All language subtitles for Executions- The Rise and Fall of Capital Punishment (2025)

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Execution
of those convicted

of serious crimes is a form

of punishment that
has been utilized

in almost every nation on earth

since the dawn of civilization.

It goes back as
long as there's been
life on this planet.

If you did something to me,
I'll do something to you.

In a world without
modern societal structures

such as criminal courts and
prisons, the Biblical notion

of "an eye for an eye" was
seen as suitable punishment

for a perpetrator, and
compensation for the victim.

As more complex societies
developed, so did the methods

of execution, some designed
to be swift and efficient,

but many others
deliberately crafted

to prolong the experience
as much as possible,

for the dual purpose of
inflicting the maximum amount

of suffering whilst providing

the most gruesome
entertainment to onlookers.

Today, much of the world

has now outlawed
capital punishment.

What was once seen
as "God's will"

and "righteous justice"
now seems cruel

and inhumane to
the eyes of many.

Modern societies like to think

of themselves as more
enlightened than those

of the distant past,
but as we shall see,

it is humanity's recent past
that demonstrates most terribly

how the State's power
to end the lives

of those seen as
criminals can be abused.

The very earliest set

of written laws that still
survives to this day,

known as the Code of Hammurabi,

not only specified which
crimes were capital offenses,

but also the specific manner

in which the convicted criminal
was to be put to death.

Richard Felix is a
Paranormal Historian,

television presenter and author.

The earliest
record that I know of

is in Babylon, where they
actually created 25 different

offenses that you
could be executed for.

For burglary,
the convict would be hung

from a gibbet constructed

at the site where
the crime took place.

For rape, bigamy or seduction

of a daughter in law, drowning
was the specified punishment,

and in cases of
incest or looting,

the convict was
to be burnt alive.

In the instance of a man
caught looting from a building

that was on fire, it
was entirely legal

to force him back inside
the burning building

to suffer his fate.

Even lesser crimes could
result in horrific punishments,

often involving the brutal
severing of a body part.

Ancient methods of
execution were some

of the most torturous
ever devised.

One unusual form of
execution favored

in ancient Greece was
known as Scaphism.

They actually
put you in a boat,

another boat upside
down on top of you,

put your head hanging
out of the boat,

covered your face
with honey and set you

off out to sea.

The
horrific results

were described by Greek
philosopher Plutarch:

Ancient Egypt was home to a
sophisticated justice system

of courts and judges.

However, it operated
under the principle

of "guilty until
proved innocent",

and the sentences
could be as barbaric

as any in the ancient world.

Mutilation and flogging
were common punishments

for minor offenses,
and for capital crimes,

execution could be
carried out by beheading,

being buried alive,
drowned, impaled,

or even being fed to crocodiles.

In South East Asian
territories, "slow slicing",

otherwise known as "death
by a thousand cuts",

was a punishment for the
most serious offenses.

You were literally
stripped naked,

tied to a post, and then pieces

of your flesh were cut away.

They even had a set of knives

with labels on that they
would just pick at random,

so if that one said tongue,
then out came your tongue.

If that one said breast,
then off came the breast.

And they continued
for hours and hours,

cutting small pieces of flesh,

and then the last
one, the coup de grace

of course, was the
dagger that said heart,

and that was plunged
into the heart to kill.

Families of the
person that was going

to be executed would sometimes
bribe the executioner,

so that he made sure

that he picked the
heart knife first."

In
other parts of Asia,

crushing or
dismembering by elephant

was a preferred
method of execution.

The ability to control a large
animal such as an elephant

was a significant demonstration

of power and authority.

They would train an elephant

of course, to, not to
necessarily stand straight

on the heart, but
crush other parts

of the body first.

which is again, a
long, slow death.

The
impressive spectacle

of such an act was considered
a powerful deterrent,

so much so that the
practice continued

until comparatively
modern times,

and was described in the Kingdom

of Siam by Scottish sea
captain Alexander Hamilton.

One of the more conventional,

and certainly the
most well-known,

methods of capital
punishment used

in the ancient world
was crucifixion.

