What is death penalty?

Death Penalty

Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" (referring to execution by beheading).

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Famous quotes containing the words death and/or penalty:

    Bruno Antony: Tell me, Judge, after you’ve sentenced a man to the chair, isn’t it difficult to go out and eat your dinner after that?
    Judge Dolan: When a murderer is caught he must be tried, when he is convicted he must be sentenced, when he is sentenced to death he must be executed.
    Bruno Antony: Quite impersonal, isn’t it?
    Judge Dolan: So it is. Besides, it doesn’t happen every day.
    Bruno Antony: So, few murderers are caught?
    Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)

    The Reverend Samuel Peters ... exaggerated the Blue Laws, but they did include “Capital Lawes” providing a death penalty for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law forbidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law declaring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,...
    —Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)