"An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization that is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital puni...

Views of the Death Penalty Capital Punishment has been part of the criminal justice system since the earliest of times. The Babylonian Hammurabi Code (ca. 1700 BC) decreed death sentences for crimes as minor as the fraudulent sale of beer. Egyptians could be put to death for ...