Capital punishment in Themiclesia

Capital punishment was once practiced in Themiclesia as a mandatory punishment for a number of political and personal crimes, but it has been abolished in 1853; as of 2018, it is no longer a penalty stipulated for any crime in Themiclesia. Its abolition was politically motivated during a period of national confusion resulting from rapid industrialization, in order to enhance the government's reputation and national morale, by appealing to both the traditional portrayal of a utopian society and the ideals of Enlightenment. Though many cautioned against it initially, few dared to oppose it openly. However, in at least one case, the House of Lords gave a capital sentence through the process of impeachment, last in 1948.

History

Capital punishment has been practiced as a punishment for those committing for a wide range of offences and those who are related to said perpetrators. Such crimes include, as an incomplete enumeration:—

• Sedition (working to overthrow the government)
• High treason (working harm the emperor physically, the crown prince, the empress, the empress dowager, and the great empress dowager)
• Lèse-majesté (insulting the emperor's body politic, desecrating his residence, ancestral mausolea and shrines, and rescripts)
• Treachery (supplying valuable information, land, or people to enemies)
• Murder
• Rape (including consensual sex with minors under 16)
• Abduction of minors
• Incursion into the palace hall of an occupied palace
• Opening or closing palace gates without proper authorization
• Raising or dispatching armies over 50 in strength without proper authorization or adequate emergency
• Taking of bribes resulting in miscarriage of justice
• Perjury on an accusation of sedition or high treason
• Setting fire to a house currently inhabited
• Destroying dikes without valid cause
• Counterfeiting or clipping and debasing of coins
• Counterfeiting rescripts
• Armed burglary

Most other crimes not listed above are of a nature likely to lead to the destabilization of the government, either through assembly, force, or misinformation.

Gradual remittance

The extent of capital punishment was first remitted when the Meng dynasty was restored in Themiclesia, under Emperor Ngjon, who wanted to appear magnanimous to those who opposed him and to appeal to the populace, which was doubtful of his rule. Though unable to reform the penal code with over 1,000 capital crimes, he did insist on clothing the condemned—executions were in the nude before his reign. However, later in the dynasty heavy taxation and frequent services encouraged revolts, which were dealt with harshly; legal historians belive this resulted in an expansion of capital offences.

In the late 8th century capital punishment was outlawed for minors under 10, the elderly over 80, and the disabled, in observance of Confucian ethics and the development of the "caring state" that responded to its people's feelings. In some analyses, this was motivated by the ascension of a usurper, who appealed to Confucianism to enhance his legitimacy in contrast with his predecessor, a crafty figure. The number of capital crimes also decreased, and the practice of capital punishment by association was limited to sedition and the perpetrator's immediate family after 618. Methods of execution were standardized to decapitation and strangulation in the same year, with dismemberment deprecated.

The final development occurred in the 18th century, when Casaterran concepts of humanism reached Themiclesia. It was decided at this point that both decapitation and strangulation were antiquated and brought unnecessary suffering to the victim, so the ancient prerogative of suicide, extended to civil servants and nobility, was instituted as the final method of execution before abolition. Prisoners would be unknowingly fed food or drink with a poison introduced, dying quickly and without prior warning. However, this was also done without actual legislative activity.

Accompanying punishments

If an individual was sentenced to death, then his household was subject to seizure (孥, na), whereupon his spouse and children became public slaves (隸臣妾, rjebh-gjin-ts′jap) and his property confiscated. This is comparable to the medieval notion of felony. According to some authorities, seizure was a more effective deterrent than capital punishment itself, since seized individuals and their offspring are not released. The government sometimes granted amnesties to prevent slave populations from growing beyond control, but this was not a regular occurrence. Public slaves were a considerable economic resource used for construction and manufacture, to the extent that some historians describe a "criminal economy" in Themiclesian history. Initially, public slaves could be sold by the state and were treated as chattel; after the Slave Rebellion of 382, they acquired retained certain rights and liberties. Seizure was abolished in 1508.

Abolition

In 1853, the government led by the Lord of Rjai-lang enacted a major reform to the Penal Code. Capital punishment was replaced completely with penal servitude, which was argued by Rjai-lang as a way for criminals to repay their debts to society. This form of servitude was always for life and was considered as harsh as capital punishment, and records show that many were worked to death, on public projects dredging canals, building roads, and mending city walls. Parliament permitted leases on such labourers to complete private projects. While many argued that capital punishment should be restored, penal labour replaced many local services that peers were expected to perform at their own expense, so they were largely in favour of retention. In 1895, Liberals argued that penal servitude resembled slavery and was prejudicial to national reputation and so advocated for its abolition. In 1912, penal servitude as a separate form of punishment was replaced with imprisonment with hard labour. While penal slaves could be required to perform hazardous and painful work, hard labour in prison was more constrained and, in some cases, voluntary. Better regulations also existed to protect the health and prospect for resocialization, which were not extended to penal slaves.

In the armed forces, the situation was less transparent. The militias were not subject to military law except when active beyond their home prefectures, and the reform of the Penal Code is understood to prohibit capital punishment in that context. This is because military law transfers judicial authority to the commander in charge but does not prescribe additional penalties. However, in one case case in the South Army, a murderer were still subject to capital punishment by stabbing in 1854. Naval law away from shore permitted captains and the Naval Tribune to throw "dangerous and violent" men overboard in an emergency, but in 1856 captains were directed to order marines to suppress such an incident first, before that action could be taken. The actual number of those thrown overboard is hard to estimate, since the navy recorded such deaths as "missing". There is at least once instance of throwing marines overboard for the same reasons since 1856. In other cases, capital punishment was replaced by penal servitude.