Whilst most commonly associated

with the death of Jesus Christ,

the use of crucifixion as
both a criminal punishment

and as a method for disposing

of vanquished enemies
can be dated back

to many centuries before
the time of Jesus.

Alexander the Great, king
of the ancient Greek kingdom

of Macedon, is said to have
crucified 2,000 survivors

from his siege of
the Phoenician city

of Tyre in 332 BC.

By the time of the Roman Empire,

crucifixion was commonly
used as a punishment

for capital crimes.

Thousands and
thousands of people

were crucified by the Romans.

Whilst
the depiction

of Jesus nailed upon
the cross is to much

of the world an indelible image

and one which epitomizes
the act of crucifixion,

in fact the Romans carried
out many types of crucifixion.

Sometimes they
crucified you upside down.

Which of course was
actually more humane,

because you would die
quicker of unconsciousness.

Roman
philosopher Seneca the Young

once observed:

The original Latin word
that today we translate

as crucifixion actually
applied to many different forms

of painful execution, including
being impaled on a stake,

or affixed to a
tree, an upright pole

and of course, an upright pole

with a cross beam as
popularly depicted today.

As the Roman soldiers
guarding the execution site

could not leave until
death had occurred,

they were sometime tempted
to help things along.

The guards stayed with
you for the whole time,

because you would last for days.

But sometimes, the guards would
actually finish you quicker,

as they reckon
they did with Jesus

of course, with the spear.

In other cases,
however, the person was

often deliberately
kept alive as long

as possible to prolong
their suffering

and humiliation.

In the case of a
slave being convicted

of killing their master,

all of the victim's
slaves would be crucified,

a practice which
sometimes involved dozens

or even hundreds of innocent
people being executed.

When Roman senator
Lucius Secundus was
murdered by a slave,

some in the Senate tried to
prevent the mass crucifixion

of 400 of his slaves,

but in the end
tradition prevailed

and every single
one was executed.

Such cruelty was not without
controversy even at the time,

celebrated Roman philosopher
Cicero described it

as a "most cruel and
disgusting punishment".

He famously wrote:

Over the centuries,
as empires fell

and nations warred,
methods of torture

and execution became ever
more cruel and imaginative.

In Europe during
the Middle Ages,

the death penalty was
commonly used a punishment

even for minor offenses.

Execution by breaking
the body over a wheel

was a technique first
explored by the Romans.

However, use of the
"breaking wheel"

as it was to become known,
was popularized as a form

of public execution
throughout much

of Europe during
the Middle Ages.

I think the most inhumane form

of execution is
breaking on the wheel.

You were taken to the
execution on a cart,

but on the way the
executioner had a brazier

of coals and a pair of pincers,

and they would rip
flesh from your body

before you even got
to the execution.

They would then pour
either boiling oil

or sulfur, sometimes boiling
lead, into the wound.

They would then strap you
to a wheel and break you,

and that's smashing your bones,

starting with the ankle, the
shin, the knee, the thigh.

Then the same with the next leg.

Then one arm, the wrist, the
shoulder, then the next arm.

This could take as long

as the executioner
wanted to take it.

And then the coup de grace
would be a blow to the chest.

This was either done

with a metal bar or
sometimes a sledgehammer.

Once this
torture was complete,

the convict would then
be tied to the wheel

which was then
raised up on a pole

or mast, ready for a slow

and agonizing death not
unlike a crucifixion.

Eventually the body was burned

and your ashes
scattered to the wind.

The
fear of witchcraft

that spread throughout Europe

and early American settlers
proved another source

of victims for those that
delighted in the most cruel

of punishments.

Between 1400 and 1775,
approximately 100,000 people

were tried and prosecuted
for witchcraft in Europe

and the American colonies.

Around half of
these were executed.

You had to prove
they were a witch,

which was a bit difficult.

So they were stripped naked to
search for the devil's mark,

a birthmark, a wart.

If none of those things
happened then it was up

to God to decide,
trial by ordeal.

They tied your left toe
to your right thumb,

your left thumb to your
right toe, rope round you

and threw you in the pond.

If you sank to the
bottom you were innocent.

