Capital punishment in Themiclesia
Capital punishment was once practiced in Themiclesia as a mandatory punishment for a political and personal crimes, but it has been abolished in 1853 for civilians and in 1933 for military personnel; 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 emperor's reputation (and by extension that of the government he nominally led) and national morale, by appealing to the traditional portrayal of a utopian society, where the government was so fine and society so stable, there were no crimes warranting the "extreme punishment", such as capital punishment was called for most of Themiclesia's history. Though many cautioned against it initially, few dared to oppose it openly.
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 (actively attempting to overthrow the government)
- High treason (actively attempting to do physical harm to the emperor, the imperial crown prince, the empress, the empress dowager, and the grand empress dowager)
- Lese-majeste (insulting the emperor's body politic, desecrating his residence, ancestral mausolea and shrines, and edicts)
- Treachery (supplying valuable information, land, or people to enemies)
- Murder
- Rape (including consensual sex with minors under 16)
- Abduction of minors
- Incursion into the imperial palace's enclosed meridian (the emperor's quarters)
- Incursion into the imperial palace armed
- Opening or closing palace gates without proper authorization
- Raising or dispatching armies over 1,000 in strength without proper authorization or 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 imperial edicts
- Armed burglary
Most other crimes not listed above are of a nature likely to lead to the destabilization of the government, either through force or misinformation. It is also this category of crimes most greviously punished: the punishment could extend to the criminal's immediate and distant relatives, either reduced to imprisonment or corporeal punishment or, in the most extreme of cases, the eradication of an entire clan of individuals. The most important primary source as to the practice of capital punishment in Themiclesia is the Six Years' Diary compiled by Iang Iuan, an executioner in Kien-k'ang between 350 and 356; he records the brutality of the punishments imposed in detailed and graphic language without euphemism, with the concluding remarks, "I hope these stories will one day become fantastical in this land." However, his work raised little attention in the political scene at the time, and most leaders deemed capital punishment a valid and effective form of punishment at deterrence by example. It was also liberally applied on political enemies, often on a pretense of treason so as to eradicate the enemy's family as well, to suppress any future retaliation.
Gradual remittance
Capital punishment reform began in the 5th Century, starting with a powerful and determined ruler, Mriaeng Tiei, who was an ardent believer that good government was accompanied by a reduction in criminality, thus the elimination of harsher penalties, which were associated with a chaotic state. Though unable to press through major reforms to the penal code prescribing capital punishment for over 500 criminal acts, he did insist on clothing the condemned—executions were in the nude before his reign. It was to herald in a long and continuous move towards more humane and moderate use of the "extreme punishment". It would not be until the 7th Century that capital punishment was outlawed for minors, elderly, and the disabled, in observance of traditional ethics and the development of the "caring state" that responded to its people's feelings. The number of capital crimes also decreased with the passage of time, 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 second major developing arose after a controversial and widely-discussed murder case in 1371, in which a boy strangled another in imitation of an execution. The matter was cast in the light of evil influence of public executions that gave an impression the country tolerated and permitted such violence, and it eventually led to the resignation of the incumbent prime minister, after it ignited an already-strained relationship between him and the literati with open dispute and denigration. The following prime minister ordered that all executions should happen in a private place, with only the local magistrate and ostensibly necessary personnel present. This move was acclaimed as one that promoted a harmonius and civilized society by the political class. It should be noted, however, that most actions taken to curtail capital punishment did not originate from a desire to be humane to the condemned, but to improve the government's political standing. An actual executions were still a fundamentally unreliable and painful affair for the condemned, merely shifted from public view. Surviving records tell that executioners, randomly drawn from local ushers, could not swing the pole-axe correctly and often took several blows to sever the head of the condemned or could not muster enough strength to strangle him.
The final development occurred in the 18th Century, when the Casaterran concept humanism reached Themiclesia. It was decided at this point that both decapitation and strangulation were antiquated and brought unnecessary suffering to the victim, and the ancient prerogative of suicide by poison, extended to high-ranking civil servants and nobility, was instituted as the final method of execution before abolition. Prisoners would be unknowingly fed food or drink with a highly leathal poison introduced, dying very quickly and without prior warning.
Abolition
The period of rapid industrialization between 1837 and 1850, combined with a sense of an existential national crisis after a rebellion by Mavericans in alliance with Ostlandians, brought profound instability to Themiclesia's coastal regions. Rampant criminality plagued the cities that were swamped with migrant workers, seeking a new life but finding only slums and a pittance of a wage to welcome them. Many of the unemployed resorted to crime to carve out a living, often forming gangs numbering in the hundreds. Battles for control of the streets often broke out between rival gangs, making urban life unsafe and once-peaceful communities quickly unsavoury. The Reformist government reacted with an iron fist, using the army to crush criminal syndicates, and prosecuted the implicated gangs in lieu of sedition, which then demanded execution of not only the perpetrator but his parents and offsprings.
The severity of the response drew detractors of the reform movement to unite and voice their objections. In 1847 alone, more than 23,000 were executed. The Reformist government soon disintegrated under heavy criticism, ushering in in era of "gradual development" that sought to combine the virtues of industrialization and social cohesion. It was during this period that the government became openly committed to an ideal arguably socialist—that every person should bear the nation's burden equally and share in its prosperity equally. This newfound idealism amongst a realm of pessimism and doomsaying manifested in the radical repulsion of many policies that the Reformists enacted, including the inordinate use of capital punishment. To proclaim a wholesale departure from the Reformists' excesses, capital punishment was declared abolished in 1853 as "evidence" that the emperor was mild and gentle, with the result that crime had receded after the Reformists' ouster.
