Universitatea tefan cel Mare Suceava

Facultatea de tiinte Economice si Administraie Public

Specializarea Drept

The Capital Punishment

The United States vs Romania

Luca Edward Adrian

Coordinator

Florea Tudor

lect dr. Gale

Narcisa
Group II Year I

Suceava 2016

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I. The Capital Punishment in the United States of America

I.1. The History of the Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the United States, currently used by 32 states and
the federal government. Its existence can be retraced up to the beginning of the American
colonies.
There were no executions in the entire country between 1967 and 1977. In 1972, the U.S.
Supreme Court struck down capital punishment statutes in Furman v. Georgia, reducing all death
sentences pending at the time to life imprisonment.
Subsequently, a majority of states passed new death penalty statutes, and the court
affirmed the legality of capital punishment in the 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia. Since then, more
than 1,400 offenders have been executed, including 28 in 2015.
The United States is the only Western country currently applying the death penalty and
the first to have developed lethal injection as method of execution, which has since been adopted
by five other countries.
The first recorded death sentence in the British North American colonies was carried out
in 1608 on Captain George Kendall, who was executed by firing squad at the Jamestown colony
for allegedly spying for the Spanish government.
When the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1789, it included the Eighth Amendment
prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, which was intended to prevent the use of barbaric
methods of executions such as burning at the stake. The Fifth Amendment was drafted with
language implying a possible use of the death penalty, requiring a grand jury indictment for
"capital crime" and a due process of law for deprivation of "life" by the government. The
Fourteenth Amendment adopted in 1868 also requires a due process of law for deprivation of life
by any state.
In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court considered a group of consolidated cases.
The lead case involved an individual convicted under Georgia's death penalty statute, which
featured a "unitary trial" procedure in which the jury was asked to return a verdict of guilt or
innocence and, simultaneously, determine whether the defendant would be punished by death or
life imprisonment. The last pre-Furman execution was that of Luis Monge on June 2, 1967.
In 1976, contemporaneously with Woodson and Roberts, the Court decided Gregg v.
Georgia and upheld 72 a procedure in which the trial of capital crimes was bifurcated into guiltinnocence and sentencing phases. At the first proceeding, the jury decides the defendant's guilt; if
the defendant is innocent or otherwise not convicted of first-degree murder, the death penalty
will not be imposed. At the second hearing, the jury determines whether certain statutory
aggravating factors exist, whether any mitigating factors exist, and, in many jurisdictions, weigh
the aggravating and mitigating factors in assessing the ultimate penalty either death or life in
prison, either with or without parole. Executions resumed on January 17, 1977, when Gary
Gilmore went before a firing squad in Utah.
Executions raised at near-continuous pace until 1999, when it picked up at 98. After
1999, executions near-continuously lowered every year, and the 28 executions in 2015 were the
fewest since 1991.

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I.2. Capital Crimes

I.2.1. Aggravated murder

All inmates executed since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976 were
convicted of intentional homicide. In the 1980 case Godfrey v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that murder can be punished by death only if it involves a narrow and precise aggravating
factor.
Such factors allowing prosecution to seek capital punishment varies greatly from one
state to one another, California for example having 22, while New Hampshire has only seven.
But some aggravating circumstances are nearly universal among death penalty-states, such as are
robbery-murder, murder involving rape of the victim, and murder of an on-duty police officer.
Several states have included child murder to their list of aggravating factors, but the
victims age under which the murder became punishable by death vary between them. In 2011,
Texas raised this age from six to 10.
The high number of aggravating factors in some states has been criticized as giving local
prosecutors too much discretion in picking cases were they believe capital punishment
warranted. In California especially, an official commission proposed in 2008 to reduce them to
only five (multiple murders, torture murder, murder of a police officer, murder committed in jail,
and murder related to another felony).