If you rose to the surface,
as most people did,

you were a witch.

Under a law of Queen Elizabeth,

witchcraft was a criminal
offense, a hanging offense.

The
most common form

of execution for those convicted

of witchcraft was to
be burned at the stake,

where the condemned was
tied to a large wooden stake

and a fire lit under them,
resulting in a protracted

and agonizing death.

Sometimes the executioner
would tie a rope around

the neck and pull on the rope

and strangle them as the
flames were getting higher,

but often they
were burned alive.

In some
cases, as small act

of mercy, a container of
gunpowder was attached

to the victim, which
would explode once heated

by the fire, killing
them instantly.

There is just one European
leader who is remembered

to this day more for
his preferred manner

of execution than for
any other achievement.

Vlad Dracula, better
known as Vlad The Impaler,

ruled Romania during the
15th century, and stories

of his immense
cruelty circulated far

and wide, both during his life

and after his death in 1476.

With the invention of
the printing press,

books detailing his exploits,

together with lurid drawings,
were best sellers of the time.

He was, of course, best known

for sentencing his
enemies to impalement.

That's a spiked wooden
pole that was greased

and then placed in any aperture

that they could find,
usually the anus.

They would hoist them onto it

and then leave them there

as they slipped down the
pole until it came out

of all different parts

of the body, sometimes
even the mouth.

This was a vile, disgusting
form of execution.

It was said that even
after his eventual defeat

and imprisonment, Vlad
took to capturing rats

in his prison cell

and impaling them
on scraps of wood.

To be hanged,
drawn and quartered

was possibly the
bloodiest method

of execution carried
out in Britain

and Ireland during
the Middle Ages.

The whole thing was symbolic.

It was a form of torture,

even though torture
was illegal in England,

but it was to make you suffer

and it was to send you to hell.

Possibly the
most gruesome punishment

ever devised, it was reserved
for those found guilty

of high treason.

The sentence for a traitor was

that you be taken from this jail

and dragged backwards
to a place of execution.

Backwards because
what you'd thought up,

treason, was unnatural.

There you will be
hanged between heaven

and earth, not fit
to inhabit either.

We are talking of
slow strangulation,

so after two or three minutes
you would still be alive.

You'd be taken down,
laid on the drawing,

quartering and beheading block,

which is a butcher's
block for human beings,

your privy parts cut off
and burned before your eyes.

Your bowels and entrails
to be ripped out

of your belly because of the
inward treacherous thoughts

that you'd had.

Treason.

A good executioner could
get you disemboweled,

all 37 feet, small intestine,

while you're still
alive and conscious.

Your head to be
severed from your body

because your head had thought
up the treacherous thoughts,

and your body divided
into four equal quarters,

and those quarters
to be at the disposal

of whatever monarch was
on the throne at the time.

All of this
would take place in public,

before a baying
crowd, and in the case

of multiple executions,
convicts would be forced

to watch the disembowelment

of their fellow inmates
before it was done to them.

Finally, the
convict was beheaded

and put on display as a
gruesome warning to others.

In some cases, the head
would be pickled in a jar

in an attempt to ensure the
face remained recognizable.

Although this most extreme form

of punishment was
not used routinely,

and was reserved only for cases

of high treason, there
are many examples

of its use that are still
remembered to this day,

such as the execution

of Scottish knight
Sir William Wallace.

When William Wallace was
hanged, drawn and quartered,

his quarters were taken
to different parts

of the country

and the reason was that
if the body wasn't whole,

then on the day of
judgment you'd go to hell.

Members of the
English nobility convicted

of wrongdoing faced a
punishment more in keeping

with their status in society.

Beheading was
reserved was kings

and queens and aristocrats.

However,
no matter the status

of the convict, the
executioner himself

may not always have
been up to the task.

You've got an executioner
that's probably taken

from the condemned cell

and asked to become
an executioner.

He's the lowest of the low,

and he's got to chop
the king's head off,

the queen's head off,

lord so and so's head off.

Now, he would
nervous, and of course

there's one very good way

of calming your nerves
down before and execution,

and that's alcohol.

