Talk:Capital punishment/Archive 11

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adding jurisdiction

The Palestinian Authority needs to be added to the list of jurisdictions that impose the death penalty.I.Casaubon (talk) 14:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Missing signs in Methods section

In the section methods, at "Shooting" and "Electric chair", the ) sign is missing at the end of the lists. Please add it. Regards, Markonian (talk) 11:14, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 173.78.17.122, 13 April 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} Section 4: Religion Subsection: Christianity appears to have been vandalized with the entire Wikipedia article on the BWE being stuck into the subsection three times in place of what appeared to be sentences explaining Christianity's views on capital punishment. 173.78.17.122 (talk) 01:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. I cannot find the vandalism. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The entire "Christianity" section has been edited to deal almost exclusively with a South-East Asian ethnic group, and the text is clearly written by someone not fluent in English. Regardless, even it were written in a manner that were intelligible, it would still be quite off-topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.253.222 (talk) 11:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Canadian Support for capital punishment

This article says the Canadian public is against the death penalty. This is inaccurate. The Prime Minister of Canada supports the death penalty as do a majority of Canadians:

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20110401/amnesty-harper-record-110401/ http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/38156/us_britain_and_canada_endorse_death_penalty/

The article should be updated regardless of what its authors think the world ought to know about Canada. Fact is, Canadians support the use of capital punishment for certain crimes. 173.180.196.28 (talk) 07:35, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

A P.M.'s personal view & one poll done 2 years ago may not be quite enough. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 08:24, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, conversely, you may not have enough to suggest Canadians are actually against it. 173.180.193.139 (talk) 09:27, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

There is just not enough support still in the current government to go to vote on the matter again to reverse it, even if the majority of the public is saying so. I'll change then to a way it says so to a governmental view-point as it stands today. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 11:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality of Citation 38

Citation 38 came from a website that exists to advocate abolishing capital punishment. I think that we should remove this citation because it does not maintain neutrality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sewblon (talk • contribs) 20:26, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to the article "The High Cost of the Death Penalty" from Death Penalty Focus. Since this source is being cited to substantiate the fact that there are opponents of capital punishment and that such people have certain reasons for their opposition, I don't see any obvious problem with including it — any more than there would be a problem with including pro-CP sources in conjunction with a discussion of why other people favour the death penalty. WP:NPOV requires that an article must represent "fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources"; this is not at all the same as requiring that each individual source cited in the article must be neutral. Richwales (talk · contribs) 03:01, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Global distribution: Rank by execution w.r.t. population?

I think that the table containing the number of execution per country in 2010 should not be ranked or the ranking should be relative, i.e. executions with respect to population.

The result would look something like that (if I didn't make any mistakes):

Rank	Country	Number executed in 2010	Executions with respect to total population
1	Equatorial Guinea	4	4/0.7M = 5.714/1M
2	People's Republic of China	Officially not released. In the thousands, may be up to 5000.	≥1000/1339.7M = 0.746+/1M (up to 5000/1339.7M = 3.732/1M)
3	Iran	252+	≥252/75.3M = 3.346/1M
4	Libya	18+	≥18/6.4M = 2.813/1M
5	North Korea	60+	≥60/24.1M = 2.489/1M
6	Yemen	53+	≥53/23.6M = 2.245/1M
7	Botswana	1	1/0.6M = 1.667/1M
8	Palestinian Authority	5	5/3.9M = 1.282/1M
9	Saudi Arabia	27+	≥27/27.1M = 0.996/1M
10	Bahrain	1	1/1.2M = 0.833/1M
11	Somalia	8+	≥8/9.4M = 0.851/1M
12	Syria	17+	≥17/22.5M = 0.755/1M
13	Belarus	2	2/9.5M = 0.211/1M
14	Sudan	6+	≥6/30.9M = 0.194/1M
15	Taiwan	4	4/23.1M = 0.173/1M
16	United States	46	46/308.7M = 0.149/1M
17	Bangladesh	9+	≥9/142.3M = 0.063/1M
18	Egypt	4	4/80.1M = 0.050/1M
19	Malaysia	1+	≥1/27.6M = 0.036/1M
20	Iraq	1+	≥1/34.3M = 0.029/1M
21	Japan	2	2/128.0M = 0.016/1M
-	Singapore	unknown
-	Vietnam	unknown

The equations are obviously just there for someone to check and only one or two decimal digits are meaningful. Even if the ranking is not changed, we should probably at this piece of information regardless. --Ramon1928 (talk) 18:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Embryo debate

The passage I removed about wrongful executions is only a little summary (six lines) of only one aspect of the capital punishment debate. I see no argument justifying this embryo debate.

Malosinus (talk) 07:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I have taken this deleted material — together with another "pros and cons" paragraph which you deleted from the "History" section — and incorporated it into the (existing but empty) "Debate" subsection. It is an accepted Wikipedia practice (see WP:SUMMARY and WP:SPLIT) for a section of an article to provide a summary of material covered at greater length in a separate article. I seriously considered reporting your recent activity on this article at the Edit war/3RR noticeboard, but I am instead going to assume good faith and recognize your coming here to the talk page (albeit combined with another revert on your part in the article itself) as indicating a willingness to discuss the subject. Richwales (talk · contribs) 15:21, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality of Citation 90

53% of those surveyed by a potentially biased newspaper doesn't equate to 53% of the UK population. Comparison of the actual polls on the government website suggest a bias against the death penalty. AndyLandy (talk) 16:40, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Misinformative paragraph

For the sake of children that are not going to learn history beyond Wikipedia Article please make it clear that Russia is not part of Europe, it's part of Asia !!!!

Thus, while Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and practices the death penalty in law, it has not made public use of it since becoming a member of the Council. Other states, while having abolished de jure the death penalty in time of peace and de facto in all circumstances, have not ratified Protocol no.13 yet and therefore have no international obligation to refrain from using the death penalty in time of war or imminent threat of war (Armenia, Latvia, Poland and Spain).[110] Italy is the most recent to ratify it, on March 3, 2009.[111] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.210.248.201 (talk) 06:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Sapplin, 19 September 2011

The first request he has made for us is to add the link www.staterepression.com to the area of the site dedicated to outside sources.

Sapplin (talk) 08:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)Thanks, Sapplin (talk) 08:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)Sara Applin

Sapplin (talk) 08:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Not done, this site does not appear to meet out notability standards for links. I recommend you point your professor towards Wikipedia:School and university projects so he can follow our guidelines on using wikipedia as an education tool properly--Jac16888 ^Talk 14:31, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Libya flag

{{edit semi-protected}}

Since the data refers to 2010, the flag of Libya as of 2010 should be used. IIRC the flagicon parameter for the green flag is 1977. TTBOMK, the LNTC has not yet carried out any executions. 81.110.111.164 (talk) 21:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, the small flag icon we put next to countries in various lists is, typically, the "current" flag - regardless of whether it refers to older events when the flag differed. As far as I am aware, that's standard practice in articles. I understand what you mean, but the flag is a mere tiny visual representation of the (linked) country article; I don't see the need to elaborate on the specifics (about their flag/government changing) within this list.

