How Has Capital Punishment Changed Over Time

Over the years of history, there have been many kinds of punishments that were used and created, because of doing crimes that went against the law. You have had many punishments like going to prison for a certain amount of years or having you, driver’s licenses suspended things like that. Then you have the one punishment that stands out from all of them, capital punishment/death penalty. We will learn how Capital Punishment laws and history have changed over the years and how it has affected people, countries, and its history in many ways. According to historian’s, death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. In the code’s death was the only punishment for all types of crimes.

Britain influenced America’s use of the death penalty more than any other country. When European settler came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment with them. The fist-recorded execution in the colonies was of Captain George Kendall in Jamestown of Virginia in 1608. (Brief History of the death penalty in America) He was executed for spying for Spain. In 1612, Virginia governor Sir Thomas Dale enacted the Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws, which provided the death penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, and trading with Indians. Laws including the death penalty varied from colony to colony. The Massachusetts Bay Colony held its first execution in 1630, even though the capital laws of New England did not go into effect until years later. The New York Colony instituted the Duke's laws in 1665. Under these laws, offenses like striking one's mother or father, or denying the “true God,” were punishable by

In the early part of the nineteenth century, many states reduced the number of their capital crimes and built state penitentiaries. In 1834, Pennsylvania became the first state to move executions away from the public eye and carry them out in correctional facilities. In 1846, Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except treason. By the end of the century, the world would see the countries of Venezuela, Portugal, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Ecuador follow suit. Although some U.S. states began abolishing the death penalty, most states held onto capital punishment. Some states made more crimes capital offenses, especially for offenses committed by slaves. In 1838, in an effort to make the death penalty more palatable to the public, some states passed laws against mandatory death sentencing, instead of enacting discretionary death penalty statutes, with some exceptions to a few crimes all mandatory capital punishment laws were abolished by 1963. During the Civil War, opposition to the death penalty waned, as more attention was given to the anti-slavery movement. After the war, new developments in the means of executions emerged. The electric chair was introduced at the end of the century. New York built the first electric chair in 188, and in 1890 executed William Kemmler. Soon, other states adopted this method of