"Death Sentence" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov.
It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.
His story is that he's spent many years on an obscure out-of-the-way planet and has found evidence that it once formed part of a now-lost Galactic Federation, based on psychology far more advanced than that now known.
But Realo insists that the ancient psychologists of the Galactic Federation also set up a world of positronic robots for the purpose of letting them develop their own society and carry out their own research.
", Asimov finished "Death Sentence" in June 1943 and sold it to John W. Campbell of Astounding Science Fiction in July, which published it in November.