I.2.2. Other crimes against persons

In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court held 54 in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death
penalty cannot be imposed for non-homicidal crimes against the person. In this case, it struck
down a Louisiana statute providing capital punishment for raping a child under the age of 12.
Only two death row inmates (both in Louisiana) have been affected by the decision.
Nevertheless, the ruling came less than five months before the 2008 presidential election and was
criticized by both candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Numerous states still have on
their statutes books various provisions allowing the death penalty for child rape or other nonhomicidal crimes such as kidnapping.

I.2.3. Crimes against the state

The opinion of the court in Kennedy v. Louisiana says that the ruling does not apply to
"treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State".
Since no one is on death row for such offenses, the court has yet to rule on the
constitutionality of the death penalty applied for them.
Treason, espionage and large drug trafficking are all capital crimes under federal law.
Treason is also a punishable by death in six states (Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Missouri) and large drug trafficking in two states (Florida and Missouri).

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I.3. The Legal Process

The legal administration of the death penalty in the United States, typically, it involves
five critical steps: (1) prosecutorial decision to seek the death penalty (2) sentencing, (3) direct
review, (4) state collateral review, and (5) federal habeas corpus. Clemency, through which the
Governor or President of the jurisdiction can unilaterally reduce or abrogate a death sentence, is
an executive rather than judicial process.

I.3.1. Decision to seek the death penalty

While judges in criminal cases can usually impose a harsher prison sentence than the one
demanded by prosecution, the death penalty can be handed down only if the accuser has
specifically decided to seek it.
In the decades since Furman, new questions have emerged about whether or not
prosecutorial arbitrariness has replaced sentencing arbitrariness. A study by Pepperdine
University School of Law published in Temple Law Review, surveyed the decision-making
process among prosecutors in various states. The authors found that prosecutors' capital
punishment filing decisions remain marked by local "idiosyncrasies," suggesting they are not in
keeping with the spirit of the Supreme Court's directive. This means that "the very types of
unfairness that the Supreme Court sought to eliminate" may still "infect capital cases." Wide
prosecutorial discretion remains because of overly broad criteria. California law, for example,
has 22 "special circumstances," making nearly all premeditated murders potential capital cases.
A proposed remedy against prosecutorial arbitrariness is to transfer the prosecution of
capital cases to a statewide prosecution office or to the state attorney general.

I.3.2. Sentencing
Of the 32 states using the death penalty, four (Alabama, Delaware, Montana and
Nebraska) provide the sentence to be decided by one or three judges (with a jury non-binding
advice in Alabama and Delaware).
The 28 other states provide the sentence to be decided by a jury, and 27 of them require a
unanimous sentence. However, these states differ on what happen if the penalty phase results in a
hung jury:
In 4 states (Arizona, California, Kentucky and Nevada) a retrial of the penalty phase will
happen before another jury (as for the guilt phase).
In 2 states (Indiana and Missouri) the judge will decide the sentence.
In the remaining 21 states, a hung jury results in a life sentence, even if a single juror
voted against death. Federal law also provides this outcome.
Florida is the only state providing a jury supermajority to impose the death penalty: but if
less than 10 jurors vote in favor of the death sentence, then life imprisonment is imposed.
In Nebraska, which is the only state where the sentence is decided by a three-judge panel,
a life sentence is handed down even if only one of the three judges voted against death.

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In all states were the jury is involved, only death-qualified veniremen can be selected in
such jury, excluding both people who will always vote the death sentence and those who are
categorically opposed to it.

I.3.3. Direct review

If a defendant is sentenced to death at the trial level, the case then goes into a direct
review. The direct review process is a typical legal appeal. An appellate court examines the
record of evidence presented in the trial court and the law that the lower court applied and
decides whether the decision was legally sound or not. Direct review of a capital sentencing
hearing will result in one of three outcomes. If the appellate court finds that no significant legal
errors occurred in the capital sentencing hearing, the appellate court will affirm the judgment, or
let the sentence stand. If the appellate court finds that significant legal errors did occur, then it
will reverse the judgment, or nullify the sentence and order a new capital sentencing hearing.
Lastly, if the appellate court finds that no reasonable juror could find the defendant eligible for
the death penalty, a rarity, then it will order the defendant acquitted, or not guilty, of the crime for
which he/she was given the death penalty, and order him sentenced to the next most severe
punishment for which the offense is eligible. About 60 percent survive the process of direct
review intact.

