Public execution
[6] They also allowed the convicted the opportunity to make a final speech, gave the state the chance to display its power in front of those who fell under its jurisdiction, and granted the public what was considered to be a great spectacle.
Documented public executions date back to at least the late medieval period, and peaked in the later sixteenth century.
In the late Middle Ages, executioners used increasingly brutal methods designed to inflict pain on the victim while still alive and to generate a spectacle in order to deter others from committing crimes.
[11] Punishments often invoked the "purifying" powers of earth (burial), water (drowning), and fire (burning alive).
[14] According to Amnesty International, in 2012 "public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia.
[22] Enlightenment thinkers were not universally opposed to public executions—many anatomists found executions useful because they supplied healthy body parts to study and experiment on.
[23] People also found postmortem torture (which was typically part of a public execution) disrespectful to the dead and believed that it could prevent the victim from getting into heaven.
[citation needed] In Europe, the 19th and early 20th centuries saw a shift away from the spectacle of public capital punishment and toward private executions and the deprivation of liberty (e.g. incarceration, probation, community service, etc.).
[25] Executions were made private after a secret film of serial killer Eugen Weidmann's death by guillotine emerged and scandalized the process.
Disturbing reports emerged of spectators soaking up Weidmann's blood in rags for souvenirs, and in response President Albert Lebrun banned public executions in France for "promoting baser instincts of human nature.
[33] During the Australian colonial period, public executions continued until the second half of the 19th century, largely coinciding with the end of the convict era.
[41] In the Australian-administered Territory of New Guinea, legally a League of Nations mandate after 1920, public executions were used as a "tool of government".
[43] The hangings were intended as a deterrent against other prospective collaborationists, with the offenders "hung two at a time from early in the morning until late in the afternoon in front of thousands of local people".
