Capital punishment in the Kryfona Kingdom

From the Other Universe
Jump to navigationJump to search

Capital punishment in the Kryfona Kingdom is a legal punishment used only for two charges in the modern era: treason and terrorism. This has been the status quo for the punishment since it was essentially struck down by the High Court of the Kryfona Kingdom in its judgement on Kazasvel v. Kryfona Kingdom (1976); prior to this point, six provinces had already voluntarily removed the death penalty as a legal punishment completely. Capital punishment in the Kryfona Kingdom has its roots in early Kryfona society, where it was a norm for significant violations of morals or code–it was included as a provision and punishment in several of the predecessor states to the Kryfona Kingdom, and was incorporated into Kryfona law shortly after the Kingdom's founding. The Kryfona Kingdom is the most restrictive of the Old World nations in regards to its capital punishment policy.

Since Kazasvel v. Kryfona Kingdom was decided by the High Court, only eight prisoners have been executed, the most recent of which occurred in 1996. In addition to striking down almost all of the Kingdom's capital punishment policies, the judgement commuted all death penalty sentences besides those for treason and terrorism charges to life imprisonment, effectively ending executions in the Kingdom. At the time of the decision, approximately 723 Kryfona were pending execution. The judgement in Kazasvel v. Kryfona Kingdom has been challenged in court twice subsequently; neither time was successful in overturning it.

Most Kryfona have been executed by either firing squad, hanging, or lethal injection; the latter is the preferred method of execution today, although the other two are officially considered to be fall-back options. Some provinces prior to the Kazasvel judgement offered other methods of execution, but by 1962 all provinces had adopted at least one of the three aforementioned methods. The province of Peiretsaja was the last province to do so, first adopting hanging as its primary method in 1960 and lethal injection as its primary method in its place in 1962.

History

Pre-Kingdom

While executions have been relatively commonplace among Kryfonic societies since their inception in the region, the first "modern" attested execution in the history of Kryfona comes from 922 in the Naseiwe, which describes the execution of Zasarzi Amarzsonok by being burned on a stake and having his ashes scattered into a river. Although it is unclear what the origin of the practice is, burning at the stake was likely the norm of execution in pre-Kingdom society and written attestations of burnings can be found in the histories of most Kryfonic tribes of the time. The most prominent example of such a burning is likely the burning of Oziw Jazacs on a stake for his treason against the united Kryfona tribes in the Dal-Tetas War–Jazacs was captured in 1098 during one of the final battles of the war, and was publicly burned to set an example. Several other major captured figures in the war were also burned on the stake, including Drakona general Omasaryn Alety.