However, if others here disagree, then we could of course change it - but, it does need some discussion, I think.  Chzz  ►  01:49, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is the exact opposite, namely that for any historical data we use contemporary flags and country names. I understand that we've done this for as long as we've had the capability to display multiple flagicons. See for example Myanmar at the 2008 Summer Olympics, or Gulf War, where Iraq is represented by a three-star flag without legend. The relevant guidance at WP:MOSFLAG seems to spell this out pretty clearly. 81.110.111.164 (talk) 18:20, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The flag is fine as it is now, since it does represent the nation at that time it was numbered. If any executions are carried out by the new government, then the new flag will be changed accordingly. That-Vela-Fella (talk) 08:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from , 7 October 2011

Under the heading Public opinion it states that Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1847. This should be changed to 1846. This fact is stated correctly in the Abolitionism section, 5th paragraph, 1st line.

Under the heading Global distribution in the 5th paragraph it says the United States "suspended executions in 1966 but resumed them in 1977" it should be changed to "suspended executions in 1972 but resumed them in 1976" It is stated correctly in the Abolitionism section 5th paragraph, 1st-2nd line.

Lmdegraaf (talk) 11:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Done — Bility (talk) 18:50, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

"Per 10 M"

What does that mean, Per 10M in the execution chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.107.151.144 (talk) 03:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Buddhism not an official religion in Thailand

The article states 'Bhutan has abolished the death penalty, but Thailand still retains it, although Buddhism is the official religion in both.' This is incorrect in the case of Thailand. The Constitution requires the Head of State (King) to be a Buddhist, but makes no provision for an official religion. Alec Bamford, 24 Dec 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.8.238.151 (talk) 05:16, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Undue emphasis

There is an undue emphasis on christianity here. It has too many sbheading for denominations Pass a Method talk 15:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed

The sentence "Mao Zedong publicly stated that "800,000" people had been executed after the Communist Party's victory in 1949." needs to be given a good citation or removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.239.157.76 (talk) 08:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

USA drug executions

Some parties keep deleting the US from nations that execute for drug offenses, yet at least two states (Florida and Connecticut) authorise execution for drug trafficking. (It's my understanding that in other states, 'felony murder rules' can extend to drug offenses as well.) I understand Americans might not like seeing their name on the list with Iran, Iraq, and Zimbabwe, but there you have it. Until you stop executing, please stop deleting.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 20:07, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Before you can add such a claim to the article, you need to identify one or more reliable sources confirming the claim. This would almost certainly have to involve specific cites (references) to the specific statutes involved. Make sure the sources confirm that these states' laws prescribe the death penalty for drug-related offences even when homicide was not involved as part of the crime. Claims that a drug connection converts an otherwise non-capital homicide into capital murder via a "felony murder" rule are not sufficient to substantiate a claim that a jurisdiction imposes the death penalty for drug-related crimes (in the same sense as, say, Singapore's death penalty for drug trafficking). Anti-death-penalty blogs will generally not be considered reliable sources (see WP:SPS) — and in any event, the recently cited article simply makes an assertion without citing any specific statutes, so it's not usable as a reliable source for this purpose no matter where it might have been found. Richwales (talk) 21:01, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

References earlier provided were deleted, and to my knowledge, they made no reference to felony murder. Sorry, I didn't intend to cloud the issue by mentioning felony murder above. For example, the wiki article on your government mentions drug trafficking in the opening paragraph and does the article on Florida. It's clear that the the death penalty for drug trafficking exists in the US and and least some states, but I question if efforts are being made to keep it out of Wikipedia.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 02:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the issue here is a conspiracy to censor information unfavourable to the US. Rather, it's a question of whether a claim is properly substantiated. Find a reliable source which clearly cites a current US federal or state statute providing for the death penalty for drug trafficking not involving homicide, and you'll have no problem keeping a reference to this practice in this article.

Be careful, BTW, to actually find a real source. I looked up one of the claims at Capital punishment by the United States federal government (and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 mentioned there) — and as best I can tell from studying this federal statute (found here, the external link in the article doesn't seem to work), it provides for the death penalty only for intentional homicide relating to drug felonies (which would mean the drug-crime-related claims in that other Wikipedia article may be inaccurate). This sort of thing is why we're not allowed to use one Wikipedia article as a source for claims made in another article. Richwales (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The law you need is 18 U.S.C. 3591(b) ([1]. The Court decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana specifically mentions that they are not ruling on this federal law. However, the laws have not been used in a death penalty case and have not been tested on appeal. Rmhermen (talk) 01:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

If you are going to mention the US, wouldn't it do to at least qualify this statement by saying that there haven't been any records of people being executed under such laws since at least Furman (I'm not even sure about before), that there's some doubt about whether such a law would withstand appeal, and that without prosecutors at least willing to pursue capital punishment under these laws, they can effectively stay on the book forever without being used? I mean, having a few laws on the book that aren't actually enforced (and therefore can't even be legally challenged) should not merit inclusion on the same list as, for instance, Singapore, which mandates death for possessing certain (relatively small) quantities of drugs with basically no possibility of appeal. Perhaps, at the very least, you should list the number of people executed under such laws in, say, the past 50 years, and besides the US you could confidently place "0".65.0.88.151 (talk) 13:14, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, following a ruling given by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, a death sentence can only be handed down in cases where someone has been killed. Any law on the books is, in fact, pointless as the law is illegal. Therefore, no solely drug related crimes can be punished by death. If you want to pretend that a Law is a Law and whatever, you should also add a number of the United States of America's States to articles detailing the criminalisation of homosexuality. --Île flottante (talk) 23:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ile flottante is correct. To clarify: What happens is that the U.S. has a LOT of old or poorly written statutes enacted by legislators who are trying to get publicity by responding to whatever is currently perceived as a crisis. This is the disadvantage of having strong judicial review; it allows legislators and the populace to be lazy because the legislature can get away with enacting all kinds of garbage that no sane judge will actually enforce. (This is also why looking at annotated statutes is so important in the U.S., since so many statutes have been declared unconstitutional or narrowed by judicial interpretation, but all the annotated statutes are privately-prepared copyright-protected works available only in law libraries or through expensive proprietary databases like Westlaw and LexisNexis.) The UK's doctrine of parliamentary supremacy has the advantage of forcing the electorate to be more sensitive to what their legislators are doing, because the judiciary is too weak to save the people if they are dumb enough to elect MPs who form an autocratic government. Unfortunately, if the people are that crazy, they can be stuck with the resulting dictatorship or oligarchy for a long time, which actually happened in a number of British Commonwealth countries. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've looked at the relevant codes http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-1994-title18/pdf/USCODE-1994-title18-partII-chap228.pdf has the section given as a citation but http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2008-title21/pdf/USCODE-2008-title21-chap13-subchapI-partD-sec848.pdf to which the previous code refers makes it clear that the death penalty in relation to drug offences is for when someone has been intentionally killed or caused to be killed. It's not the same as the other countries in the list where a lone drug charge with no other crime attached is enough to get you executed. Keeping the US in the list is disingenuous. If no one objects I'm taking it out of the list next week. HazelGHC (talk) 18:12, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, the US should be removed from the list. Homicide by means of drugs can warrant the death penalty, but one is not executed for possessing, manufacturing, distributing, or trafficking in drugs. Boneyard90 (talk) 18:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Disagree. See Kennedy v. Louisiana that I mentioned above: "Our concern here is limited to crimes against individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State." (emphasis added). Is there more recent case law? Rmhermen (talk) 18:43, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Was there a drug kingpin that was executed? Perhaps I didn't hear bout it. Boneyard90 (talk) 19:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