Methods of execution used
- Dismemberment (amputation of the arms, legs, nose, and ears, castration, bisection at naval, evisceration, flogged, then decapitation and mincing of the corpse)
- Decapitation (axe weighing up to 25kg)
- Strangulation (by rope)
- Beaten to death (used in the Army until 1800s and on members of the imperial family)
- Empoisonment (by poisoned wine)
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) became more abundant, local magistrates, rarely trained in jurisprudence, came to rely on local officials that were qualified in jurisprudence, a qualification available by examination. The structure of such local officials was at first informal and highly personal to the magistrate, but later the imperial 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 officer'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 made absolute without further supervision from above. 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 executions. After a capital sentence was passed at a provincial court, it was then submitted to the region's controller (who also had a judicial apparatus at his side), and from there to the Marshal of the Court, Themiclesia's highest judicial tribunal. If the Marshal of the Court is satisifed that the sentence matches the severity of the crime and is permissible under the penal code, he then submits it to the Department of Correspondence Management of the inner court. The task of this body is to ensure that the sentence is passed in accordance with the political needs of the state; this is done at first by a private deliberation between the Attendant Officer of Jurisprudence with his advisors, and then put to a plenary meeting of the Department. Once the sentence has been finalized, it is delivered to the Department Ultraport, pending imperial review, which only takes place during the ninth month of the lunisolar year, at which time all such sentences are reviewed at once.
Imperial reconsideration
A Meridian Messenger conveys the government's opinion on each case, while the prisoner is given a chance to exonerate himself, in writing, whether by confession and requesting clemency or by disputing the process or the facts of the government's case. Depending on the Emperor's response, a Meridian Attendant inscribes either a check mark ("kill") or a dot ("release"). After this, the list of those to be executed is delivered to the Department of Cavaliers, which further has the authority to return the Emperor's decision for futher consideration. If the Cavalier Attendants agree to the list, they affix the imperial seal to the list. Ten days later, the Department Ultraport re-presents it to the Emperor in like fashion; a further ten days later, for the third time, ensuring that the Emperor has had sufficient time to meditate upon his decisions and make revisions if required. Only after a prisoner is checked-off three times will his name be released back to the Department of Correspondence Management, where it also has ten days to request clemency on the prisoner's behalf. If none is submitted, the case is remanded, after another plenary meeting, to the Marshal of the Court, who notifies the prison in which the prisoner is held to schedule a date for execution. In this communication, the page bearing the Meridian Attendant's check-mark is physically attached to the directive ordering his death, in order to dispel any allegation of malfeasance.
Execution
Some time after the incident in 1371, executions started being conducted without the prisoner's prior knowledge with the intention to reduce the likelihood of a rescue attempt that he may orchestrate by communicating with the outside world. Though up to 1803 both strangulation and decapitation were maintained as official methods of execution, decapitation fell into disuse after the 1530s due to the difficulty in administering it effectively and painlessly, which drew attention from the Casaterran powers. A Casaterran observer noted that "[the axe] was taller than most men, its wide blade razor-sharp, and tremendously heavy; only the an immensely strong man could lift this mighty weapon, let along swing it accurately." Therefore, strangulation was used almost exclusively until its replacement in 1801. In this procedure, the prisoner is first sedated by opium introduced into his diet; then, a silk scarf is fastened around his windpipe and held by two people leaning away from each other, for precisely 29 minutes. The prisoner is thereafter pronounced dead and laid in a coffin. After strangulation was abolished in 1803, poisonous liquor, made with thousands feathers of the hooded pitohui seeped into a grain-based ferment, is secretly introduced to the prisoner's rations. After the prisoner dies from the poison, the prison notifies his family that he had died of an unknown illness, and the family is at liberty to recover the body of the prisoner.
The Army maintained the power to execute soldiers until 1863. This was carried out by clubbing the prisoner until he dies from internal bleeding.
Vestiges
As the abolition of capital punishment was phrased as a manifestation the emperor's love for his subjects, few dared contest such a policy on any grounds whatsoever; however, this did not prevent the state from ordering individuals to commit suicide. As late as 1948, the government still had poisoned wine and a passport delivered to officers who were under suspicion for or convicted of certain politically sensitive crimes, such as killing prisoners-of-war, and officers so indicated were expected to commit suicide or abjure the country, with the latter option held in great distain. Such an exceptional measure is not implemented on suspects of ordinary crimes. With the passing of the pre-PSW generation of politicians and through the universalization of the principle that no punishment except those prescribed by the penal code, such decisions became a thing of the past, though no statute formally prevents the government from doing so again.
Case Ghjiuang Mang
Ghjiuang Mang, a Major-General in the Themiclesian Army, was implicated in an alleged rape case while he was in Menghe in 1945. The alleged victim later died 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 were no formal inquiries into the victim's death, and a court-martial later exonerated him of the charge. The story then circulated internationally, finding particular resonance in Dayashina as an example of the Allies' recklessness and cruelty. Ghjiuang was called back to Kien-k'ang in the summer of 1948, and on Aug. 20th that year, an edict was issued to him.
Ultraport, Major General of the Army, Ghjiuang Mang, reckless in his behavoiur abroad, has caused anger amongst foreign states. Though he has been acquitted of the crime itself, whatever actions that he took to cause this accusation to occur has certainly been turpid. Therefore, a vase of poisonous wine is to be delivered to him, in hope that he may know the dishonour and shame in his conduct and take the appropriate actions (門下，陸軍參將王芒，妄為海外，激外國憤。雖經釋免，然所為既能招致此恨，必屬憝惡，實國典所難容。茲給鴆酒一斛，仰其自知所恥，而能進退得宜).
— Court of Correspondence Administration
Four days later, he was found to have committed suicide by hanging himself from the beams of his house. In his final will, he described his death as, "Purely for the defence of the reputation of the country, not in respect of any crime committed."