Procedures

Sentencing

Judicial independence developed relately late in Themiclesia, as judicial power was formally held by local magistrates appointed by the executive power. As the system of laws expanded in complexity and precedents (binding in absence of statute), local magistrates, not always trained in jurisprudence, came to rely on legal officials that were qualified. The structure of such local officials was at first informal and highly personal to the magistrate, but later the court ordered standardization in the interest of expedience and uniformity of process. By the 1300s, it was customary for magistrates simply to ratify opinions presented to him by the head officer of the judicial department of the local bureaucracy, unless the magistrate was also qualified in law, or the department's involvement in some way improper or suspicious.

Review

While any court could try a capital crime, only the second-tier courts, those of the provincial level, had the authority to pass a capital sentence, and that sentence was not absolute without review. Under the ethical principle of restraint and in view of the irreversibility of capital punishment, the review system changed from time to time, but it showed a general trend towards more caution and safeguards to prevent injudicious judgments. After a capital sentence was passed, it was then submitted to the Justiciar, the central judicial department. If the Justiciar is satisifed that the judgment stands under the penal code, he then submits it to the Chancellor. He then delivers it to the Council of Lords, or after 1845 the House of Lords.

Execution

Dismemberment, as the most severe form of capital punishment, was always carried out in public. Since the law provided that dismemberment implied strangulation of the prisoner's family, this was done first. The prisoner would be fastened to a wooden frame in the spreadeagle position. After being caned, the prisoner's nose and ears were first sliced off. The left leg, right leg, left arm, and right arms would be severed in this order. Then, the prisoner was cut in half along his waist, and his organs were pulled out and scattered. After this, his eyes and tongue were cut out. When the prisoner is almost dead, his head is severed, and what remains of his body was chopped into pieces so that a complete burial was impossible.

Bisection and decapitation were carried out by axe. The axe was made by the Department of Instruments (內官, nubh-kwar), which otherwise produced standardized weights and measures. Measuring from an unissued one, the axe head weighed 9.5 kg and had a curved blade around 33 cm. There is no record of the lenght of the pole to which the axe head was mounted, though such regulations are likely to have existed. A wooden block (質, tjit) was used to position the prisoner's waist or neck. In some periods, it was customary to display decapitated heads in public places, particularly for highly-anticipated cases; after a given interval, displayed heads would be retrieved and united with the body.

Strangulation was performed with a rope fastened around the prisoner's neck and twisted taut to cause asphyxiation.

When an execution took place, a tribune must be present to record it. Prisoners in the prefectures were usually executed at the end of the fiscal year starting from the middle of the eighth month to the end of the ninth, so that the prison would not budget their rations in the following year. The prefectural tribune would tour the counties during this period and record executions occurring before him. In the capital city, executions occurred year-round. From around 1600, the court acquiesced to suicide to avoid an offical execution; poison would have been provided by prison officials for a small fee.

Themiclesia did not employ professional executioners, and the concept may not have been known until recently since there is no native word for "executioner". The selection of the executioner depended on the court passing the capital sentence and the site of the execution. If the sentence was meted out by the Privy Treasurer or Comptroller of the House, a slave in their respective departments performed the execution.  If the prisoner was in a county or prefectural magistrate's court, the sentence was carried out by one of the prison guards. This meant that any militiaman could be selected to execute prisoners since they could be assigned as prison guards to discharge their annual militia duties. Traditions indicate that this was an undesirable assignment, though there is no record of public shame or ostracism as a result.

Aliens

Unless spying in Themiclesia on behalf of an enemy state, aliens were rarely executed even if convicted of a capital crime. This is generally because Themiclesia found it risky to execute individuals of unknown origins. Some jurists also considered it unlawful to punish foreigners for crimes and under laws unique to Themiclesia. After conviction, alien criminals were usually deported. This policy continued up to the abolition of capital punishment.

Vestiges

As the abolition of capital punishment was advertised as a manifestation the emperor's love for his subjects, few dared contest such a policy; however, this did not prevent parliament from sentencing individuals to death beyond the judicial system, via the process of impeachment. Under the Casaterran principle of parliamentary sovereignty, this formerly-infrequent measure was imposed several tiems in the 18th and 19th centuries, and for the final time in 1948, but not on ordinary criminals by consensus. With the passing of the pre-war generation of politicians, it was gradually accepted that parliamentary sovereignty had its limits.

Case of M′rjang

M′rjang, a Major-General, was implicated in an alleged rape case while he was in Dayashina in 1947. The alleged victim committed suicide before she was able to present evidence, but her family insisted that she had been sexually assaulted by the implicated officer and committed suicide out of shame. There was no inquest into the death due to the degraded Dayashinese administration in consequence of the war, and an internal inquiry later exonerated him of the charge. The story then circulated, finding particular resonance as an example of the Allies' recklessness and lack of consideration during the occupation. M′rjang was impeached by the House of Commons on May 6, 1948 after the Secretary of State for War told the house that a "thorough inquiry was able to recover no evidence of wrongdoing of that nature." The House of Lords unexpectedly sentenced him to death on Jun. 22, after several peers alleged M′rjang's low regard for the aristocracy; the house further attainted (confiscated) his estate and deprived him of all dignities and emoluments, as well as forbidding his heirs from inheriting. While the House of Commons convened almost immediately to discuss a reprieve through the Government, M′rjang was not so informed and found to have committed suicide by hanging himself in Dayashina. In his will, he described his death to have occurred "purely for the defence of the reputation of the country, not in respect of any crime committed." The judgment shocked the nation and sparked discussion about the future role of the House of Lords in the judicial system.

See also

• Capital punishment in Menghe