"Drug kingpin" certainly involves drug trafficking, but the two are not synonymous. Note the context of "offenses against the State"; there's a big difference between somebody dealing drugs on the street corner, and the Pablo Escobars of the world whose organisations are powerful enough to significantly challenge the authority of the state - which is what puts them in the same sentence as treason, espionage, and terrorism. --GenericBob (talk) 06:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Exemptions

Would be nice to see a section on exemptions, also by country, like which countries allow executions of pregnant women, mentally ill, etc. Zip-x (talk) 15:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Religious Views

The section "Religious Views" seems like an arbitrary list. It would be better to just describe that different religions have different viewpoints and link people to the main article. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 03:08, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Section "International organisations" - Europe

The part about Europe is highly outdated. All EU members have signed Protocol 13 by now and Russia has completely abolished death penalty in 2009. So Belarus is left as the only country on the European continent. --StYxXx (talk) 01:30, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Capital punishment in the Vatican

The following caption seems to me to be confusing.

"Giovanni Battista Bugatti, executioner of the Papal States between 1796 and 1865, carried out 516 executions (Bugatti pictured offering snuff to a condemned prisoner). Vatican City abolished its capital punishment statute in 1969."

I'm not aware of any execution taking place in Vatican City since its very inception as an independent state. The Statute may have been left there from earlier times just because of carelessness--Vatican City is not a democracy and sovereignty there is not vested in the people, so whatever is written in the Statutes (probably dating back to the Pontifical States, which came to an end in 1870) is immaterial to actual practice, which is determined by the Pope and the Roman Catholic hyerarchy. The Roman Catholic Church has long opposed capital punishment, even though it comes shy of declaring it inadmissible under any circumstances.

To understand this apparent contradiction, I'll make two examples which sort of provide an analogy. First, a possible 1736 verdict by a British court, if not overrun later, may still be deemed a precedent in California--but it's very likely not good law. Yet nobody in California would think of explicitly declaring it so, unless and until challenged in court--something that may never happen. Second example, perhaps even more telling. The Soviet Union did not allow private property of means of production unless in very specific cases, mostly concerning small-time agricolture. As a result joint-stock companies were illegal: nobody was allowed to set up one such. By the year perestroyka started, there was just one joint-stock company with shareholders--the publisher of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's official press, which had been established before the October Revolution, with nobody thinking of changing its legal status ever after.

I think the misleading caption should be removed. -- Pan Brerus (talk) 09:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Post War abolitionism

Just to expand on my edit summary removing

Since the Second World War, and the recognition of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Israel was the first independent state to outlaw the death penalty in 1954

The line implies that the end of the war and the declaration had an impact on abolitionism - which isn't backed up by the fact that it wasn't until the mid-70s that significant abolitionist momentum began. On the basis of post war abolitionism, West Germany would hold that honour, or Honduras, whose abolition was based seemingly on a local revolution rather than any international context. Israel having executed someone after 1954 should be enough to not be classified as abolitionist at that point, leaving no part of that line as accurate. --GoForMoe (talk) 12:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

china capital punishment

The death penalty was banned in China between 747 and 759. It was banned 1747-1759 and was inspired by Italian César Beccaria in his work Dei Delitti e Delle Pene. On Crimes and Punishments published in 1764. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mancius (talk • contribs) 20:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Before you claim Evans was innocent, you should do your homework. He was pronounced innocent by the Court of Appeal without hearing any evidence or argument, but two inquiries found him guilty of at least one murder, and many good judges believed and still believe he murdered both his wife and daughter.

Don't be taked in by Ludovic Kennedy's nonsense; check out the other stuff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.139.231 (talk) 18:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Gambia - Nine prisoners have been executed since August- first in 27 years - add to article please

Gambia is not currently mentioned. Nine prisoners have been executed since August- after 27 year monotorium - currently on hold again - source = http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19610206 87.194.46.83 (talk) 04:45, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

It'll be added next year when an updated list of nations are done. For now, it's mentioned at Use of capital punishment by nation.That-Vela-Fella (talk) 01:55, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 21 November 2012

hello, i would like to add sources to some references needed in the Islamic point of view of the death sentence: " Nevertheless, mercy is considered preferable in Islam" : "the victim's family can choose to spare the life of the killer, which is not uncommon" citation is the link below: http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/understanding-islam/legal-rulings/52-understanding-islamic-law.html Kakashisan75 (talk) 16:27, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. - Can you be more specific about precisely where you think the text should be added, and which parts of the source support the additions, so that the edit can be made accurately? Thank you. Begoon ^talk 11:57, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 22 November 2012

In "External Links" I want to ad a link to a photographic gallery of the executions of Roberto Girón y Pedro Castillo (by shooting) and Manuel Martínez Coronado (Lethal injection) in Guatemala: http://uzonreport.com/?page_id=16 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jorge Uzon (talk • contribs) 16:00, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. - thanks. Begoon ^talk 11:57, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Absolute statement not supported

The article states, "Although many hard-line and extremist Muslim societies have adopted capital punishment for other than the crime of murder, this is in violation of the Qur'anic law mentioned above, and so is rejected by most orthodox commentators and scholars."

This statement appears rather biased, and lacks substantial citation.

