the most people in solitary confinement, as well as the most life sentences in prison, it makes sense.
39. Cost of Death
Modern executions are quite expensive, and it takes its toll on the taxpayer. California alone spends close to $200 million per year on capital punishment.
38. Biblical Proportions
In Saudi Arabia, a man is set to be executed by a method which many may find quite archaic: crucifixion. Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr was 17 years old when he was arrested for protesting during the Arab Spring, and was convicted after being forced into a confession during torture. Crucifixion isn’t all though, as the actual sentencing calls for a beheading to be carried out first.
37. Racial Bias
In the United States, 96% of the states display a pattern of racial discrimination in regards to the sentencing of the death penalty. A black defendant is three times more likely to receive the death penalty than a white defendant in many states. Also, in many states, a defendant is also three times more likely to be sentenced to death if the victim was white.
36. Skewed Executions
While only making up 13% of the population in the country, black inmates account for 42% of death row inmates.
35. State by State
The number of death row inmates in 2017 in the United States was 2,817. California had the most prisoners, with 746, while Delaware had a total of 0. No other state was even close to California, as Florida was in second with 374.
34. Regional Executions
Though California has the highest number of inmates on death row, they do not execute the most people. Since 1976, the Southern part of the United States has executed 1,198 people, accounting for over 80% of the countries executions, while Texas and Oklahoma combined have executed a whopping 660 as of July 1, 2017.
33. Counter Productive Executions
Though the South is responsible for the highest rate of executions in the United States, it hasn’t helped their crime rate. In fact, the region has the highest murder rate in the country, at 6.5 per 100,000 people (2016). The Northeast has the lowest rate of executions, with only 4 since 1976, and while also boasting the lowest rate of murder, at 3.5 per 100,000 (2016).
32. Wrong Country
There are 139 foreign citizens living their lives on death row in the United States. Of those 139, 91 of them come from countries which have abolished the death penalty.
31. Women’s Row
As of July 1, 2017, there were 53 women on death row, which accounts for less than 2% of the population of inmates, while “only” 16 women have been executed since 1976.
30. Retroactive Executions
Just because a state has abolished the death penalty doesn’t mean that they don’t still execute people. New Mexico has legally banned capital punishment, however, there are still 2 prisoners retroactively on death row, awaiting lethal injection.
29. Industrialized Executions
Of all of the Industrialized countries in the world, only four still retain capital punishment: the US, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. The European Union holds positions strongly against it, with only Belarus actively executing people on the continent.
28. In the 21st Century
In South America and Oceania, no execution has been conducted in the 21st century, while in Russia, the last execution to take place on their territory was in 1999, in Chechnya. The last execution to take place in the Americas outside of the United States was in Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2008.
27. No Mas
The first country in the world to abolish the death penalty was Venezuela in 1863. The latest country was Mongolia in 2017.
26. World’s Percentage
In 2016, only four countries made up 87% of the executions worldwide: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan.
25. The Innocence Project
In the United States, there have been 153 people exonerated since 1976, taking on average 11 years for them to receive their freedom after being falsely imprisoned. False testimony by an informant is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, and many people are aware that executions have been carried out although people were likely innocent.
24. Brazen Bull
In ancient Greece, a form of execution called the “brazen bull” was invented by Perillos of Athens and carried out by Phalaris, who was the tyrant of Sicily at the time. The device was a bronze cast replica of a bull, and prisoners would be locked inside of the body while a fire roasted the bull’s belly. The mouth of the bull was then left open, this way onlookers to enjoy the screams of the person inside acoustically mimicking that of the real-life animal.
23. Reconsider The Lobster
Cooking people alive sounds barbaric, but it hasn’t fully disappeared from the globe. It has been reported that the dictatorship regime of Uzbekistan, known for routinely violating human rights, still executes people by boiling them alive.
22. Torturing Wallace
The film Braveheart made the execution of William Wallace one of the most famous executions in history, but while the film itself was highly fictionalized, his execution was toned down due to its violent nature. When captured, he had his guts ripped out and lit on fire in front of his eyes, before each of his limbs was hacked off, including his genitals. This was all done while he was still breathing, and it wasn’t until he was chopped up that he was finally put out of his misery.
21. Mobile Capital Punishment
Not only does China keep their executions a secret, but they have mobilized them. Vans carrying an executioner and lethal injections have begun roaming around rural areas to carry out some of their many executions.
20. Reciprocation of Crime
You learned the Code of Hammurabi in social studies growing up, so you know about an “an eye for an eye,” but strangely enough murder wasn’t one of the 25 offenses which were punishable by death in Babylonia. You better not have let your slave escape though, as for that you could get yourself on killed by the law.
19. Still, Chopping Heads Off
France did not do away with the death penalty until 1981, which means that the guillotine was not only still in use until recently, but it remained the country’s standard method of judicial execution for centuries. The last beheading by guillotine in the country which made it famous was in 1977 when Hamida Djandoubi was beheaded for the kidnap and murder of his ex-girlfriend.
18. Heavy Hanging
After shooting two bank tellers dead during a bank robbery, Mitchell Rupe was sentenced to the death penalty by hanging. The only issue was that Rupe was over 400 pounds. He argued that this sentence was a form of cruel and unusual punishment, as he was too heavy to be hung properly. After many court preceding, he was finally spared and given life in prison. He died in 2006 from liver disease. Yes, this happened that recently.