So the chances of
taking a head off

in one blow was very remote.

It took three blows to take

off the head of Mary
Queen of Scotts,

and five blows to take off the
head of the Duke of Monmouth.

After the fourth blow
the body was still moving

and Monmouth was still alive.

In order
to avoid such suffering,

it was customary for
the condemned person

to pay their executioner a tip,

the more generous the
payment, it was hoped,

the swifter the death would be.

Laurence Shirley,
the 4th Earl Ferrers,

who'd murdered his bailiff,
when he gave his purse

of gold or silver, he handed it

to the assistant executioner
instead of the executioner,

and there was a punch
up on the scaffold.

Across
the Channel in France,

beheading was seen as much more

of a skilled profession.

In France they
did it with a sword,

and you had to kneel down

with your neck up and the
executioner would swing

and take the head off like that.

One of the most
celebrated French executioners

was Charles Henri Sanson.

Sanson was the Royal
Executioner during the reign

of King Louis the XVI,
and was the fourth

in a six-generation family
dynasty of executioners.

The Sanson family,
there were seven members

of the Sanson family
all became executioners.

It was passed down from,
sometimes from father to son,

from uncle to nephew.

During
his lifetime,

Sanson personally executed
almost 3000 people.

On one occasion,
he was called upon

to execute a young nobleman
for the crime of blasphemy.

He was a young man,

and you obviously had to kneel.

And Sanson said,
"Sir, will you kneel?"

and he said, "I am an
aristocrat, I will not kneel."

And he remained standing.

Sanson took one blow and went
straight through the neck.

The body continued to stand

with the head still on the neck.

Sanson looked at him and said
"Shake yourself, it's done."

And then the head rolled off

and the body crumpled
onto the floor.

In
the 18th century,

the idea that the condemned
man should be forced to suffer

as much as possible
began to be replaced

by a drive for sheer efficiency.

When the French
Revolution came,

a very famous executioner
called Henri Sanson,

who beheaded people
with a sword,

realized that if he was going

to have to execute all these
clerics, religious people,

aristocrats, he'd
need a lot of swords.

Luckily a gentleman of
the national assembly,

Dr. Ignatius Guillotine,
came up with a,

what he believed
to be a humane form

of execution, the guillotine.

The
guillotine was praised

for its efficiency, an
efficiency that allowed

for an astonishing
17,000 executions

to take place in the course of
just one Revolutionary year.

When they originally
designed it,

it had a crescent shaped blade,

and that wasn't efficient enough

because that actually
crushed the neck

before it took the head off,

and, would you believe,
Louis the XVI, he was a bit

of an engineer, and he had
a look at the guillotine

when it was first being made

and realized that it
would be far better

to have a blade at an
angle of 45 degrees,

which would slice
through the neck quickly.

He was one of the first people
executed on the guillotine.

There is
some evidence to suggest

that death by guillotine
may not be as quick

and painless as may appear.

There was a lot of discussion

and debate about whether
the brain continued

to function after the
head had been taken off.

In 1905, a Dr.
Beaurieux got permission

to stand by the guillotine

when a chap called
Languille was beheaded.

The doctor waited
a few seconds,

then shouted "Languille!"

Though it remains most
famous as a device connected

to the French Revolution

and the 1700's, the
guillotine remained

as the official method
of execution in France

well into modern times and
was still in use in the 1970s.

In England in the year 1810,

Sir Samuel Romilly stated
in the British Parliament

that there was:

Over the course of the next
century this was to change,

with vast numbers of
minor crimes being
removed from the list

of capital offenses.

Public executions
ceased in 1868,

not because the public appetite
for them had diminished,

but because many influential
figures at the time

saw that they had become little
more than an entertainment,

often accompanied by
the selling of alcohol.

Charles Dickens
wrote in a letter

to The Times newspaper:

It would be like
a day at the fair.

There'd be pie sellers,
people selling a program

of your trial and
life to read about you

as you were dangling
at the end of a rope.

There'd be pickpockets there,
riots, people would be drunk.

It came from higher up,

this was too popular,
we must stop it.

With the
end of public executions,

the need for especially cruel

and gruesome punishments
was also at an end.