The Quranic quote that killing one who is "spreading mischief in the land" is acceptable seems rather vague, and open to interpretation. The source given in support of the view that capital punishment is not supported by Islam is little more than a blog by Kashif Shahzada, Muslim Author and Speaker, and hardly represents "most orthodox commentators and scholars." (http://kashifshahzada.com/2010/11/20/why-the-death-penalty-is-un-islamic/)

I recommend that the language used here be changed to reflect more neutrality on the subject, or else provide more better citation sources. Millennial Dan (talk) 12:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Not Punishment

In the 'Contemporary era' section some line space and even an emotive photo is given to examples of man's inhumanity to man which, as horrific as it is, is however not actually examples of capital punishment. It is genocide and the manifestations of hate of some people to their perceived enemies. When the Hutus of Rwanda slaughtered the Tutsis it was not because the Tutsis did anything alleged to be wrong, it was because they were Tutsis. Ditto Nazis and the Jews, Stalin and the Kulaks, Stalin and those in the party who might pose a challenge, Khmer Rouge and the intellectuals, the Turks and the Armenians.

To include this in this Capital Punishment page is merely an attempt to associate peoples who believe in the retention and re-introduction of the death penalty with history's practitioners of genocide.Edward Carson (talk) 20:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Is your view supported by sources? As far as I know jews were allegedly exterminated as guilty of contaminating race, killing Jesus etc. etc. And yes, it's the same concept as capital punishment, i.e. that the State has the right to take the life of citizens. --Nemo 17:05, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

With respect, I am not sure I would agree. The concept of punishment must be used according to modern understanding. To give the death penalty for stealing a loaf of bread might be horrendous, but it is still technically punishment. To kill a breed of rats in your house is not punishing the rats for anything they may have malevolently done, but simply to eradicate a group you think are harmful to your lifestyle. We in the enlightened world describe punishment as a penalty for an action done, no matter how appropriate it was. The first two dictionaries I looked up, Collins and Encarta both describe punishment as a penalty for an offence. It would be ridiculous to ‘punish’ someone who was not even aware for any offence caused. If some psycho kills the great great grandson of someone who has wronged his great great grandfather the press and the law will not describe the action as justice or even vengeance. It will simple be an act of insane murder. Does your argument of why the Nazis did what they did really stand up? Why would the Nazis have a gripe about the Jews allegedly killing Jesus? They weren’t Christians. Contaminating the race? The didn’t just kill the Jews who may have married the Gentiles, they killed all Jews they could get their hands on, no matter how much they kept within their own race. Edward Carson (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Mormonism

Could the following be added to the Mormonism section?
{{Further|Mormonism and violence|Capital punishment in Utah}}
These are related topics, with additional information that may be of use to the reader. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there any reason why this should not be done? -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

One may want to renew these 2

In favour for other methods than the lethal injection, can be 2, to which sedatives can be used with humanistic advantages, the 5 electrically fired rifle-barrels, blind-fired by 5 people inside a separate room after securing the person to be executed. Nr. 2 is actually the French guillotine, although formerly controversial, can now be used humanistically too, by being efficient and preferred to fx. manual decapitation, because of "safer actuation" of the falling, decapitating blade, also by physics/science. Like it? 46.9.87.13 (talk) 00:04, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

We'll need to cite reliable sources which discuss the above methods. Simply writing off the top of your head would be original research, which is forbidden on Wikipedia. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 00:26, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Amnesty International 2012 list out

Amnesty International's list of Death Sentences and Executions 2012 (http://www.amnesty.org/sites/impact.amnesty.org/files/PUBLIC/2012DeathPenaltyAI.pdf) is out. The list under Global distribution can now be updated. Flankattack (talk) 05:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Fair use candidate from Commons: File:Firing Squad in Iran.jpg

The file File:Firing Squad in Iran.jpg, used on this page, has been deleted from Wikimedia Commons and re-uploaded at File:Firing Squad in Iran.jpg. It should be reviewed to determine if it is compliant with this project's non-free content policy, or else should be deleted and removed from this page. If no action is taken, it will be deleted after 7 days. Commons fair use upload bot (talk) 06:15, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Israel

The implied claim that persons who "died in custody" in Israel were extrajudicially-executed reflects Palestinian-Arab propaganda and is unsupported by evidence. The phrase should be deleted. Deaths of prisoners in custody happen everywhere and are not usually assumed to be judicial malpractice unless there is evidence - indeed this article makes such a claim only for Israel, a clear case of bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.99.128.88 (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Phrasing in the section History

Is there a need for the phrase "Islam on the whole accepts capital punishment"? My interpretation of it may be wrong, but as no other religion is mentioned in the section I question what the purpose of the statement is. Feel free to inform me. SpaderTre (talk) 10:22, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Sizable deletions

User:Suresh 5 has deleted about 8K bytes of text from this article in this series of edits. I asked him about this action, and he responded on his talk page. Any thoughts on this from other editors? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:24, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

On «section "Ancient Tang China", was removed because it does not provide world wide view of the subject»: I agree that the section may be too long, but this is not a valid rationale for removal because the other sections are mostly just about Europe/Western world. Without that section, the history section would be saying nothing on one or even two millennia of history, which sounds wrong («Draco in about 621 BC [...] The 12th century Sephardic legal scholar, Moses Maimonides».

Surely some better considerations are needed here, but I didn't have the time for that so I just refactored the section to be cleared in what it is about, which hopefully will help this too. I surely didn't organise stuff into sections just for such "ghettos" to be speedy-removed. --Nemo 22:42, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Russia - on the map

Capital punishment in Russia is still on the books, though not used. The map should reflect this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2F0A:504F:FFFF:0:0:BC19:1BAF (talk) 19:28, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 August 2013

On 28.08.2013, Poland ratified the Protocol no. 13 and therefore will refrain from using the death penalty in time of war. The paragraph "International views" should be updated in a following way:

FROM:

(...) in time of war or imminent threat of war (Armenia, Latvia, Poland and Spain). Italy is the most recent to ratify it, on 3 March 2009.

TO:

in time of war or imminent threat of war (Armenia, Latvia and Spain). Poland is the most recent to ratify it, on 28 September 2013.

Source: http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,114877,14507593,Prezydent_podpisal_ustawy_dot__zniesienia_kary_smierci.html Eipifi (talk) 17:04, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Done I corrected the month to match the source. The translated source also seemed to indicate that the ratification was on Tuesday the 27th. Please let me know if you want to change that. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 19:20, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 February 2014

In the Judaism section, there are several occurrences of "CE" in unhelpfully small text. Please replace every occurrence of <small>CE</small> with CE. 2001:18E8:2:28CA:F000:0:0:BA27 (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Done. LittleMountain5 23:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Should this sentence be removed?

"There are three men currently on death row for crimes they committed at age 18 or 19." I think that this sentence is not important, and the fact is easily subjected to change while Wikipedia is not a newspaper to keep update on how many juvenile death row inmate in Japan "currently".Nmphuong91 (talk) 15:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, absolutely this is not the correct way to mention this. an "as of xx/xx" would work, if the fact is important enough to keep here. im not going to log in right now to fix it.50.193.19.66 (talk) 17:57, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

inconsistency between text and caption of illustration

Text inclues "A further form of execution called Ling Chi (slow slicing), or death by/of a thousand cuts, was used in China from the close of the Tang dynasty (around 900) to its abolition in 1905", yet the caption of the adjoining illustration is "Ling Chi – execution by slow slicing – in Beijing around 1910."

