Apublic execution is a form ofcapital punishment which "members of the general public may voluntarily attend".[1] This definition excludes the presence of only a small number of witnesses called upon to assure executive accountability.[2] The purpose of such displays has historically been to deter individuals from defying laws or authorities. Attendance at such events was historically encouraged and sometimes even mandatory.
Most countries have abolished the death penalty entirely, either in law or in practice.[3] While today most countries regard public executions with distaste, they have been practiced at some point in history nearly everywhere.[4] At many points in the past, public executions were preferred to executions behind closed doors because of their capacity fordeterrence.[5] However, the actual efficacy of this form of terror is disputed.[6] They also allowed the convicted the opportunity to make a final speech, gave the state the chance to display its power in front of those who fell under its jurisdiction, and granted the public what was considered to be a great spectacle.[7] Public executions also permitted the state to project its superiority over political opponents.[7][5] People were publicly executed so that the public could see the consequences of committing a crime.
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People werecrucified in ancientMacedonia,Persia,Jerusalem,Phoenicia,Rome, andCarthage.[8]
Public executions were common in China from at least the Tang Dynasty.[9]
There are reports of public executions in early Islam.[10][where?]
Documented public executions date back to at least thelate medieval period, and peaked in the later sixteenth century.[4] This peak was due in part to thewitch trials of the early modern period. In the late Middle Ages, executioners used increasingly brutal methods designed to inflict pain on the victim while still alive and to generate a spectacle in order to deter others from committing crimes. The cruelty of the mode of execution (including the amount victims were tortured before the actual execution) was also more or less extreme depending on the crime itself.[11] Punishments often invoked the "purifying" powers of earth (burial), water (drowning), and fire (burning alive). Victims were also decapitated, quartered, hanged, and beaten.[12] Bodies or body parts were often displayed in public places and authorities took pains to ensure that remains would stay visible for as long as possible.[13][4]
However, the death penalty was not used in all parts of Europe.Vladimir the Great abolished the death penalty inKievan Rus' following his conversion to Christianity in 988.
During the 1970s, Liberian presidentWilliam Tolbert used public hangings as a deterrent against crime, with sixteen convicted murderers hanged between 1971 and 1979. The public execution of theHarper Seven in 1979 over a series of witchcraft-related ritual murders attracted particular attention.[14]
According toAmnesty International, in 2012 "public executions were known to have been carried out inIran,North Korea,Saudi Arabia andSomalia."[15] Amnesty International does not include Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen in their list of public execution countries, but there have been reports of publicexecutions carried out there by state and non-state actors, such asISIL.[16][17][18]
Kuwait has sometimes executed people in public. The prisoners are taken to the gallows and once a senior police officer gives the signed warrant, the prisoners are hanged.[19]
Public executions were a frequent practice in Saudi Arabia until 2022. Since then, executions in Saudi Arabia have taken place in private.[20]Deera Square was a noteworthy site of public executions in the capitalRiyadh, but since 2019 it has no longer been used as an execution site.[21]
During the seventeenth century, the use of premortem torture decreased; instead bodies were desecrated after death and for display purposes.[4] By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of capital punishments in Western Europe had fallen by about 85% from the previous century as the legal system shifted toward one that consideredhuman rights as well as a more rational approach to criminal justice that centered around identifying the best methods for deterrence.[4][22] However, there were several resurgences throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially during times of social unrest.[4] Executions were condemned by eighteenth-centuryEnlightenment thinkers likeJeremy Bentham andCesare Beccaria.[23] Enlightenment thinkers were not universally opposed to public executions—many anatomists found executions useful because they supplied healthy body parts to study and experiment on.[24] People also found postmortem torture (which was typically part of a public execution) disrespectful to the dead and believed that it could prevent the victim from getting into heaven.[25][4]
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The first modern abolition of capital punishment was in Tuscany in 1786.[citation needed]
