Does anybody know when the death penalty started being used? what year?

Question

Sorry :( i meant in the U.S.A.

Answer 1

I expect from the moment there was a USA. The death penalty was always there and would have been part of the history the early settlers brought to the US. It was probably also in effect in some way among aboriginal populations. As long as there have been people there has been a death penalty in one form or another.

The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. Here are a few interesting links.

Answer 2

It was always in place until it was suspended in the last years...then reinstated.

In 1976, contemporaneously with Woodson and Roberts, the Court decided Gregg v. Georgia, 153 428 U.S. 153 (1976) and upheld a procedure in which the trial of capital crimes was bifurcated into guilt-innocence and sentencing phases. At the first proceeding, the jury decides the defendant's guilt; if he is innocent, of course, or otherwise not convicted of first-degree murder, the death penalty will not be imposed. At the second hearing, the jury decides the facts necessary to support imposing the death sentence, and in many jurisdictions, the ultimate penalty as well — either death or life in prison, either with or without parole.

Executions resumed on January 17, 1977 when Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in Utah. Since 1976, 1,029 people have been executed, almost exclusively by the states. Texas has accounted for over a third of modern executions (378 as of November 1, 2006); the federal government has executed only 3 people in the last 27 years. California has the greatest number of prisoners on death row, but has held relatively few executions. Throw Away The Key, a group that advocates tougher sentences and victim's rights, estimates that about 1800 people were murdered by the first 1000 people executed since 1976. This is out of a total of 600,000 people murdered in the United States since 1975.[8]

Answer 3

The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes.

The earliest records of a death sentence date from the 16th century BC, when a member of the Egyptian nobility was accused of magic, and ordered to take his own life.

America has used the death penalty since colonial times, when American settlers brought the practice over with them from Britain. Early executions were public, usually held in town squares, where large crowds would gather to watch. It wasn't until the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania started to build state penitentiaries in 1834 that executions were moved indoors and out of public view.

Britain influenced America's use of the death penalty more than any other country. When European settlers came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment. The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Kendall was executed for being a spy 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.

Answer 4

The death penalty was brought to North America in the mid 1600s by the early English settlers. The American justice system and laws are based on old English law.

Answer 5

The death penalty was always in force. The question should be, when did they start making the death penalty an unusual thing?

Answer 6

The death penalty has been in use in this country as long as there have been the settlers from Europe. In early Pilgrim life, death was imposed for certain crimes.

Answer 7

The Puritans were using the death penalty against witches and others. The Anglicans hung Quakers for refusing to take off their hats to clerics and officials.

The death penalty is as old as Cain and Abel.

Answer 8

Oh heavens... since the Inquisition, the time of the arrival of the Pilgrims. Way back then they had the death penalty, killing by hanging

Answer 9

What country? What time frame? Histroy shows the death penalty used since the earliest time.

Answer 10

Dec. 1, 1803 in early New England.