I.3.4. State collateral review

At times when a death sentence is affirmed on direct review, supplemental methods to
attack the judgment, though less familiar than a typical appeal, do remain. These supplemental
remedies are considered collateral review, that is, an avenue for upsetting judgments that have
become otherwise final. Where the prisoner received his death sentence in a state-level trial, as is
usually the case, the first step in collateral review is state collateral review, which is often called
state habeas corpus. (If the case is a federal death penalty case, it proceeds immediately from
direct review to federal habeas corpus.) Although all states have some type of collateral review,
the process varies widely from state to state. Generally, the purpose of these collateral
proceedings is to permit the prisoner to challenge his sentence on grounds that could not have
been raised reasonably at trial or on direct review. Most often these are claims, such as
ineffective assistance of counsel, which requires the court to consider new evidence outside the
original trial record, something courts may not do in an ordinary appeal. State collateral review,
though an important step in that it helps define the scope of subsequent review through federal
habeas corpus, is rarely successful in and of itself. Only around 6 percent of death sentences are
overturned on state collateral review.
In Virginia, state habeas corpus for condemned men are heard by the state supreme court
under exclusive original jurisdiction since 1995, immediately after direct review by the same
court. This avoids any proceeding before the lower courts, and is in part why Virginia has the
shortest time have average between death sentence and execution (less than 8 years) and has
executed 111 offenders since 1976 with only 7 currently remaining on death row.

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I.3.5. Federal habeas corpus

After a death sentence is affirmed in state collateral review, the prisoner may file for
federal habeas corpus, which is a unique type of lawsuit that can be brought in federal courts.
Federal habeas corpus is a species of collateral review, and it is the only way that state prisoners
may attack a death sentence in federal court (other than petitions for certiorari to the United
States Supreme Court after both direct review and state collateral review). The scope of federal
habeas corpus is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(AEDPA), which restricted significantly its previous scope. The purpose of federal habeas corpus
is to ensure that state courts, through the process of direct review and state collateral review,
have done at least a reasonable job in protecting the prisoner's federal constitutional rights.
Prisoners may also use federal habeas corpus suits to bring forth new evidence that they are
innocent of the crime, though to be a valid defense at this late stage in the process, evidence of
innocence must be truly compelling. According to Eric Freedman, 21 percent of death penalty
cases are reversed through federal habeas corpus.
James Liebman, a professor of law at Columbia Law School, stated in 1996 that his study
found that when habeas corpus petitions in death penalty cases were traced from conviction to
completion of the case that there was "a 40 percent success rate in all capital cases from 1978 to
1995." Similarly, a study by Ronald Tabak in a law review article puts the success rate in habeas
corpus cases involving death row inmates even higher, finding that between "1976 and 1991,
approximately 47 percent of the habeas petitions filed by death row inmates were granted." The
different numbers are largely definitional, rather than substantive. Freedam's statistics looks at
the percentage of all death penalty cases reversed, while the others look only at cases not
reversed prior to habeas corpus review.
A similar process is available for prisoners sentenced to death by the judgment of a
federal court.

