Capital Punishment
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is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment
and since ancient times it has been used for a wide variety of offences.
The Bible prescribes death(see exodus 21:12 and deuteronomy 22:13) for
murder and many other crimes, including kidnapping and witchcraft. By 1500
in England, only major feloni ....
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.... life imprisonment as a
more rational alternative.
By the 1850s these reform efforts began to bear fruit. Venezuela (1853)
and Portugal (1867) were the first nations to abolish the death penalty
altogether. In the United States Michigan was first state to abolish it
for murder in 1847. Today, it is virtually abolished in all of Western
Europe and most of Latin America.
In America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (except Israel) most
countries still retain the death penalty for various ....
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