141.243.9.161 (talk) 07:54, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Spelling error

In the beginning of the third paragraph, the word "practice" is spelled incorrectly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.80.75.41 (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not. This article is written in British English (see the note near the top of the talk page) — and in British English, the correct spelling is practise for the verb, and practice for the noun. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 23:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Middle Ages

The section on the Middles Ages and Capital Punishment actually contains little actual information on the period. There is a reference to Maimonides, but no discussion as to the impact of his views; there is some reference to the "frame" of a work of literature, but no historical information regarding Medieval Muslim kingdoms. In terms of the European West, all the information deals with the period post 1500 (Henry VIII and the English Reformation) and nothing about the actual Middle Ages. Forkbeard (talk) 05:26, 3 March 2014 (UTC)Forkbeard

Absurd Claim, without Proof or 2ndary Source

The claim was made implying that minor crime would not be prevented if one executed criminals for minor crime. That is absurd. If a criminal is executed, he is prevented from repeating his crime -- not that minor crime should get execution, but the claim is absurd. It has no citation, & any source that says such would be ipso facto unreliable. Thus I have deleted the statement. (EnochBethany (talk) 04:33, 30 March 2014 (UTC))

A Section Is Needed on the History of Capital Punishment in the USA

There was a time period when the courts stopped capital punishment, later it resumed. Someone said that there are 4 groups of states now: 1) Those where there is no capital punishment; 2) those where it is on the books, but no used; 3) those where it is on the books & used; 4) Texas. (EnochBethany (talk) 04:36, 30 March 2014 (UTC))

It's not hard, just follow the links to per-country articles... Capital punishment in the United States. --Nemo 18:57, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 22 April 2014

"Death penalty" redirects to "Capital punishment," which makes perfect sense. There are only two lines on the "Death penalty" page. The first line is obviously necessary ("#REDIRECT [[Capital punishment]]"). My request, which I expect is uncontroversial, is for the deletion of the second line ("if your trying to do research about this subject, give up.") Jdaloner (talk) 16:28, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. Rmhermen (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Wrongful convictions

Wrongful convictions are not a rare occurrence, in fact they are becoming quite common. A person who might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time is paying with their life, either by being put to death or being locked away for life. The United States defense system is flawed and innocent people are being convicted of crimes they did not commit every day. Contributing causes include eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, government misconduct and bad lawyering, circumstances an individual has no control over. (Innocence Project). There have not been enough studies done to determine the amount of possible wrongful convictions, but estimates are between 3 and 5% yearly. The death penalty has been used as a form of punishment for hundreds of years in order to keep society safe from criminals (Innocence Project). The death penalty needs to be abolished due to the risk of convicting an innocent person, the modern day conveniences now available, and the factors a potential criminal has no control over. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1:BF00:1094:2DD3:38F5:F93C:6C7F (talk) 23:44, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Israel -- factual error

The article makes the statement "The only execution in Israeli history occurred in 1961, when Adolf Eichmann, one of the principal organizers of the Holocaust, was put to death after his trial in Jerusalem." which is factually wrong. Meir Tobianski was the first person to be executed in Israel in 1948, and both names are listed in Capital punishment in Israel. Please fix. -- 128.211.178.12 (talk) 02:06, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Picture of "The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer"

Having a picture depicting Christians (or anyone) being killed in the Collisium doesn't seem to match with the list of methods used for execution in ancient history: "Severe historical penalties include breaking wheel, boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing (including crushing by elephant), stoning, execution by burning, dismemberment, sawing, decapitation, scaphism, necklacing or blowing from a gun" I think it would be better to specifically mention the roman method of throwing criminals to beasts/animals, or change/remove the picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.37.82 (talk) 15:41, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Mormonism section

The following ref:

<ref>{{Harvtxt|Roberts|1902|p=435}}</ref>

...should be changed to:

<ref>{{Citation |editor-last= Roberts |editor-first= B. H. |editor-link= B. H. Roberts |title= History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints |volume= 1 |publisher= [[Deseret News]] |place= Salt Lake City |year= 1902 |url= https://archive.org/details/historyofchurcho01robe |oclc= 4890306 |page= 435 }}. See also: [[History of the Church (Joseph Smith)]].</ref>

This should be done since the Harvtxt template doesn't have a matching value to point to in references section, and this makes more sense to keep in line in any event, as it is only used once.

Similarly, the following ref in that section:

<ref>{{cite web|url=http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/capital-punishment|title=The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Public Issues|publisher=Newsroom.lds.org|accessdate=23 August 2010}}</ref>

...should be updated to:

<ref>{{citation |url= http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/capital-punishment |contribution= Capital Punishment |title= Topics and Background |work= MormonNewsroom.org |publisher= [[LDS Church]] |accessdate= 2014-07-09 }}</ref>

This is the current location of that material (the original link redirects here, for now), and this is a better description of that reference. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 15:52, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Done  NQ  talk 21:04, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 July 2014

Please add the following to "Further Reading":

• Jay Paul Gates and Nicole Marafioti, eds. 2014. Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.

Abdiel bath kol (talk) 17:17, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Not done for now: There's no link to the article or book. Please provide one. —cyberpower ^Chat_Online 11:14, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Order of sections -Public opinion should not be the first section

"Public opinion" section should not be the first section as it is now. In general, sections about history or legality come first in most articles.2A02:2F0A:506F:FFFF:0:0:50C:9128 (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Done! jxm (talk) 00:02, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Merge in Public execution??

I've proposed merging the Public execution page in here. It's basically still a stub article with no links from this page. It shares the Taliban image with this page, and has some potentially useful references. Thoughts? jxm (talk) 00:07, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. It should be merged.2A02:2F0A:507F:FFFF:0:0:BC1A:B4AE (talk) 20:43, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Agree - seems like an obvious move. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 15:13, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done I went ahead and did the merge and placed the content, pretty much intact, in the Contemporary use section. It seemed to be the most prudent place for it. Please feel free to change/edit it if you have other ideas. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 19:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Same image twice

Public execution of a woman by Taliban members, Afghanistan, 1999

This image appears twice in the article. I've not seen that before in articles and it does seem unnecessary to me.--Hordaland (talk) 01:25, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Time Magazine

To editors interested in this Wikipedia article:

FYI, Time Magazine in its paper edition (European version) of May 26, 2014 has a six-page article with interesting facts about and thoughts on the death penalty in the U.S. It is called "Fatally Flawed" -- referring to recent botched executions by lethal, but-not-lethal-enough, injection. The article gives some history and has a couple of diagrams. --Hordaland (talk) 01:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

There's an error in this article

It says crucifixion isn't a method that's used but some places still continue to use it. 50.88.218.76 (talk) 22:19, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

edit request

Remove the scare quotes from "humane" in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.216.157.27 (talk) 03:40, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Section "International views"

In that section, at the paragraph "There are also other international abolitionist instruments, such as the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has 78 parties;[146]" it must be changed to 81 parties, in order to update the outdated number.[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2F0A:507F:FFFF:0:0:567F:93F9 (talk) 08:44, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Apparent inaccuracy regarding Misuse of Drugs Act (Singapore)

Regarding Misuse of Drugs Act (Singapore), the final two sentences of Capital punishment#Wrongful_execution say "This refers to a situation when someone is being caught with drugs. In this situation, in almost any jurisdiction, the prosecution has a prima facie case."

