Execution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies.The practice of capital punishment is reserved for murder,espionage,treason ar as part of military justice.In some countries sexual crimes such as rape,adultery,incest and sodomy and religious crimes such as apostacy often carry death penalty. Drug and human trafficking are also punished by death penalty.
The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history. Most historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal, shunning, banishment and execution. Usually, compensation and shunning were enough as a form of justice. The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities included formal apology, compensation or blood feuds.
Severe historical penalties include breaking wheel, boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing (including crushing by elephant), stoning, execution by burning, dismemberment, sawing, decapitation, scaphism, necklacing or blowing from a gun.
The breaking wheel is also known as the Catherine wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment in the middle ages and early modern times for public execution by cudgeling to death. The wheel was typically a large wooden wagon wheel with many radial spokes, but a wheel was not always used. In some cases the condemned were lashed to the wheel and beaten with a club or iron cudgel, with the gaps in the wheel allowing the cudgel to break through. Alternatively, the condemned were spreadeagled and broken on a St Andrew's cross consisting of two wooden beams nailed in an "X" shape, after which the victim's mangled body might be displayed on the wheel.During the execution of the parricide Franz Seuboldt in Nuremberg on 22 September