European countries abolished the death penalty, at least temporarily, as early as
the late 18th century. Even in the USA, which is today the only Western liberal
democracy to execute criminals, some states have very early experience of
abolition, or at least restriction, of capital punishment. Michigan and Wis-
consin, for example, had abolished judicial execution by the mid-19th century.
Nevertheless, until the second half of the 20th century, most states of all
political types felt it legitimate to kill people who broke certain laws, even in
peacetime. The most liberal of modern societies often allows capital punish-
ment, at least theoretically, during wartime. After the Second World War,
partly as a reaction of revulsion to state terror in general, the penalty was
abolished in many European countries. Abolition of the death penalty is now,
in fact, a requirement for membership of the Council of Europe. Thus by the
early 21st century, about 90 countries had formally relinquished capital
punishment, and perhaps another 20 have not executed anyone for so long
that they can be considered, in practice, as having done so. In particular, states
escaping from long periods of authoritarian rule after 1989 have rapidly moved
to make execution illegal, as did South Africa almost immediately after the
ending ofapartheid.
Outside the world of developed and stable liberal democracies, the death
penalty is still very widely used, and often not only for crimes against the
person; for example, drug related offences continue to attract the penalty in
many Asian countries. In some Islamic areas there appears to be a religious basis
behind the cultural support for executions (seeShari‘a) in other areas, such as
some Caribbean countries, belief in the deterrent effect of execution continues
strongly. To a very large extent opposition to capital punishment is e ́lite-led.
Even in Europe, public opinion is often much more favourable to the idea of
restoring the penalty than those opposed would expect: in some polls as many
as 70% of the British public would like to see the return of execution for some
types of murder.
It is against this background that one must consider the outstanding
exception to the trend away from relying on the state taking life to enforce
its law—the USA. For a few years in the 1970s executions were halted in the
USA because of the Supreme Court’s uncertainty about the constitutionality of
the death penalty. When they finally ruled in its favour, in 1976, many of the
states drafted new capital punishment laws so that by the beginning of the 21st
century 38 states allowed the penalty, and several hundreds of people had been
executed, often despite considerable international public pressure. The enthu-
siasm for execution is not as widespread in the USA as this figure suggests.
Several states which put capital punishment laws back on the statute book after
1976 have never used the sentence. More importantly, extensive use of
the penalty is largely restricted to the conservative south. Over two-thirds of
all executions since 1976 have been in Texas, Virginia, Missouri, Florida,
Capital Punishment