The way I read the other article, the first of these two sentences is wrong: it can be a situation where the person is merely presumed to be in possesion of drugs, without any real evidence. In that case, the second sentence is predicated on an implicit fallacy: that presumed possession of drugs is treated the same way as actual possession in "almost any jurisdiction". I am not personally familiar with the situation in Singapore, and I am not sure where to find a reliable source for this (the other Wikipedia article itself cannot be), so I have not changed this article directly. But I strongly suspect this is WP:POV, and hope someone else can provide sources one way or the other. BlueGuy213 (talk) 06:59, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Suggest splitting Capital_punishment#Juvenile_offenders to its own article and summarizing here

The issue of juvenile execution could be gone into a lot more detail, particularly as regards the overall trend towards eliminating it in most of the world. The current section is a little long in an already bulky article, but very focused on the immediate past. I suggest that I split off that section into its own article, and replace it with a concise 1-2 paragraph summary of the general trends here on the main page.

With a separate and longer article, we can get into more detail about nations that eliminated juvenile execution earlier than 1990, which gives us a chance to show more national experiences on the topic.

Does anyone strongly object (and/or disagree that the current section is a little bulky)? I can pretty easily do the slice-out, and then at leisure we could build up a more extensive "Capital punishment of juveniles" article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:19, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Just a tweak

Were they say "The sentence that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence", it should be changed to "A death sentence is a sentence in which someone is punished in this manner". I was just reading this post, and I could not understand anything at all (it might be because of the grammar error "be") Anyways, it's just a little thing to change

TheBoss Noob (talk) 17:36, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

"be" is not an error in that sentence. Rmhermen (talk) 00:15, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

True facts - but without causality for the topic

Lead was finished with the words "Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where executions take place, such as China, India, the United States and Indonesia, the four most-populous countries in the world, which continue to apply the death penalty (although in India and in many US states it is rarely employed). Each of these four nations has consistently voted against the General Assembly resolutions" - and certainly, Asia is indeed the largest continent. But so what ? And if 60% of the world's population lives in nations which uses the death as a punishment - what has that to do with the matter ? In an article on for instance Nitrogen, we don't conclude "60% of all N2 gas is breathed in the four most populated nations", do we ? I find it more interesting that of all nations whithin the so-called "Western World" (which is supposed to have a similar culture) , only the United States still uses death as punishment. Boeing720 (talk) 22:31, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The last claim would need a citation - Western world is a slippery phrase, and according to that article, it includes countries like Antigua and Barbuda, which do have capital punishment. You would also need a citation to suggest that the fact is relevant. I don't think the 60% statistic is relevant either - there has been a similar discussion at Talk:Same-sex marriage regarding whether to include the corresponding statistic there. StAnselm (talk) 02:01, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Edit request

Please make the following changes:

• in the section "Contemporary era" where it says:

"The United States (the federal government and 32 of the states), Guatemala, most of the Caribbean and the majority of democracies in Asia (for example, Japan and India) and Africa (for example, Botswana and Zambia) retain it. South Africa's Constitutional Court, in judgment of the case of State v Makwanyane and Another, unanimously abolished the death penalty on 6 June 1995.[40][41]"

change "32 states" to "31 states" because Nebraska abolished the death penalty in May this year: [3]

• in the section "Global distribution" where it says:

32 states in the United States carry out capital punishment. In 2012, there were 43 executions in the US, which have taken place in nine states: Arizona (6), Delaware (1), Florida (3), Idaho (1), Mississippi (6), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (6), South Dakota (2), Texas (15).[71]

change 32 states to 31 states

• in the section "International views" where it says:

There are also other international abolitionist instruments, such as the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has 78 parties;[154]

change 78 parties to 81 parties (see source here [4]).

 Done Jamietw (talk) 17:30, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Semi-protected edit request on 19 October 2015

Most recent state to ban capital punishmebt is Nebraska, not Maryland. 66.87.77.3 (talk) 03:39, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Done Cannolis (talk) 09:17, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Edit request on December 22, 2015

The lede contains the following paragraph:

Nearly all countries in the world prohibit the execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes; since 2009, only Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan have carried out such executions. Executions of this kind are prohibited under international law.

As "international law" is unclear in this context (is it prohibited by a treaty? the UN Charter? customary IL? jus cogens?), I propose a modification to the following, as per the sources cited:

Nearly all countries in the world prohibit the execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes; since 2009, only Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan have carried out such executions. Executions of this kind are prohibited under international law by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which all UN member states are parties except for the United States. Despite its failure to ratify the Convention, such executions have not been carried out in the United States since 2005, when they were held unconstitutional..

References

A variation of this has been added — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:07, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

'Other Offenses' in China

Economic Crimes are no longer punishable by capital punishment except the Corruption Crime. At present, besides murder and rape, the crimes that can be punished by death include the followings:

1. some of the crimes of espionage and sedition;
2. some crimes of endangering the public security that have resulted serious consequences;
3. skyjacking that have resulted serious human injure or death or sabotaged the aircraft seriously;
4. serious circumstances in illegally manufacturing, trading, transporting, mailing, storing guns, ammunition or explosives; or serious circumstances in stealing or forcibly dispossessing guns, ammunition, explosives, poisonous substances, radioactive substances, or pathogens of infectious disease;
5. serious circumstances in producing or selling adulterated medicine;
6. some circumstances in raping;
7. killing the victim in a crime of kidnapping or abducting and trafficking a woman or a child;
8. some circumstances in a crime of forcibly dispossessing;
9. serious circumstances of a ringleader or an active participant in a crime of a jailbreak or a prison raid with gathering a crowd;
10. some crimes of endangering the national defense;
11. very serious circumstances in the crime of corruption (the amount that corrupted is very huge and the corruption has caused the serious loss of the interests of the state or the citizens). In such cases and the person was sentenced to a two-year suspension of execution, the People's Court of Law can make the decision according to the situation of the crime that after the period of suspension, the commuted life punishment is not allowed to be reduced and the person is not allowed to be paroled;
12. some crimes of breach of duty of a military personnel.
The website is in Chinese, but if you've got any language problem, I can do the translation work, since the English version that translated by another website is unavailable. Besides, the translation that I submitted here is done by myself.
Alavda (talk) 18:21, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Introduction and images

At the request of I enjoy sandwiches, I explain here why I removed the following elements:

• The file "Palmiry ostatnia droga.jpeg" pictures extrajudicial, mass executions (a crime against humanity), not capital punishment-executions.
• The 1905 file "Supplice Fou-Tchou-Li.jpg" is improper placed in a section on the "Tang dynasty", which ended in 907.
• An introduction must be general and not begin to deal with details of the subject.