Death by beheading
and quartering

was officially
abolished in 1870,

all executions for the rest

of the 19th century were to
be carried out by hanging.

In each town there
would be a county gallows,

which would be a football goal,

and then there would be one
ladder, sometimes two ladders.

You would go up one ladder,

the rope would be
fixed round your neck,

the executioner would be up
the other ladder, fixing it.

He'd come down, and then
he would turn you off,

as it was called, turning
you off the ladder,

and you died of
slow strangulation.

Before
1850, the short drop

was the standard
method of hanging.

Thanks to the work of Irish
doctor Samuel Haughton,

the short drop was
superseded in the second half

of the century by
what came to be known

as the standard drop.

It was a platform with
a lever and a trapdoor.

When the trapdoor opened

and you dropped through, it
would sever between the second

and third vertebrae,

bringing about hopefully
an instantaneous death.

However, the
standard drop was no guarantee

of a quick death.

Famous examples of the failure

of this technique
include the execution

of convicted US civil
war criminal Henry Wirz.

Wirz was hanged in
November of 1865,

watched by a crowd
of spectators,

but the drop failed
to break his neck.

Spectators were forced
to watch as Wirz

was slowly strangled over
the course of 20 minutes.

The standard drop
was later superseded

by the long drop, developed
by William Marwood,

himself a practicing
executioner.

The exact height of the drop
varied depending on the height

of the convict, from
as little as four feet

to as much as eight feet.

William Marwood,
clever as he was,

at the beginning he only
measured the victim,

he didn't weigh them.

So a man of five foot seven

and 12 stone got the same drop

of a man of five foot
seven and 20 stone.

The danger with
using the long drop technique

was that if there
was a miscalculation,

the results could be horrific.

American outlaw Tom Ketchum,

known by the nickname
Black Jack, was executed

for train robbery using the
long drop technique in 1901.

Ketchum's weight was measured

when he was taken into custody,

but was not remeasured
prior to his execution,

despite significant weight
gain during his time in jail.

The extra weight was
therefore not taken

into account when the
drop was calculated

for his execution.

As Ketchum dropped with
the noose around his neck,

the force was so
violent that his head

was torn from his spine,
an image that was captured

by a photographer.

This and other such incidents

caused many United
States authorities

to look at alternative
methods of execution.

The electric chair, which
was to become synonymous

with executions in
the United States,

was first conceptualized
by a New York dentist

in 1881 to be a more humane form

of death than hanging.

The initial design took the form

of a custom-built wooden chair

with electrodes that attached
to the victim's head and leg.

After a variety of
tests on animals,

authorities and
experts remained unsure

as to the precise current

of electricity that was required

to bring about instant death.

The first official
execution by electric chair,

was, perhaps unsurprisingly,
a gruesome affair.

William Francis
Kemmler was convicted

of killing his common-law
wife Tillie Zeigler in 1889,

and his execution
was to be carried out

by electric chair on
the 6th of August, 1890.

Kemmler's last words
as he was placed

in the chair were:

The generator attached
to the chair was charged

with 1000 volts, which
was thought to be enough

to induce immediate
unconsciousness
and cardiac arrest.

This current was applied
to Kemmler for 17 seconds,

after which he was
pronounced dead.

However, witnesses pointed out
that he was still breathing.

Kemmler was quickly
examined by two physicians

who confirmed he
was still alive,

and the call was
made for the current

to be switched back on.

This time, 2000
volts were applied.

Blood vessels under Kemmler's
skin ruptured and bled,

and some witnesses claimed
his body caught fire.

A reporter for the New
York Times later wrote:

When it was finally
over, the execution

had lasted for eight minutes

and was widely considered
to have been far more cruel

and unpleasant than
the use of hanging.

The electric chair,
not humane at all.

In my opinion an
extremely inhumane form

of execution that I still
believe is being done

in America in some
states to this day.

Whilst often
cruel and merciless,

institutions throughout history

that have wielded the power
to legally take the life

of a human being have
done so either in times

of war or in response
to capital crimes

such as rape and murder.

