, ranging from murder to fornication "Whoever hits a man and kills him is to be put to death."( Exodus 21:12) The Draconian Code of ancient Greece imposed capital punishment for every offense. It also existed in the legal codes of the Ancient Middle Eastern Kingdoms. These codes commonly prescribed death for murder, religious and sexual offenses. The Israelites listed capital crimes as homicide, bearing false witness in a capital charge, kidnapping, insult or injury to parent, sexual immortality, magic, idolatry, blasphemy and sacrilege. During the reigns of King Canute and William the Conqueror in the 11th century AD, the death penalty was not used in England. However, the results of interrogation and torture were often fatal. By the end of the 15th century, English law recognized seven major crimes: treason (grand and petty), murder, larceny, burglary, rape, and arson. By 1800 more than 200 capital crimes were recognized, and as a result, 1000 or more individuals were sentenced to death each year (although most sentences were commuted by royal pardon). In the American colonies before the Revolution, the death penalty was commonly authorized for a wide variety of crimes. African Americans, whether slave or free, were threatened with death for many crimes that were punished less severely when committed by whites. In the early days if death was prescribed, the sentence was often carried out by stoning hanging, beheading, strangulation or burning at the stake. Today, there are different methods of execution such as the electric chair, the gas chamber, lethal injection or death before a firing squad.
             All of the methods of executions above are all highly immoral. Not only are they brutal and savage, but they are destroying the person's basic human good of life, therefore, violating the principle of morality or moral action. This principle states that when freely choosing human goods and avoiding what is opposed to them, one should ch...