17. Last Time To Dine
Last meals are often romanticized, however, if you’re a prisoner in the United States, you have a limit of only $40. This is set in place to prevent the ordering of grand meals, but it doesn’t seem like the inmates would even want something too expensive, as the most common meal is a cheeseburger and fries.
16. Cats Own You
Prisoners are surprisingly sometimes allowed a pet cat in the United States. However, anyone that’s ever had a cat knows that they are not your pet, but rather you are theirs.
15. Kids
Amazingly, juveniles weren’t spared from being sentenced to death in the United States until 2005. The last minor to be murdered judicially was Leonard Shockley, in 1959 at the age of 17, by gas chamber. The last person to be put to death for a crime committed while they were a minor was Scott Allen Hain in 2003, after 15 years on death row, when he was 32-years-old.
14. Botched Job
In 1983, Jimmy Lee Gray was executed in a gas chamber for his murder of a 3-year-old girl. He has committed this atrocity while out on parole for the murder of a 16-year-old girl. When it was time for the execution to take place, the executioner was drunk and botched the killing, which went on before eight minutes before officials cleared the viewing room while he was banging his head against a metal pole.
13. Watching the Guillotine
Performing an execution by guillotine was a major event in France, and during the Reign of Terror, thousands would come out to watch the executions. Much like modern sporting events, there was a culture around it and a fandom developed. You could even buy novelty guillotines to display at home and toy ones for your children to play with.
12. Not In My Name
Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin developed the machine in order to create a more efficient way to execute people, however, he was opposed to capital punishment in general. When the machine took off in popularity, it took on his name. This horrified the doctor, and he and his family petitioned to have the name changed for years, but to no avail.
11. Family Business
What the Manning family is to the National Football League, the Sanson family was to the guillotine in France. From 1684 to 1847, the business of dropping the blade was done by one family: the Sansons. The most famous of all was Charles-Henri Sanson, who was the royal executioner and then High Executioner for 40 years. Serving for King Louis XVI, he eventually was responsible for the death of the King himself. That execution didn’t go so smoothly, and repeated dropping of the blades was necessary before Louis was dead. All in all, he executed over 3,000 people during his career.
10. Apple Doesn’t Fall Far
Just two years later it was Charles-Henri’s son Henri’s turn to kill a royal family member, Marie Antoinette. Henri would go on to perform executions on revolutionaries through his career, including Robespierre and Saint-Just.
9. Many Met The Blade
During the French Revolution alone, over 40,000 people were killed with the guillotine. It is difficult to estimate the total number of people killed by the famous device, but it is easily in the hundreds of thousands.
8. First Chair
The first person executed by use of the electric chair was William Kemmler of New York in 1890. The electric chair had spent nine years in development by the dentist Alfred Southwick, but it wasn’t perfected. After 17 seconds at 1,000 volts, Kemmler was still alive, and he had to endure another 2,000 volts, which led to the bursting of his blood vessels and singing on flesh. It took eight minutes for the deed to be done. That wouldn’t stop the chair from use in the future, though, as it was used as recently as 2013 in the United States.
7. Thousand Days of Anne
One of the most famous executions in history was that of Anne Boleyn. The Queen of England. After three failed pregnancies and only one daughter—who turned out to be the game-changing Elizabeth I—Henry VIII was on to the next one. So how did he get her arrested? Well, she was tried for treason, incest, and adultery on the fabricated grounds that she had sexual affairs with five different men, including her brother, and planned to murder the king in order to wed Sir Henry Norris.
6. What a Guy
Anne Boleyn was the first queen to be publicly executed, and in fact, her own uncle was on the jury that sentenced her to her death. Henry may have been ruthless when it came to women, but he did step in at the last minute to with the tiniest act of mercy possible when he changed the mode of execution from being chopped with an axe to a sword, at the hand of an expert. Good job, Henry.
5. Killing King
Henry VIII didn’t just have his wives executed, no no. Over his reign, he had roughly 72,000 people put to death.
4. Many Ways To Die
You didn’t want to commit a crime in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. By 1810, there were 222 crimes punishable by death, including sodomy, disguising yourself while committing another crime, and cutting down an orchard, because their cider is important, dammit.
3. Only KingIlfoglio
Charles, I was the only king in English history to be executed, and the parliament went through hoops to get it done. After the Second English Civil War, which he helped plot while in prison, the Chief Justices of Courts ruled that his detainment due to the claim of treason was unlawful. In response, the Rump Parliament made a bill specifically for Charles I, where they had a separate court created to try him while declaring that this bill did not need royal authority to be passed.
2. How Many Slices Does It Take
For over 1,000 years, the Chinese practices a form of execution called Ling Chi, which is slow slicing, or death by a thousand cuts. I don’t think that one needs to be explained too much. This execution was carried out from the year 900—during the Tang era—all the way up until 1905, meaning there are indeed pictures of it.
1. First Athenian Constitution
The term draconian comes from the Greek legislator Draco, who was the first recorded legislator in Athenian history. He created a written code which was to only be enforced by a court, and his laws were extremely harsh—hence the term draconian coming to mean unforgiving legislation in Western culture. How harsh were they? Well, if you ever happen to get to use a time machine to go back, don’t steal a cabbage. You won’t like what happens to you.
Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22