RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Capital Punishment Capito
some measure to the importance of the social function injured by the crime. With this is connected the requirement that the penalty shall be impressive— as much so as the crime — in order that the authority of the law shall be upheld, and equal, falling with the same severity on all classes of the community. The validity of this argument will be denied by those who reject the principle of equivalent compensation and, taking their stand exclusively on the principle of humanity, seek as the result of punishment the amelioration of the offender and ihe deterrence of him from any further crimes. But the fact that many of those who take this theoretical view acquiesce in the retention of capital punishment in practise shows that the traditional verdict of many centuries as to the relation of crime and punishment is still to be reckoned with in any discussion of this question.
(Richard Schmidt.)
III. Capital Punishment in Modern Times: In modern times the maintenance or abolition of the death-penalty has been considered mainly from the standpoint of social utility and social justice. In the history of penology the influence of Christian and humane sentiments has been distinctly felt; but many drastic punishments have been laid aside, not because they were cruel and severe, but because they were ineffective. As mutilation has been practically abandoned in civilized countries, so reliance upon capital punishment as a means of repressing crime has been greatly weakened. A conclusive proof of this is seen in the restriction of the number of offenses to which it is applied. Scarcely more than a century ago 200 offenses were included in the list of capital crime in England. Until 1894 twenty-five offenses were made capital under the military code of the United States, twenty-two under the naval code, and seventeen under the penal code. Under Federal laws the number of capital offenses has now been reduced to three. Many advocates of capital punishment to-day are willing to limit its application wholly to cases of murder.
Publicity was formerly regarded as absolutely necessary for the deterrent effect of executions. Even after death the body of the criminal was exposed for weeks on the gibbet as a warning to malefactors. The practise of gibbeting has now been abandoned, and the practise of public execution is gradually following it. Within recent years seven or eight States of the Union, including New York, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, have decided that attendance on executions should be limited to a number of legal or specified witnesses. The governors of Georgia and Kentucky have recommended similar legislation. In several States the electric chair has been substituted for the gallows with a view of mercifully rendering death instantaneous. Other States of the Union have abolished the death-penalty altogether. Michigan abolished it in 1847, Rhode Island in 1852, Wisconsin in 1853. Maine abolished it in 1876, restored it in 1883, and again abolished it in 1887. In 1903 New Hampshire abolished the death-penalty for murder in the first degree unless the jury should have fixed the same to the verdict; otherwise the sentence is for
life imprisonment. In Kansas there have been no official executions since 1872, as no governor has exercised his power to order the execution of a prisoner. In 1907 the legislature amended the law by substituting life imprisonment for the deathpenalty. The governor of Nebraska in 1903 urged the legislature to abolish capital punishment. Colorado abolished the death-penalty in 1897, but restored it 1901, as a result of a lynching outbreak in 1900.
In its session 1906-07 the subject of the abolition of capital punishment occupied a prominent place in the discussions of the French parliament without final result. Russia, one of the first countries to respond to the appeal of Beccaria, abolished it in 1753, except for political offenses. It was abolished in Portugal in 1867, in Holland in 1870, in Italy in 1890; and it has been abolished in the majority of the Swiss cantons, in Costa Rica, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Venezuela, and three states of Mexico. Some countries which have not formally abolished it by legislative act have suppressed it in practise. This is true of Belgium, and of some states of Mexico. It remains yet to be proven that an increase in capital crimes has followed the abolition of the death-penalty in any country. On the contrary, the higher development of civilization in these countries, the growth of the humane sentiment, and increased reliance upon educational and preventive measures, instead of upon drastic deterrent laws, have led to a gradual reduction of crimes of violence. Samuel J. Barrows.
Bibliography: G. B. Cheever, Punishment by Death: its Authority and Expediency, New York, 1849 (one of the most vigorous defenses of the practise); H. Seeger, Abhandlungen aus dem Strafrechte, Tubingen, 1858; C. J. Mittermaier, Die Todesstrafe nach den Ergebnissen der wissenschaftlichen Forschungen, Heidelberg, 1862 (the standard work against capital punishment, Eng. condensation by J. M. Moir, Capital Punishment, London, 1865); R. E. John, Ueber die Todesstrafe, Berlin, 1867; H. Hetzel, Todesstrafe in ihrer kulturgeschichtlichen Entwickelung, ib. 1870; F. von Holtzendorff, Das Verbrechen des Mordes und die Todesstrafe, ib. 1875; L. von Bar, Handbuch des deutschen Strafrechts, vol. i., ib. 1882; H. Romilly, The Punishment of Death, London, 1886; A. J. Palm, The Death Penalty, New York, 1891; J. MacMaster, The Divine Purpose of Capital Punishment, London, 1892; S. R. D. K. Olivecroner, De la peine de la mort, Paris, 1893; R. Schmidt, Aufgaben der Strafrechtspflege, pp. 178 sqq., 224 sqq., Leipsic, 1895; R. Katzenstein, Todesstrafe in einem neuen Reichsstrafgesetzbuch, Berlin, 1902; D. P. D. Fabius, De doodstraf, Amsterdam, 1906. For the ancient enactments consult Jurisprudentice anteiustiniana, ed. E. Huschke, 5th ed., Leipsic, 1886 (cf. Index under "Capite puniuntur"), and "The Institutes of Justinian," Book IV., title xviii., in Moyle's tr3nsl., 4th ed., pp. 205-207, Oxford, 1906; A. H. J. Greenidge, Infamia; its Place in Roman Public and Private Law, 1894.
CAPITO, WOLFGANG FABRICIUS: Reformer at Strasburg; b. at Hagenau) 16 m. n. of Strasburg) 1478; d. at Strasburg Nov., 1541. He was the son of a blacksmith named Koepfel, whence the Latin name Capito. Having passed the schools at Pforzheim and Ingolstadt, he studied at Freiburg first medicine, then law, and finally theology. In 1512 he became parish priest at Bruchsal and there made the acquaintance of (Ecolampadius and Pellican. Called to Basel in 1515 as preacher and professor, he became intimate with the humanists, including Erasmus, and, abandoning scholasticism.
Oapito Cappel