It’s one of the most hotly debated ethical
questions of all time: Does The State ever really have the authority to take a life? That’s right – Capital Punishment, aka
The Death Penalty. It’s one of the least fun subjects to discuss,
but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fascinating, and that’s what this video is all about. You may think that you know all there is to
know about death row, but we’re going to prove you wrong with 50 insane, shocking facts
about execution and the death penalty. Buckle up – it’s going to get grim and
gruesome. 50. The death penalty is basically as old as written
law itself. The first recorded instance of the written
death penalty occurred in the 18th Century BC with the Code of King Hammurabi in Ancient
Babylon. It assigned the death penalty to 25 different
crimes. 49. US Capital punishment was a British import,
and was essentially instated immediately after the British invasion of North America. The first man to be executed on US soil was
Captain George Kendall in 1608, who was sentenced to death for being a spy for Spain. 48. While Britain got the US started on Capital
Punishment, it was actually outlawed in England in 1965. The last two people executed in England were
Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen, who were both hanged the year before for murdering a friend
for money. 47. The Death Penalty is still legal in 56 countries. The world’s top executors are: China, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, the US, Jordan, and Singapore. 46. 25 US States still have the Death Penalty,
though its usage isn’t that frequent. 18 of these 25 states haven’t executed any
inmates in the past five years, and twelve of these states haven’t executed anyone
in twelve years. 45. The most popular method of execution in the
modern United States is the lethal injection. It’s a procedure that’s been frequently
marred by controversy, as it isn’t performed by trained medical professionals due to its
breach of the Hippocratic Oath. This has led to a number of infamous botched
executions. 44. The youngest person to be executed in modern
history is George Stinney, a 14-year-old African American boy from the state of South Carolina
who was sentenced to die by the electric chair in 1944. A full 70 years later in 2014, a judge finally
threw out the conviction and declared the previous trial to have been in violation of
Stinney’s constitutional rights. Sadly, this was much too little and far too
late to save his life. 43. The oldest person to be executed in modern
history is Walter Moody, an 83-year-old convict in Alabama sentenced to die by the lethal
injection in 1991. His actual execution finally took place in
2018. 42. While Walter Moody’s time on death row was
definitely excessive, but not by all that much. The average wait on death row for a US convict
is around 15 years. 41. The US has executed over 1,500 death row inmates
since 1976. While a great number of these prisoners were
likely guilty of their crimes, there’s also a possibility – according to some claims
– that around 4.1 % of those executed were actually innocent, some of which have been
officially exonerated by DNA evidence. We sadly may never know the true number of
innocent deaths. 40. The world’s leading proponent of execution
is China, believed to have executed somewhere within the ballpark of 1,000 people annually,
according to Amnesty International. The true numbers are a little difficult to
discern due to China’s extremely secretive nature. 39. China also has the dubious honour of being
one of the world’s leading execution innovators. According to anti-execution and torture charity
Reprieve.org, China has taken to using mobile “death vans”, where prisoners are strapped
to electrical stretchers in the back of the van before being injected with deadly chemicals. The victim’s organs are harvested for transplant
after death. 38. Execution doesn’t just apply to humans. In 1916, an elephant named Mary was executed
via hanging after killing her trainer. 37. But actual countries often aren’t much better. As late as 2013, stoning women to death was
still completely legal in 15 countries – including Iran, Qatar, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. 36. In the US, the Death Penalty is extremely
costly. In Washington, trials that seek the death
penalty tend to cost around a million dollars more than the non-lethal alternative. The death penalty has also cost California
over four billion dollars since the late 1970s. 35. Death row inmates are typically granted a
last meal request by the state, and these can be pretty strange. Murderer Victor Feguer requested a single
olive with the pit still in it, and bomber Timothy McVeigh requested two pints of mint
chocolate chip ice cream. 34. The price cap for last meals in Oklahoma is
fifteen dollars, so if you plan on having anything extravagant before you meet your
maker, don’t commit a crime in Oklahoma. Texas stopped offering last meals entirely
in 2011. 33. The turn of the millennium was a bad time
to be a death row inmate. The number of annual executions in the US
peaked after a steady decline in 1999, with the execution of 98 criminals by the end of
the year. 32. Uzbekistan has executed criminals by boiling
them to death as late as 2002, so if you ever visit, make sure you’re on your best behaviour. 31. Two people executed in the United States between
the dates of 1608 and 2002 had the stated occupation of “playboy.” 30. The most common occupation of people executed
in the US in the last 400 years was “slave”, accounting for 11.5 of all people executed
in that time frame. 29. The US has historically executed 15 people
for the crimes of “sodomy, buggery, or bestiality.” We won’t go into any more detail on that
one. 28. There’s a racial element to execution. According to a 2003 study from Amnesty International,
despite white and black murderers being relatively equal in conviction, 80% of killers sentenced
to death are black. 20% of these convicts were also convicted
by all-white juries. 27. Executions were public in the US all the way
up until 1936, and were often considered a family affair. Now, we have horror and action movies instead. 26. It was only in 2005 that the US Supreme Court