I.3.6. Section 1983

If the federal courts refuse to issue a writ of habeas corpus, the death sentence becomes
final for all purposes. In recent times, however, prisoners have postponed execution through
another way of federal litigation using the Civil Rights Act of 1871 codified at 42 U.S.C.
1983 which allows people to bring lawsuits against state actors to protect their federal
constitutional and statutory rights.
While the aforementioned appeals are normally limited to one and automatically stay the
execution of the death sentence, Section 1983 lawsuits are unlimited, but the petitioner will be
granted a stay of execution only if the court believes he has a likelihood of success on the merits.
Traditionally, Section 1983 was of limited use for a state prisoner under sentence of death
because the Supreme Court has held that habeas corpus, not Section 1983, is the only vehicle by
which a state prisoner can challenge his judgment of death. In the 2006 Hill v. McDonough case,
however, the United States Supreme Court approved the use of Section 1983 as a vehicle for
challenging a state's method of execution as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the
Eighth Amendment. The theory is that a prisoner bringing such a challenge is not attacking
directly his judgment of death, but rather the means by which that the judgment will be carried
out. Therefore, the Supreme Court held in the Hill case that a prisoner can use Section 1983
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rather than habeas corpus to bring the lawsuit. Yet, as Clarence Hill's own case shows, lower
federal courts have often refused to hear suits challenging methods of execution on the ground
that the prisoner brought the claim too late and only for the purposes of delay. Further, the
Court's decision in Baze v. Rees, upholding a lethal injection method used by many states, has
drastically narrowed the opportunity for relief through Section 1983.

I.3.7. Execution warrant

While the execution warrant is issued by the governor in several states, in the vast
majority it is a judicial order, issued by a judge or by the state supreme court at the request of the
prosecution.
The warrant usually sets an execution date. Some states instead provide a longer period,
such as a week or 10 days to carry out the execution. This is designated to avoid issuing a new
warrant in case of a last-minute stay of execution that would be vacated by a higher court only
few days or few hours later.

I.4. Methods

All 32 states with the death penalty provide lethal injection as the primary method of
execution. Several states continue to use the historical three-drug protocol, with supplementaries
drugs inflicted after sedation to prompt heart-stopping. Other states use a single-drug protocol,
inflicting only an overdose of a single barbiturate to the prisoner.While some state statutes
specifically provide the drugs required, a majority doesnt, giving more flexibility to corrections
officials.Hospira, the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, stopped making the drug in
2011. Since then, some states have begun to use other barbiturates, such as pentobarbital or
midazolam.
Pressures from anti-death penalty activists have since made difficult for correctional
services to gets the chemicals, and most states have made a criminal offense to reveal the
identities of execution team members or furnishers of lethal injections drugs to avoid this.
Missouri's attorney general Chris Koster also proposed in 2014 that the state create his
own public laboratory to make the drugs, but the proposal has still not been adopted.
Some states allow other methods than lethal injection, but only as secondary methods to
be used merely at the request of the prisoner or if lethal injection is unavailable.
From 1976 to January 1, 2016, there were 1,422 executions, of which 1,247 were by
lethal injection, 158 by electrocution, 11 by gas chamber, 3 by hanging, and 3 by firing squad.
Lethal injection has been held constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court two times in Baze v.
Rees (2008) and Glossip v. Gross (2015).
In the following states, death row inmates with an execution warrant may choose to be
executed by:
-Electrocution in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and
Virginia.
-Gas inhalation in Arizona and California.
-Hanging in Delaware and Washington.
-Firing squad in Utah.
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In six states (Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Tennessee and Utah), the
alternative method is offered only to inmates sentenced to death for crimes committed prior to a
specified date (usually when the state switched from the earlier method to lethal injection). When
an offender chooses to be executed by a mean different than the state default method, which is
always lethal injection, he loses the right to challenge its constitutionality in court (Stewart v.
Lagrand, 1999).

