the most extreme measure of criminal punishment. In Soviet criminal law, capital punishment is regarded as a provisional, emergency, and exceptional measure of punishment, applied only when specifically indicated in the law. The law itself (Basic Principles of Criminal Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics, 1958) stipulates the exceptional and provisional nature of capital punishment and does not include capital punishment in the general list of punishments.
Until it is completely abolished, capital punishment—in the form of execution by firing squad—may be applied under extraordinary circumstances for crimes against the state, such as treason against the homeland and espionage, for first-degree murder, for theft of state or public property on a particularly large scale, and for certain other grave offenses. During wartime, the death penalty is allowed in instances of avoidance of military service, refusal to carry out a superior’s order (insubordination), violent action against a superior, and desertion.
A special jurisdiction has been established to try cases involving crimes for which, according to law, capital punishment may be imposed. Such cases are tried by the Supreme Court of a Union republic or an ASSR, krai and oblast courts, the municipal courts of a number of cities (Moscow, Leningrad, Tashkent), and the courts of autonomous oblasts or national okrugs. In the armed forces, capital punishment may be imposed by sentence of a military tribunal of a district, fleet, army group, branch of the armed forces, or the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.
The law presents an exhaustive list of crimes for which the death penalty may be imposed, and not a single article of this particular part of the criminal code provides capital punishment as the sole measure of punishment. There is always an alternative: punishment by deprivation of freedom for a fixed term. Capital punishment is not applied to persons who were under 18 years of age at the time the crime was committed or to women who were pregnant at the time the sentence is to be carried out. There is a special procedure to allow the grounds for imposition of a death sentence to be examined by a special commission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of a Union republic. The commission examines petitions for pardon, with the final decision on such petitions being taken by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the appropriate Union republic. In cases tried by military tribunals, decisions on petitions are made by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
The death penalty is provided for by the criminal law of many contemporary capitalist countries for treason, espionage, murder, kidnapping for ransom, arson, robbery, and other crimes. In France and Japan, the death penalty may be imposed for many crimes. In Great Britain, capital punishment has been established for certain state crimes and piracy; the death penalty for murder was abolished in 1965, but several members of Parliament have insisted on the need to restore this form of punishment. In the USA, federal courts have not imposed capital punishment since several decisions involving the death penalty were overturned by the Supreme Court in 1972; for this reason, a number of states have adopted laws providing for the death penalty. In the bourgeois countries, capital punishment is carried out by means of a firing squad, hanging, or strangulation (the Spanish garrot). In the United States, the electric chair and the gas chamber are also used.
Certain countries in Western Europe, including Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, have abolished capital punishment, as have some Latin-American nations.