“The gallows is not a machine of death but a symbol, symbol of terror, cruelty and irreverence for life; a common denominator of primitive savagery, medieval fanaticism and modern totalitarianism. Its stands for everything that mankind must resist, if mankind is to survive its present crisis.”2
Prolong palaver of the death penalty and various issues attached to it have been a topic of heated debate across the world from time to time. With myriad intricacies and aspects such as very constitutionality of death penalty and its various methods, the viability, ethical basis, retention or abolition, various human rights issues, the crucial phenomenon of ‘death row’ etc. the death penalty has become a crucial enigma in various legal systems. However, the core aspect lying beneath whole debate is the very process of sentencing of capital punishment. The precedents by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India have guided the judicial process and the case to case basis approach by the inception of ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine under Bachan Singh’s3 verdict. This doctrine can be said to be a benchmark of sentencing capital punishment. Therefore, in order to understand the judicial ethos
of capital punishment a cross section into the very judicial process itself becomes highly warranted.
- ETYMOLOGICAL ANTIQUITY OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT:
The term ‘capital punishment’ is derived from the Latin word ‘caput’ which means head. It originally referred to death by decapitation,but now applies generally to state sanctioned executions.4 Having been found in almost all the civilizations of the world, death penalty makes its presence omnipresent. The antiquity of the death penalty can be traced back till Twenty-Fourth century with the Sumerian code framed by emperor Ur-Nammu.5It inflicted the punishment of death for capital offences such as rape, murder, adultery. Another celebrated ancient manuscripts of Eighteenth Century B.C. by the code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different
crimes.6 Thus, antiquity of death penalty is as old as human civilizations.
