This is a list of methods of capital punishment, also known as execution.
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.
|
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 battered by stones thrown by a group of people with the injuries leading to death. It is legal in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Northern Nigeria, Mauritania, Iran, Yemen, and since 2014, in Brunei. |
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, at times aimed at attempting to deter the commission of offences.
Method | Description |
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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 |
|
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". |
Starvation |
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