der the empire, and condemnation "in opus perpetum" (of a life sentence to hard labor).2 The earliest forms of capital punishment were by the guillotine (in France, from 1792), the garrote or strangulation (in Spain), the headsman's ax (in Germany), or by fracturing the neck by hanging (in England).3 Now, some forms of capital punishment used are electrocution, lethal injection and the gas chamber. From the early Roman laws to today's justice systems there are a lot of things that changed in the method of punishment and to which type of crimes the death penalty will be used for. In the early times, the death penalty is sentenced to very minor crimes, like stealing, but today it is only sentenced to criminals who commits crimes like murder and terrorism. The administration of the death penalty also made an evolution from the bloody guillotines to the silent but deadly lethal injections.
             Capital punishment can be traced back to the biblical times. In the Bible there are quite a few verses that support capital punishment. In Genesis 9:6, (from the New American Bible,) it states the following passage: "If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has man been made." This passage not only supports the death penalty but also approves of it and encourages it. Another biblical passage, taken from Matthew 26:52 also supports the death penalty. It states: Jesus said to him: "Put back your sword where it belongs. Those who use the sword are sooner or later destroyed by it." This passage proves that Christ himself regarded capital punishment as a just penalty for murder when he said this passage to one of his disciples after he tried to kill a soldier who had come to arrest Jesus.4 Also, in Exodus 21:12-14 it reads the following:
             "Whoever strikes a man a mortal blow must be put to death. He however, who did not hunt a man down, but caused his...