officially declared it unconstitutional to sentence juvenile criminals to death. 25. Perhaps the most terrifying last words spoken
by a death row inmate were that of vicious serial killer and rapist Carl Panzram. While he was preparing to be hanged, the wait
time was beginning to frustrate him. He yelled, “Hurry it up, you Hoosier b*stard! I could hang a dozen men while you're screwing
around!” 24. Conversely, the funniest last words spoken
by a Death Row inmate could probably be attributed to criminal James D. French. Before his execution on the electric chair,
he supposedly said, "How's this for a headline? 'French Fries.'" 23. Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering is a famously
horrific method of execution used on criminals like British Houses of Parliament Bomber Guy
Fawkes. It was declared cruel and unusual punishment,
and thus unconstitutional, by the US Supreme Court in 1878. 22. Iwao Hakamada from Japan was the world’s
longest-serving death row inmate, spending 45 years awaiting execution. However, Hakamada was freed after a judge
threw out his initial conviction on the grounds of faulty evidence. He’s either very lucky or very unlucky,
depending on your perspective. 21. Actually being executed is a highly unlikely
outcome of being sentenced to death, with only 13% ever making it there. The rest either have their convictions overturned,
or die by other means, like suicide or natural causes. 20. While it was cancelled in 2012, China has
such a large volume of executions that they were able to host a successful TV talk show
that interviews death row inmates and gets their final thoughts before their execution. 19. One of the most prolific executioners of the
modern era was English pub-owner and professional hangman Albert Pierrepoint, who pulled the
lever on between 435 and 600 people during his 25-year-career in the mid-20th century. 18. The most prolific ancient executioner is believed
to be Souflikar, Royal Gardener and executioner for Mahomet IV of the Ottoman Empire. He’s believed to have killed upwards of
a thousand people with his bare hands on behalf of his country. 17. One of history’s most brutal methods of
execution was Ling Chi, aka death by a thousand cuts. The victim is slowly mutilated with a knife
before a final killing blow is struck against the head or heart. It was only banned in China in 1905. 16. Another brutal form of historical execution
is impalement, favoured by rulers like Vlad of Wallachia. It involved forcing a large wooden stake up
the anus of a convicted prisoner until the stake displaces their organs and kills them. 15. In Saudi Arabia, the ancient Roman execution
method of crucifixion is still very much on the table. Convicts are crucified, beheaded, and left
on display as an example to others. 14. The only country in Europe to continue performing
executions in the 21st century is Belarus in Eastern Europe, whose last execution was
performed in 2019. 13. The most infamous woman executed in the US
was serial killer Aileen Wuornos, one of the few female serial killers who didn’t use
poison. Poison, however, was used to kill her, via
the lethal injection, in 2002. 12. The lethal injection is typically a cocktail
of three drugs: Midazolam, which sedates the victim, Vercuronium Bromide, which paralyses
the victim’s muscles, and finally Potassium Chloride, which stops the heart. 11. The infamous electric chair was invented over
the course of nine years by a dentist named Alfred Southwick, as a more humane way to
execute prisoners. 10. However, the first person executed by an electric
chair was William Kemmler. There were plenty of kinks in the system,
and the electric chair essentially brutally burned Kemmler to death over a torturous eight
minutes. 9. Hanging, one of the most popular methods of
execution over history that still sees use today, actually involves pretty exact mathematics. The length of the rope must be judged in proportion
to the weight of the victim – too short, and the victim will be strangled rather than
having their neck snapped. Too long, and the victim’s velocity will
build during the fall, and cause a messy decapitation. 8. While the American South has the highest rate
of executions in the United States, the region actually has some of the largest crime figures,
too – suggesting that the death penalty may not actually work as the deterrent it’s
often touted as. 7. Executions became less frequent in the early
US as states became wealthier and were able to build larger prisons. This indicates that the death penalty was
a largely practical measure to save space in overcrowded prisons. 6. In Iran, homosexuality is still punishable
by death. One of the most frequently applied methods
of execution for this is forcing the convict to jump to their death from a high platform,
such as a crane. 5. One of the reasons behind China’s incredibly
high rates of execution is the huge number of crimes that carry the death penalty. These include Arson, prostitution, and even
tax fraud. 4. Singapore takes a similar zero-tolerance attitude
to drug offences, such as selling and trafficking. Since 2010, Singapore has executed over thirty
people for drug-related offences. 3. The pre-Victorian era in Britain also executed
people for some pretty weird and stupid reasons, including “evidence of malice within a child”
and “writing a threatening letter.” Jephthah Big was executed for this reason
in 1729. In 1810, there were 222 crimes punishable
by death in England. 2. The modern US has sentenced a total of 8,440
inmates to death between 1977 and 2017. That works out to around 2110 death sentences
per decade, though the yearly number has thankfully been on a steady decline since 1994. 1. A Gallup poll from 2019 was one of the first
ever to show that Americans slightly favour life sentences over the death penalty, indicating
that an abolishment of capital punishment may be possible sometime in the foreseeable
future. There’s plenty of death row inmates out
there who think this day can’t come soon enough. Now check out “The Horrible History of The
Death Penalty” and “What Does The Last 24 Hours of a Death Row Prisoner Look Like
in 2019.”
