What are the justified executions of women and men?

The right to life is the fundamental foundation of modern jurisprudence. Most of the criminal codes of the twentieth century, one way or another, argued that no one has the right to kill people, however, with the caveat: if the court decides to execute someone, then so be it. This situation has placed tremendous responsibility on jurors and prosecutors. On the facade of the Palace of Justice in France there is an inscription calling to remember the miller, once condemned to death by mistake. Unfortunately, no one is immune from the wrong verdict, but the reason why most countries calling themselves civilized have abandoned the practice of forcibly killing citizens, even if they are guilty, lies in the moral and ethical plane.

Execution as a form of revenge

The mass executions of women, children and the elderly, organized by the Nazis during the Second World War, most often were revenge for those killed by underground workers and partisans of Wehrmacht soldiers. At the same time, there was a certain coefficient, clearly showing how many times the German's life is valued higher than, for example, a Slav or a Frenchman. Under the democratic structure of the state, this rule did not apply. Serial killer can still be shot only once, regardless of the number of his victims. However, any execution of this did not cease to be a revenge. Especially disgusting executions of women and adolescents, regardless of the gravity of their crimes. Is there a moral right for the state to take such positions? Should it not be above the base instincts peculiar to each person? If the task is set to prevent a specific murderer from committing crimes in the future, then, obviously, he should simply be isolated from society until the end of his days.

Execution as the elimination of witnesses

Execution through the hanging of the main Nazi criminals on the verdict of the Nuremberg court also served to restore justice. If tens of millions of victims of the war had resurrected after their death, then such a decision could be considered fully justified. However, given the importance of their testimony regarding historical circumstances, many of which have not been clarified to this day, such an early reprisal very much resembles the elimination of witnesses in which the heads of the victorious countries were interested. Approximately from the same considerations, apparently, Saddam Hussein was hanged hastily.

"Humane" executions

In relation to the guilty representatives of the fair sex most often used "more humane" ways of killing. The execution of women in the case of their pregnancy was postponed until the forty-first day after childbirth. It is also interesting to customarily treat a condemned person and lead him to the scaffold only after he has recovered. Equally entertaining and accepted in some countries is to treat a convicted person, regardless of gender, with a tasty lunch just before his hanging, shooting or guillotining. Tradition clearly demonstrates the sophistication of the organizers of executions. In general, women were executed in approximately the same way as men, if the special gravity of "maternal" crimes, such as infanticide, which in the Middle Ages were punished by burying alive, was not taken into account. At the same time, the society understood all the immorality of the spectacle, which represented public executions. Women in Germany, walking on the square to savor the painful death of the condemned, awaited public reprimand.