Although there is much debate now on the issue of capital punishment it was not always like this. For most of recorded history capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, has been available to every government.
             Capital punishment was not restricted to just murder and other serious crimes but to a variety of wrongdoing. There were also various forms of punishments. Forms included crucifixions, which dated back to B.C. and continued after the death of Christ, stoning, drowning, burning at the stake, as Joan of Ark was, impaling, beheading, and seppuku, which was, forced suicide. More recent forms are lethal gas or injection, electrocution, hanging, and shooting. These newer methods did not come about until the late eighteenth century. Executions were also conducted differently than now. Executions were made public and involved cruel methods. Punishment by death and executions were a routine part of the administration of law and no one questioned it.
             It was not until the era, known as the Age of Enlightenment, in the eighteenth century that the first significant movement to abolish the death penalty arose. The Age of Enlightenment encouraged people to be more independent, to start thinking on their own, and having their own knowledgable opinions. The man to really kick the debate into gear was
             Cesare Beccaria. He was an Italian Jurist and philosopher. He published Tratto dei delitti e delle pene in 1764 and it was in 1880 that it was translated as Essay on Crimes and Punishment. This was seen as many as the influential work and the leading document in the first efforts to abolish executions. This lead to other individuals campaigning in many different areas such as French authors Voltaire and Denis Diderot, British philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith, and political theorist Thomas Paine in the United States.
             Allegations of brutality inspired two different responses from supporters. The first resp...