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Bill: Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena
Details
Submitted by[?]: Factio Republicana Socialistica
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: October 4397
Description[?]:
| Mutanabbian Law on Capital Punishment Senators, As we debate the motion introduced by the Rexist Party proposing the reintroduction of the death penalty, we believe it would be more proper to discuss this particular matter separately. We hereby call for capital punishment to be reintroduced to the Republic, under the same conditions as adopted in 4374, with additional qualifications. With the passing of this bill the death penalty shall be reinstated, under the following conditions: I. Offenders sentenced to death shall be executed either by guillotine or by hanging, with the exception of offenders convicted of crimes against the security of the Republic, who shall be executed by firing squad. II. With the exception of crimes against the security of the Republic, the death penalty shall be applied exclusively for aggravated murder, including parricide, assassination, murder of a person under the age of 13, murder of a police officer, murder of person with disabilities, murder-for-hire, murder of multiple victims, murder of witnesses, and murder committed in the course of committing serious felony offenses, including torture, rape, arson, or armed robbery. Being an accomplice or attempting to commit a capital felony is also a capital offense. III. Crimes against the security of the Republic include high treason, terrorism, espionage, insurrection, piracy, mutiny, desertion, or crimes against humanity, including war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, enslavement, extrajudicial punishments, state terrorism, racial discrimination, military use of children, unethical human experimentation, and deportation or forcible transfer of population. IV. High treason is defined as participating in a war against the Republic, aiming to overthrow the government of the Republic, spying on the Armed Forces, secret services, or diplomats of the Republic in the service of a hostile and foreign power, and killing or attempting to kill the Head of State or Head of Government. V. The offender is to be administered an anesthetic prior to execution. VI. The body of the executed may be reclaimed by the family, but must be buried or otherwise disposed in secret and with absolutely no pomp. We open the floor for a debate on this proposal, and we hope that the Senate will come to an agreement on the desirability of capital punishment, the crimes for which it must be applied, and the method of execution. Haider bin Talal al-Mutanabbi Senator |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy with respect to the death penalty.
Old value:: The death penalty is illegal and is never to be applied.
Current: The death penalty is applied for capital crimes.
Proposed: The death penalty is applied for capital crimes.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 01:38:13, May 19, 2018 CET | From | Novus Partis Rexisti | To | Debating the Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena |
| Message | Senator Mutanabbi, I would suggest hanging as the punishment rather than decapitation. My reasoning is as follows; 1. Hanging is cheaper 2. Hanging is more humane 3. Hanging is cleaner. Albanus Claudius Midius Senator |
| Date | 12:37:00, May 19, 2018 CET | From | Factio Republicana Socialistica | To | Debating the Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena |
| Message | Senators, I think Senator Midius is misinformed regarding the practice of judicial hanging. As commonly practiced in other nations under the system of the "long drop", hanging also causes death by decapitation. The difference from other forms of decapitation is that with the long drop it is intended to be an internal decapitation. However the potential for failure is very high. If the rope is too short decapitation does not occur and instead the offender dies a slow and painful death by suffocation. If the rope is too long the result is a particularly gruesome external decapitation, as the head is literally ripped from the body. To ensure neither of these outcomes occurs execution would require specialized equipment and complicated calculation tables, and even then there is the risk that the length of the rope may not account for unexpected factors, like the offender gaining (or losing) weight while on death row. The other forms of hanging, like the short drop or suspension, do not lead to an instant death and are thus needlessly painful. The guillotine on the other hand has none of the disadvantages. It causes an instant and painless death, the infrastructure is already in place from the last time Selucia implemented the death penalty, and botched executions are virtually impossible. Apart from the different forms of decapitation, what do the Senators think about our proposal to implement the firing squad as the method of execution for crimes against the security of the Republic? Haider bin Talal al-Mutanabbi Senator |
| Date | 20:15:51, May 20, 2018 CET | From | Novus Partis Rexisti | To | Debating the Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena |
| Message | Senator Mutanabbi, I am well aware of the risk of decapitation. Decapitation does not happen if the rope is the right length, which the presence of medical professionals will ensure that it is the right length. As far as firing squads, bullets are expensive, and it isn't worth wasting them on murderers. A rope is cheap, and can be reused over and over. Albanus Claudius Midius Senator |
| Date | 18:50:33, May 21, 2018 CET | From | Factio Republicana Socialistica | To | Debating the Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena |
| Message | Senators, The guillotine on the other hand does not require extensive calculations on rope length, the offenders weight, and other factors. It does not in fact even require a medical officer to be present to certify that the offender is dead. It is clean and cheap, and we already have guillotines. Which can obviously be reused. As for the firing squad, I must admit our reason for proposing this form of execution for offenders against the security of the state is more symbolic than pragmatic. Those that attack the liberties of the Republic ought to die at the hands of the defenders of its freedom, that is the armed forces. Crimes of this type are thankfully very rare, so the cost of a few bullets is not too great, and the firing squad serves to reinforce the importance of Republican liberty and the lengths we are prepared to go to in order to defend it. Haider bin Talal al-Mutanabbi Senator |
| Date | 22:09:27, May 21, 2018 CET | From | Novus Partis Rexisti | To | Debating the Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena |
| Message | As far as guillotines go, Senator Mutanabbi, I find that having it necessary for medical personnel to be present helps ensure that the execution is humane. Additionally, the guillotine has a historical association with tyrants and radical revolutionaries, which could make us look bad. The noose is clean, cheap, and carries with it a sense of justice. As far as firing squads go, I think I would agree with you. Albanus Claudius Midius Senator |
| Date | 09:50:38, May 22, 2018 CET | From | Factio Republicana Socialistica | To | Debating the Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena |
| Message | Senators, As a compromise, we have introduced both the guillotine and hanging as forms of execution, and we also introduced the requirement that the offender be administered an anesthetic prior to execution. We note that the guillotine has a very long history in numerous nations, and is not particularly associated with radical revolutions (OOC: we never really had anything similar to the French Revolution in the game, and I assume that just like IRL the guillotine must've been used by many different regimes throughout history). But in the interest of compromise and the common good we are willing to forego our commitment to that particular form of execution and hope that by permitting the court to determine either method we may achieve consensus. Haider bin Talal al-Mutanabbi Senator |
| Date | 13:31:33, May 22, 2018 CET | From | Novus Partis Rexisti | To | Debating the Lex Mutanabbia de Capitis Poena |
| Message | Senator Mutanabbi, Compromise accepted. Albanus Claudius Midius |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||
| yes | Total Seats: 432 | |||
| no |
Total Seats: 249 | |||
| abstain | Total Seats: 69 |
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