But when a government
decides to take control

of the justice system

and use it for political ends,

simply holding the wrong opinion

or even just being
in the wrong place

at the wrong time can
result in imprisonment,

torture and execution.

"The Iron Curtain",
a term first used

by Sir Winston Churchill in
1946, referred to the area

of Russia and Eastern Europe

that came under
Communist Soviet control

after the Second World War.

The Soviets came to power in
Russia in 1917 in the midst

of a workers' revolt
and a violent coup

against the Russian monarchy.

In the century prior
to the revolution,

approximately 6000 death
sentences were handed down

due to a person's political
beliefs or activities,

and so during the Second
All Russian Congress

of Soviets of Workers'
and Soldiers' Deputies,

the new Soviet government
decreed the abolition

of the death penalty.

However, it was quickly
reinstated just a
few months later,

and by the end of the following
year the Soviet Regime

had already executed
more than 15,000 people

and they were just
getting started.

During the 1920s, the
Russian secret police

were actually issued

with quotas to determine how
many people were to be arrested

and executed, regardless of
any actual criminal activity.

We are talking of hundreds
of thousands of people.

Stalin, I mean, had
the Polish aristocracy

and officer class
completely obliterated.

During
Stalin's "Great Purge"

of the 1930s, 720,000
people were executed,

often after highly
publicized show trials

at which they were
forced to confess

to various political crimes.

In fact, the confessions
came only after weeks

of torture, including beatings
and simulated drowning.

By comparison, the method
of execution employed,

a gunshot to the head,
was at least less cruel

than under many earlier regimes.

However, the Soviets
had other ways

of ensuring the death
of their enemies.

By the time of
Stalin's death in 1953,

approximately five
million people per year

were being sentenced
to the gulag,

a series of forced labor camps,

where a slow death from cold,

over-work, torture or starvation
was often the outcome.

Many more millions were
starved as a result

of deliberately
engineered food shortages

and famines, bypassing the
justice system altogether.

By the time of the
eventual collapse

of the Soviet Union in 1989,
it is now known that tens

of millions had been put
to death by the regime,

a figure that is only matched
by equally horrific rule

of Chairman Mao
Ze Dong in China.

After a period of civil war,

the formation of the
People's Republic

of China was announced
by Mao Ze Dong on the 1st

of October, 1949.

Having received considerable
support in the year prior

from the Soviet Union,

Mao adopted a Soviet style
approach to leadership.

As in the Soviet Union,
show trials took place

at which convicts were
publicly denounced

before being taken away
for execution by way

of a bullet to the
back of the head.

However, such was the political
fervor at these trials,

tensions sometimes ran so
high that the condemned person

was beaten to death
by an angry mob

before the formal execution
could be carried out.

Mao Ze Dong was himself a
fervent believer in the use

of capital punishment
against political opponents.

Indeed, unlike in virtually
every other society in history,

it was political crimes,

and only political crimes,
that Mao considered worthy

of the death penalty.

The rule of law itself
was effectively suspending

during the Cultural
Revolution, wherein people

were encouraged to attack
and destroy any remnants

of the old,
Pre-Revolutionary China.

Hundreds of thousands

of people have
been exterminated.

Whilst
the thousands

of deaths may not have been
recorded as official executions,

the use of such violence
was explicitly encouraged,

most famously by the publication

of Mao's "Little Red Book",

a collection of quotes
from Mao Ze Dong.

People were killed en
mass at political rallies,

and as in the Soviet
Union, forced labor camps

and engineered food shortages

caused many more
millions of deaths.

This period in China's
history has proved

to be the deadliest of
anywhere in the world,

with an estimated
65 million people

having lost their lives through
the action of the regime.

But perhaps the
most horrific abuse

of the power of
the state over life

and death was seen in Cambodia,

where the Communist revolution

led by Pol Pot
resulted in one quarter

of the entire population
being put to death.

Pol Pot, who was introduced
to Communist theory

while studying in
France, took control

of Cambodia in 1976

and immediately began
brutalizing the population

with his Khmer Rouge army.

Pol Pot, in Cambodia,
he created this idea

of doing away with
industrialization completely.