In Europe, the 19th and early 20th centuries saw a shift away from the spectacle of public capital punishment and toward private executions and the deprivation of liberty (e.g.incarceration,probation,community service, etc.).[26] This coincided with a general tendency to shield all death from public view.[27]
In France, authorities continued public executions up until 1939.[26] Executions were made private after a secret film of serial killerEugen Weidmann's death by guillotine emerged and scandalized the process. Disturbing reports emerged of spectators soaking up Weidmann's blood in rags for souvenirs, and in response PresidentAlbert Lebrun banned public executions in France for "promoting baser instincts of human nature."[28]
Nazi Germany utilized public execution by hanging, shooting, and decapitation.[29]
In Great Britain, 1801 saw the last public execution atTyburn Hill, after which all executions inYork took place within the walls ofYork Castle (but still publicly) so that "the entrance to the town should not be annoyed by dragging criminals through the streets."[30] In London, those sentenced to death at theOld Bailey would remain atNewgate Prison and wait for their sentences to be carried out in the street. As at Tyburn, the crowds who would come to watch continued to be large and unruly. The last public execution (hanging) in Great Britain was that of Robert Smith in Dumfries in Scotland on 12 May 1868.[31] The last public execution in Ireland was that of John Logue atDownpatrick in 1866.[32][26]
The last public execution in the United States was that ofRainey Bethea in 1936, albeit many have mistakenly thoughtRoscoe Jackson to be the last but Jackson's execution was really semi-public (it took place in a fenced-off space, a ticket or invitation was required, and not everyone could attend; only authorities, invited guests, city notables, and a limited number of people).[26] As in Europe, the practice of execution was moved to the privacy of chambers. Viewing remains available for those related to the person being executed, victims' families, and sometimes reporters.
Frances Larson wrote in her 2014 bookSevered: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found:
"For as long as there were public executions, there were crowds to see them. In London in the early 19th century, there might have been 5,000 to watch a standard hanging, but crowds of up to 100,000 came to see a famous felon killed. The numbers hardly changed over the years. An estimated 20,000 watched Rainey Bethea hang in 1936, in what turned out to be the last public execution in the U.S."[33]
In the US, members of the public can visit the jail where an execution is about to take place.[34]
During the Australian colonial period, public executions continued until the second half of the 19th century, largely coinciding with the end of theconvict era. They were abolished by the colonies ofNew South Wales (including present-dayQueensland),Van Diemen's Land (present-dayTasmania) andVictoria in 1855, bySouth Australia in 1858, and byWestern Australia in 1871.[35] Public executions of Indigenous offenders continued in some jurisdictions in violation of the legislation.[36]
In South Australia and Western Australia, public executions were subsequently reintroduced solely forIndigenous Australian offenders, in 1861 and 1875 respectively, on the basis that they were needed as a deterrent againstfrontier violence against white settlers.[37][38] The last public execution in Western Australia took place in February 1892, where three Indigenous men convicted of murder were hanged at the scene of the crime nearHalls Creek, Western Australia, in front of around 70 witnesses.[39] The legislation allowing for public executions for Indigenous offenders was not formally abolished until 1952 in Western Australia and 1971 in South Australia, although those provisions had been long considered dormant.[40]
Public executions were abolished in New Zealand by theExecutions of Criminals Act 1858, which specified that executions had to be carried out "within the walls or the enclosed yard of some gaol, or within some other enclosed space".[41] The act came into force on 3 June 1858, three months after the country's last public hanging in central Auckland.[42]
In the Australian-administeredTerritory of New Guinea, legally aLeague of Nations mandate after 1920, public executions were used as a "tool of government". In 1933, a district officer reported that two executions inNew Britain had been carried out before crowds of hundreds of people, and that "execution of the murderers on the spot has done much to make these natives fall in with the wishes of the government".[43]
Following theJapanese occupation of New Guinea, 22 New Guinean civilians convicted of collaboration offences – members of theOrokaiva people – were publicly executed by theAustralian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) in 1943 and 1944.[44] The hangings were intended as a deterrent against other prospective collaborationists, with the offenders "hung two at a time from early in the morning until late in the afternoon in front of thousands of local people".[45]