132 articles
Capital punishment in the United States
Capital punishment in the United States, also called the death penalty, is legal in 27 states, the federal government, and the military, with executions resumed since 1977.
Carl Gröpler
Carl Gröpler (Franz Friedrich Carl Gröpler) was a German executioner who served about 30 years, carried out roughly 130 executions, and beheaded Peter Kürten, the "Vampire of Düsseldorf", in 1931.
Catholic Church and capital punishment
Catholic Church and capital punishment: the Church moved from historical acceptance of executions to the 2018 Catechism revision (CCC 2267) declaring the death penalty inadmissible and working for worldwide abolition.
Charles-Henri Sanson
Charles-Henri Sanson (1739-1806), "Sanson le Grand", royal executioner of Paris under Louis XV and Louis XVI, from the hereditary Sanson dynasty begun 1688; executed 2,918 people including Louis XVI, resigned 1795.
Crucifixion
Crucifixion: ancient execution by nailing or binding a victim to a stake or cross, used by Persians, Carthaginians, and Romans; death by asphyxia and shock over hours to days; abolished by Constantine after CE 314.
Crushing (execution)
Crushing (execution), or pressing to death, is a capital punishment in English law. It involved placing weights on the body of a felon who refused to plead.
Curtis Flowers
Curtis Flowers, also known as Curtis Giovanni Flowers, is an American man tried six times for the 1996 murders of four Tardy Furniture employees in Winona, Mississippi.
Damnatio ad bestias
Damnatio ad bestias, Roman capital punishment by wild animals in the amphitheater, also called condemnation to the beasts. Applied to coiners, murderers, traitors, and Christians; not open to pardon; evidenced by York lion-bite skeleton and Perge terracottas.
Darlie Routier
Darlie Routier, Texas woman convicted in 1997 of capital murder and sentenced to death for the 1996 stabbing of her sons Devon and Damon in Rowlett; claims an intruder; ongoing DNA testing litigation.
Death by boiling
Death by boiling: execution by immersion in boiling water or oil. Known chiefly from Henry VIII's 1531 Acte for Poysoning; victims included Richard Roose and Margaret Davy at Smithfield; repealed 1547.
Death by burning
Death by burning, or burning at the stake, is an execution method historically used for heresy, witchcraft, and treason, codified in laws such as the 1530 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina and now banned under international human rights law.
Death by sawing
Death by sawing: a historical execution method in which a condemned person was cut in half with a saw, often suspended upside down; reported from antiquity and medieval Europe, declined with Enlightenment reforms.
Death row
Death row is the prison section holding people sentenced to death pending appeals or execution. About 25,508 people were under death sentence worldwide at end of 2025; housing varies from solitary confinement to shared units.
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body, killing by severing the spinal cord and the brain's blood supply; it remains a judicial execution method in Saudi Arabia.
Dismemberment
Dismemberment (lingchi, 凌遲) is the judicial cutting apart of the body, used historically as an execution method, a treason punishment, and a posthumous sanction; Qing China recorded about 1,140 lingchi executions before its 1905 abolition.
Electric chair
The electric chair is a U.S. execution device passing lethal current through electrodes on the body, first used on William Kemmler in New York in 1890; now authorized in nine states, rarely used, last in Tennessee in 2020.
Electrocution
Electrocution by electric chair: a US execution method proposed in 1881 by dentist Albert Southwick, first used on William Kemmler in 1890, dominant for nearly a century, now a backup method in nine states.
Eugen Weidmann
Eugen Weidmann (1908–1939), German-born criminal who killed six people near Paris in 1937 with accomplices including Roger Million; guillotined at Versailles 17 June 1939, the last public execution in France.
Execution by elephant
Execution by elephant: capital punishment by trained elephants crushing or dismembering the condemned, used across South and Southeast Asia for millennia, notably under the Delhi Sultanate and Mughals, and echoed in American circus elephant executions such as Topsy's 1903 electrocution.
Execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad: simultaneous rifle volley aimed at the heart; rare in the US (six since 1977), legal in five states, now Idaho's primary method and a federal option.
Execution by shooting
Execution by shooting, usually by firing squad, kills a condemned person with simultaneous rifle fire aimed at the heart. Five US states authorize it, Idaho made it primary in 2026, and the Army scheduled Nidal Hasan's December 2026 firing-squad execution.
Execution chamber
Execution chamber: the secure prison room where judicial executions are carried out, housing the gurney, electric chair, gas chamber, or firing-squad chair, plus a witness room. Key facts: first electrocution of Kemmler in 1890, lethal injection dominant since 1982, nitrogen hypoxia first used in Alabama in 2024.
Execution of Alan Eugene Miller
Alan Eugene Miller (born 1965) was executed by nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama on September 26, 2024, the second such U.S. execution and 1600th since 1976, after a botched 2022 lethal injection and settled litigation over the method.
Execution of Clayton Lockett
The April 29, 2014 botched Oklahoma lethal injection of Clayton Lockett, convicted of the 1999 murder of Stephanie Neiman: failed IV placement, midazolam protocol, 43-minute death, state investigation, and Glossip v. Gross aftermath.
Execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith
Kenneth Eugene Smith, Alabama death-row prisoner convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett, was executed January 25, 2024, by nitrogen hypoxia at Holman Correctional Facility, the first U.S. nitrogen gas execution, after a failed 2022 lethal injection attempt.
Execution of Saddam Hussein
Execution of Saddam Hussein: former Iraqi president hanged in Baghdad on December 30, 2006 after the Iraqi High Tribunal convicted him of crimes against humanity for the 1982 Dujail killings; widely criticized as a flawed trial with a sectarian taunting video.
Execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: Pakistan's first elected prime minister (1973–1977), hanged 4 April 1979 in Rawalpindi after a murder trial under Zia-ul-Haq's martial law; the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 the trial was unfair.
Executioner
Executioner: the official who carries out death sentences. Known in medieval France as bourreau; also called hangman, headsman, or Scottish lockman. Role evolved from varied delegated duties into hereditary, dishonorable trade, then anonymous modern prison personnel.
Flaying
Flaying, or being flayed alive, is the deliberate removal of skin from a human or animal body, historically used as an execution method and punishment, attested in Assyrian reliefs.
Franz Schmidt (executioner)
Franz Schmidt, or Meister Frantz (1554/1555–1634), executioner of Nuremberg 1578–1617, kept a unique diary recording 361 executions and 345 minor punishments, later edited by Keller and translated by Harrington.