The country's
cities were forcibly evacuated,

with the stated intent

of creating a new, agrarian
society in the countryside.

But the result was
two million deaths.

The Khmer Rouge regime executed
anyone whom it suspected

of having connections with the
former Cambodian government,

as well as professionals,
intellectuals,

Buddhists and other minorities.

Just wearing a pair of glasses

could cause you to be executed,

because they thought
you might have been

a more intelligent person.

It was also
considered necessary

to execute not only the
suspected dissident,

but often their
entire family as well.

Pol Pot himself said,

Whilst the Khmer
Rouge initially sought

to imitate their
Soviet predecessors

by carrying out
executions via a gunshot

to the back of the head,
the relative poverty

of Cambodia as a nation

meant that they simply
could not afford the cost

of the bullets
required to do so.

Those intended to
be put to death

were therefore simply struck
on the back of the head

and thrown into shallow
ditches in remote areas

known as the Killing Fields.

Even small children and
babies were not spared,

and were smashed against trees

before being thrown
into the mass graves.

Many prisoners were also
subjected to hideous torture

and medical experiments,
which were so horrific

that the prisoners tried in
every way to commit suicide.

The screams were said to
be so loud that they had

to be covered by loudspeakers
playing propaganda music

of the Khmer Rouge.

Today, the site of the
most notorious prison

has been turned into a
museum, where it is recorded

that more than 20,000
people had been tortured

and imprisoned there.

This was just one of
almost 200 similar prisons

that existed
throughout the country.

More like ethnic cleansing,
I think, than execution.

We are talking of hundreds
of thousands of people.

By the end
of the 20th Century,

it's widely believed that
the Communist regimes

in power in the Soviet Union

and elsewhere, had together
been responsible for the deaths

of over 100 million people.

As the 20th century progressed,

more and more voices in
the Western world began

to question the legitimacy
of capital punishment.

Over the course of numerous
individual acts of Parliament,

laws in the United
Kingdom gradually changed.

Whilst the public
overwhelmingly supported the use

of the death penalty
in cases of murder,

a number of miscarriages
of justice during the 1950s

strengthened the
case for abolition.

The Homicide Act of 1957

attempted to create
two different
classifications of murder,

those which were capital crimes,

and those which were not.

Capital punishment for murder

was finally abolished
completely by an Act

of Parliament in 1965.

When we abolished
hanging in 1965,

some people were against hanging

and some people
were for hanging,

but the interesting
thing is that from 1965

until 2001 the amount of murders

that took place in
this country doubled.

Capital
punishment did remain

for a small number of
very specific crimes:

Surprisingly, until 1973
the official punishment

for the crime of treason
was death by beheading,

although this was never
actually carried out.

All remaining capital
offenses, including treason,

were finally removed from
law in the late 1990's

by the Tony Blair government,
bringing the UK into alignment

with much of Europe.

As of the present day,
capital punishment is banned

in all members of
the European Union.

Whilst Russia retains
capital crimes in law,

no executions have taken
place there since the 1990s.

In all of Europe,
only Belarus actively

retains the death penalty,

where it is carried
out by shooting.

Even in the United
States of America,

the death penalty
today is seldom used,

with the number of executions
per year having reduced

from 85 in the year 2000 to
just 24 in the year 2023.

The vast majority of
these were carried out

by lethal injection.

The idea of using an injection

of lethal chemicals to
cause an immediate death

was first proposed
in the late 1800s

by New York doctor
Julius Mount Bleyer,

writing in the
Medico-Legal Journal.

However, lethal
injection as a method

of execution was not
adopted in law until 1977.

Despite the straightforward
sounding name,

death by lethal injection is
a relatively complex process.

One of the problems
is, of course,

is 'cause a doctor can't do it,

because they'll be breaking
the Hippocratic Oath,

so it's left to some form
of prison official to do it,

and an awful lot of those

that are executed in
America these days

of course are taking
drugs intravenously,

and they can't find a vein.

And even, sometimes,
the condemned man

is actually helping the prison
official to find a vein.

The process begins
with the condemned person

having two intravenous cannulas
inserted, one in each arm.