Urutine32 (talk) 20:23, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

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Juvenile offenders subsections

I believe it is wrong to have subsections about three particular countries only about juveniles offenders. There is no fortunately such kind of spotlight in any other section, such as public opinion or execution methods. I am therefore willing next week to tranfer this content to respective articles about Capital punishment in Iran, Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia and Capital punishment in Somalia. I announce that so we can discuss if anyone disagree. Urutine32 (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

The subsection titles could be removed, but the info should remain (apart from the unnecessary detail about the 2008 execution in Somalia).zzz (talk) 19:47, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

The info should be summarized. Urutine32 (talk) 06:23, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Tang Dynasty

At the request of AugustinMa, I open here a formal discussion on whether the section on the Tang dynasty should be removed or not, even though I believe indefensible to have a section as long as the one dedicated to the entire Middle Ages about a single dynasty of a single country. Urutine32 (talk) 09:00, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

1) One of the many reasons why I often refrain from participating more on wikipedia, is that the accumulated painstaking efforts of contributors to edit and add to an article can be all negated in one stroke, deleting an entire section or even an entire article with a single, quick edit by a single individual. The amount of research and efforts that has gone into the section should never have been thoughtlessly deleted like this, without making sure that the information is available somewhere else on wikipedia, and link to it from this article.

2) There are two independent countries today which are the cultural descendants of the ancient China: the PRC and the ROC (Republic of China), both of which today maintain the capital punishment. The People's Republic of China is by far the country which uses the capital punishment the most, which thousands of executions every year, and the Republic of China is one of the very few remaining modern democracies which still use the capital punishment today. Taiwan, alongside the USA and Japan, is one of the three stable democracies that have not yet abolished it (I hesitate to list Malaysia and Singapore under the heading "modern, stable democracies"). Thus, historical and cultural insights about its use in ancient China is very relevant to the article as a whole.

3) The section about the Tang dynasty is particularly noteworthy because it provides an example of capital punishment having been abolished for a certain period of China's history. I often hear in the ROC that the death penalty is part of the Chinese culture and that's why neither the PRC nor the ROC would abolish it. It's interesting to see that there was a period in Chinese history where it was abolished.

4) Also, it shows that the drive to abolish the death penalty is not a modern ideal based on a modern view of human rights, but that as far back an the 8th century CE, a Chinese emperor abolished it.

5) English wikipedia is infamous for having an incurable western (North American) bias in its global coverage, across all articles. There is a wikipedia policy article about it somewhere. I regularly have to fight for Asian content not to be deleted from the English wikipedia. I know that western wikipedians are mostly ignorant and unconcerned about Asian culture and history, but I am pissed when, for example, an article about a Japanese movie which broke many box office records in Asia got "speedily deleted" by a westerner simply because he never heard of it. I had to fight to get it reinstated. Such a waste of time, fighting cultural insensitivities. The same principle applies here.

AugustinMa (talk) 08:00, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

1) The text isn't lost, it is still in the history and you can move it elsewhere if you wish.

2) 3) 4) and 5) are not justifications for such a Chinese bias. Not only Chinese, since it is only one of the roughly 20 Chinese Imperial dynasties. This discredits Wikipedia. (And it should also be noted that Japan abolished the death penalty far longer).

Urutine32 (talk) 08:52, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

If someone want to fully understand this debate, he should also read EdJohnston talk page (future archive 41). Urutine32 (talk) 08:11, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• Urutine32, you have made precisely 1 comment there, which I repeat here in full:

  I waited that the discussion become dormant and that nobody replied to me four days before restoring the deletion. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz deleted the deletion less than 10 hours after, without participating in the discussion and with an inacurrate edit summary: I never said that the section discredits China, but Wikipedia. Urutine32 (talk) 18:58, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I can think of no reason why that would help if "someone want to fully understand this debate" (sic). Your last comment is thus incomprehensible. Yet you continue to delete the info about China. If you are unable to improve the section it might be better to leave it, for the reasons stated above.zzz (talk) 19:18, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

• It was at least necessary to understand that saying that I removed the section because it "discredited China" was slanderous.
• Cease to say "China" about a single of his more than 20 dynasties.

Urutine32 (talk) 06:19, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Why not transferring this section to Capital punishment in China, in which there is curiously nothing at all about history? Urutine32 (talk) 08:45, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

"Botched executions"

I removed these contributions [5][6] because they added "Details about US unfit for this worldwide article". Signedzzz restored them on the grounds that my "theory would exclude half of the contents of the article, and many other articles."

I disagree. Though the article gives countries' facts sometimes, it never or almost never gives such kind of domestics details. (Except maybe in the section "Tang dynasty ". I agree it is crazy to have a section as long as the one dedicated to entire Middle Ages about a single dynasty of a single country. I am willing to remove it, and replace it by a mere paragraph in the near future.)

It even more irrelevant to have a study about "the period between 1977 and 2001" excluding the fifteen most recent years.

Urutine32 (talk) 08:27, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

No. It is one short paragraph. There are paragraphs of equal or greater length, throughout the article, about England, or China, or even one person. Your objection makes no sense. I could add something about the researchers' conclusions. But that would make the paragraph longer, though. You can't have a section about "painless execution" without covering this aspect. The data starts in 1977 for obvious reasons. I will look for more research. zzz (talk) 09:29, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

You say "The data starts in 1977 for obvious reasons." Can you really not understand that my objection is that it end in 2001 ? And this objection is enough to remove the paragraph entirely. Urutine32 (talk) 11:26, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

You mentioned both dates. And no, this objection is not sufficient. It is merely a reason to add more data if it is available. zzz (talk) 11:34, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I say "excluding the fifteen most recent years". Yes, such kind of obsolete data shall be removed. Urutine32 (talk) 11:37, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

If you can provide evidence for your opinion that it is obsolete, then I would agree. As I said, I will try and find more research on the subject. zzz (talk) 11:41, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Outdated, if you prefer this word. The 2001 date itself is the evidence, duh. Urutine32 (talk) 11:46, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

