Capital Punishment, legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law. Methods of execution have included such practices as crucifixion, stoning, drowning, burning at the stake, impaling, and beheading. Today capital punishment is typically accomplished by lethal gas or injection, electrocution, hanging, or shooting.
The death penalty is the most controversial penal practice in the modern world.
The United States stands apart from the general trends on capital punishment. It is the only Western industrialized nation where executions still take place. …