A saline drip is then
started in both arms

to ensure that the
lines are not blocked,

and a heart monitor is
attached to the inmate.

The lethal chemicals
are then added to the IV

in a specific order to first
induce unconsciousness followed

by death through paralysis
of the respiratory muscles

or by cardiac arrest.

The chemical combination used
begins with Sodium Piothentol,

which normally causes
unconsciousness
within 30 seconds.

This is followed by
Pancuronium Bromide,

a muscle relaxant
which causes paralysis

of the diaphragm, sufficient
to cause death by asphyxiation.

Finally, Potassium
Chloride to stop the heart,

resulting in death
by cardiac arrest.

This normally occurs
within minutes,

though there have
been recorded cases

where the entire process
took more than an hour.

I don't understand why
they have such a problem,

because when your
animal is put to sleep

they give it an injection
and it goes to sleep,

and then they give an
injection that kills it.

But for some reason
they never seem, well,

sometimes don't seem to
get the mixture right.

Some opponents
to the technique point out

that once the muscle relaxant
has been administered,

there is no way to tell
if the initial dose

of Sodium Piothentol
has actually

fully induced unconsciousness.

Since the muscle relaxant
causes paralysis,

it may be that the
inmate suffers great pain

during the administering
of Potassium Chloride,

but is simply unable to
express their discomfort.

In other parts of the
world, capital punishment

is still very much
on the agenda.

In the Islamic world, the Quran
specifies the death penalty

for a large number of crimes.

An Amnesty International report

from 2020 calculated
that almost 90%

of all the world's executions
took place in either Iran,

Iraq, Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

Death by decapitation
is the form

of execution most
associated with Islamic law,

although surprisingly it is
not explicitly called for

in the Quran, although some
scholars site a reference

to "smiting the
necks" of enemies.

Currently, Saudi Arabia
is the only country

in the world which
uses decapitation

within its Islamic legal system.

The majority of
executions carried out

by the Wahhabi government
are public beheadings,

which usually draw large crowds

but are not allowed to be
photographed or filmed.

Outside of the Islamic
world, the largest number

of executions carried out today

by a single nation take place

in the People's
Republic of China.

Unlike the chaos of the Mao era,

modern China has a
rigorous justice system.

Whilst some political crimes
remain capital offenses,

added to the list are
more typical crimes

including arson, rape of a
minor and drug trafficking.

Capital punishment in
China can be imposed

on crimes against
national symbols

and treasures, such as
theft of cultural relics

and even the killing
of giant pandas.

Elsewhere in South East Asia,

capital punishment
remains in use,

particularly for
drugs-related offenses,

in Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam.

Japan retains the death
penalty for aggravated murder

and utilizes the long
drop method of hanging.

Despite its abolition
many decades ago,

popular opinion in Europe
remains generally in favor

of capital punishment, although
only by a small margin.

I think the last poll
they had, I believe 59%

of the population of this
country believe that some form

of death penalty
should be reintroduced.

Those in favor

of its reintroduction normally
refer to the fact that fear

of execution acts as the
strongest possible deterrent.

Perhaps the most emotional
argument in favor

of the death penalty,
particularly in cases

of murder, is that the
perpetrator simply deserves

such a punishment, "an eye for
an eye, a tooth for a tooth"

as the famous
Biblical quote has it.

As we have seen,
the justice systems

of many ancient
societies were founded

on exactly this basis,

and in all of human history,

the move towards abolishing
the death penalty in much

of world represents a
tiny fragment of time.

It was only a few
short decades ago,

within the lifetime of many
people still alive today,

that millions of people
were being executed

by regimes that some
in the West praised

and still defend today.

I personally
believe that some form

of death sentence should be
administered for the murder

of children, murder of policemen
and premeditated murder.

You bought the
gun, you loaded it

with six bullets and you
pulled the trigger five times.

You meant to do it.

Could it be
that capital punishment

will make a return
to Western Europe?

In light of the
growing discontent

with the apparent acquiescence

to lawlessness
currently being felt

in many European capitals,
it may be a question

not of if, but of when.