It seems to me you are still just arguing for more data to be added. zzz (talk) 11:50, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

No I am arguing for removing outdated data. Urutine32 (talk) 11:52, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

You need a reliable source that it is "outdated", ie "obsolete". Otherwise, the reader will have to judge for theirself. zzz (talk) 11:55, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Saying that a data excluding the 15 most recent years is not outdated is bad faith. Urutine32 (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I have agreed that more recent data should be added when it becomes available. If the most recent data on road traffic deaths ended in 2001, then I would equally argue for adding that to an article about Cars. And I think you would find that in that case, for example, the data is not "obsolete" in the slightest. Off the top of my head, in the UK it was about 4,000, and had been for a while, now it's a bit closer to 3,000. Similarly, the rate of botched executions was fairly constant in the research period, (at least one in every year but two) and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, one expects the trend to have continued. The researchers stated that they drew this conclusion. zzz (talk) 12:10, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree with zzz here. The fact that the article stops at 2001 does not automatically mean that it is outdated and that its conclusions no longer are relevant. More data would be valuable covering the period from 2001 onwards, but you can't just look at the end-date for the article and assume it is no longer valid. Also, since executions are done at the national/country level, an article covering the death penalty necessarily has to look at what is happening in individual countries. That's where the examples come from. So saying that you can't include specific examples from a particular country would pretty much gut the article. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 12:52, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

In a worldwide article about Cars, I would certainly agree to remove data about "road traffic deaths in the United States between 1977 and 2001".

Because it is for you to find an updated data. In an encyclopedia, you cannot merely assume in the talk page that it "ended in 2001". Urutine32 (talk) 17:33, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I would also agree to remove in a worldwide article about Cars a "2005 study saying that 43% of Americans cars are not enough secure". These contributions should be in the lethal injection article. Urutine32 (talk) 08:12, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

This is not a forum to discuss road death and how it relates to capital punishment. Do you have any objection that has not been addressed? zzz (talk) 13:38, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I believe, to the contrary, that your analogy is very helpful to understand the issue. Since I have made the final refutation, it is for you instead to introduce new arguments for your position. Urutine32 (talk) 07:36, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

@Urutine32: What have you "refuted"? zzz (talk) 07:47, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Your position for adding outdated data. And you gave no justification at all for adding the POV template, since you never raised any argument related to neutrality, so I removed it according to rule 2. Urutine32 (talk) 09:01, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

How many time will you continue to avoid the obsolescence issue ? Urutine32 (talk) 09:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I've restored a modified version of this passage. It'd be good if we had very recent global data. However, even in 1977, the provision in the U.S. Constitution against cruel and unusual punishment applied, and courts were willing to consider it in connection with death-penalty cases. This being the case, the U.S. and its states had an incentive to minimize suffering when inflicting capital punishment. We can assume that most nations that practice capital punishment have weaker protections against the infliction of incidental suffering, so the U.S. data give us a minimum incidence.

I've rewritten the passage to eliminate the word "botched", which seems to connote extreme incompetence or negligence; I've replaced it with the quoted passage from Borg and Radelet. Although B&R use the word, it seems like an editorial judgement on their part, and we should treat it as we treat other cases of editorializing in a cited source. Unfortunately, I don't have access to B&R, so I don't know if they discuss, for instance, how long a delay it takes to cause, "at least arguably, unnecessary agony". Do B&R count it, for instance, if it takes several attempts to hit a vein, or if there's an unintended five-minute delay between the prisoner's strapping into the electric chair and the application of the current? I'd be very loath to use a word like "botched" except under circumstances in which any reasonable person would conclude that gross incompetence or negligence had caused significant incidental suffering. — Ammodramus (talk) 01:16, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Ammodramus, if you email me via my user page I will reply with a PDF. zzz (talk) 18:06, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

I simply cannot agree and believe that all your arguments are irrelevant with respect to whether this data is outdated or not. Urutine32 (talk) 07:59, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

No matter, next month I will rewrite the section entirely to include sources, recent data, worldwide perspective and balancing. Until then, I will let the outdated data. Urutine32 (talk) 09:16, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

You reinstated the two studies we previously debated in "Movements towards non-painful execution". I don't plan to delete them. But, I will include in the text the quote of chief justice Roberts in his controlling opinion explaining why blood pressure is irrelevant, for balancing. Hovewer, I still believe it is wrong to go so much in the details about US injection in this worldwide article about capital punishment, and I would agree to remove the Roberts quote if you agree to remove the Lancet study completely. Urutine32 (talk) 06:35, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

The blood pressure cuff (mentioned in the quote you added) has literally nothing to do with the Lancet study! You have misunderstood the source material. Your addition of this quote is therefore arbitrary, and, without context, totally meaningless. Therefore I see no reason for it to remain in the article.

On the other hand, the Lancet study is clearly of pivotal importance, as is made abundantly clear in the cited Baze v. Rees ref. Therefore, there can be no question of removing it. zzz (talk) 08:04, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

I notice you have changed the section substantially, deleting some material, and adding material cited to www.capitalpunishmentuk.org. What makes you think this is a reliable source? zzz (talk) 08:14, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

You are suggesting that "blood level of hypnotics" and "blood pressure cuff" are not the same thing. But, when I google "blood level of hypnotics" I find only the Wikipedia capital punishment article... Urutine32 (talk) 11:25, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry if I don't have understood this difference. I am not a physician. But I am skeptical because the Lancet has not a good background (see: The Lancet#Controversies).

In Baze v. Rees Roberts say "shortly after the Lancet study appeared, peer responses by seven medical researchers criticized the methodology supporting the original conclusions. See Groner, Inadequate Anaesthesia in Lethal Injection for Execution, 366 Lancet 1073–1074 (Sept. 2005). These researchers noted that because the blood samples were taken “several hours to days after” the inmates’ deaths, the postmortem concentrations of thiopental—a fat-soluble compound that passively diffuses from blood into tissue—could not be relied on as accurate indicators for concentrations during life.". I assume you will prefer this balancing rather than the one about "blood pressure cuff". Urutine32 (talk) 11:51, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

You guess wrong. For one thing, you failed to notice the next sentences in the reference: "The authors of the original study responded to defend their methodology. Id., at 1074–1076. See also post, at 2–4 (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment). We do not purport to take sides in this dispute. We cite it only to confirm that a “best practices” approach, calling for the weighing of relative risks without some measure of deference to a State’s choice of execution procedures, would involve the courts in debatable matters far exceeding their expertise." I am re-reverting your recent edits, as per WP:BRD. zzz (talk) 14:13, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Leave aside for now the issue about botched executions and the Lancet, since there are the most contentious. You removed many new materials, about for example the constitutionality of hanging in Japan and India. Why? Urutine32 (talk) 08:48, 21 June 2016 (UTC)