I.5. Debates

Capital punishment is a controversial issue, with many prominent organizations and

individuals participating in the debate. Amnesty International and some religions oppose capital
punishment on moral grounds, while the Innocence Project works to free wrongly convicted
prisoners, including death row inmates, based on newly available DNA tests. Other groups, such
as some law enforcement organizations, and some victims' rights groups support capital
punishment.
The United States is one of only five industrialized democracies that still practice capital
punishment. From the others, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan have executed prisoners, while
South Korea currently has a moratorium in effect.
Religious groups are widely split on the issue of capital punishment. The Fiqh Council of
North America, a group of highly influential Muslim scholars in the United States, has issued a
fatwa calling for a moratorium on capital punishment in the United States until various
preconditions in the legal system are met.
In total, 156 prisoners have been either acquitted, or received pardons or commutations
on the basis of possible innocence, between 1973 and 2015. Death penalty opponents often argue
that this statistic shows how perilously close states have come to undertaking wrongful
executions; proponents point out that the statistic refers only to those exonerated in law, and that
the truly innocent may be a smaller number. Statistics likely understate the actual problem of
wrongful convictions because once an execution has occurred there is often insufficient
motivation and finance to keep a case open, and it becomes unlikely at that point that the
miscarriage of justice will ever be exposed.
Arguments for and against capital punishment are based on moral, practical, and religious
grounds. Advocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, is a good tool for prosecutors
(in plea bargaining for example), improves the community by eliminating recidivism by
executed criminals, provides closure to surviving victims or loved ones, and is a just penalty for
the crimes it punishes.
Opponents argue that the death penalty is not an effective means of deterring crime, risks
the execution of the innocent, is unnecessarily barbaric in nature, cheapens human life, and puts
a government on the same base moral level as those criminals involved in murder. Furthermore,
some opponents argue that the arbitrariness with which it is administered and the systemic
influence of racial, socio-economic, geographic, and gender bias on determinations of desert
make the current practice of capital punishment immoral and illegitimate.
Another argument (specific to the United States) in the capital punishment debate is the
cost. The convict is more likely to use the whole appeals process if the jury issues a death
sentence, than if it issues life without parole. But, others, who contest this argument, say that the
greater cost of appeals where the prosecution does seek the death penalty is offset by the savings
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from avoiding trial altogether in cases where the defendant pleads guilty to avoid the death
penalty.

II. The Capital Punishment in Romania

Capital punishment in Romania was abolished in 1989, and has been prohibited by the
Constitution of Romania since 1991.

II.1. Antecedents
The death penalty has a long and varied history in present-day Romania. Vlad III the
Impaler (reigned in Wallachia, principally 145662) was notorious for executing thousands by
impalement. One of his successors, Constantine Hangerli, was strangled, shot, stabbed and
beheaded by the Ottomans in 1799. In Moldavia, the earliest reference to executions is found in a
1646 text from the time of Vasile Lupu, while in Wallachia, a similar mention from 1652 dates to
Matei Basarab's reign. Both stipulate that particularly serious offenses such as treason, patricide
or abduction of women merit execution. Only the metropolitan could grant clemency, provided
the condemned either lost his land to the church or, together with his family, became its serf.
In the Wallachian capital Bucharest, men condemned for theft, counterfeiting, treason, for
being pretenders or haiduks, their sentence hanging around their necks, would be taken in
oxcarts from Curtea Veche along Calea Moilor (then called Podul Trgului de Afar, or "Bridge
of the Outside Market") to the marketplace in question. The bodies of the hanged would be left
in place for a long period as food for crows. Anton Maria Del Chiaro, writing in 1718, noted that
at every tavern along the way, the women inside would emerge with cups of wine, asking the
man to drink deeply so he would not be afraid to die. If his mother or wife accompanied him,
they too would urge him to drink, and at the time of hanging he would be dizzy and unaware of
what was happening. The public marketplace executions were banned by Grigore IV Ghica
(1822-1828). The first debates on complete abolition had taken place in the mid-18th century, the
most vocal supporter being Constantin Mavrocordat, who ruled four times in Moldavia and six in
Wallachia between 1730 and 1769. However, a rise in crime in the early 19th century led to a
revival of the practice. In Wallachia, the Caragea Law of 1818 provided executions for
premeditated murder, counterfeiting money, manslaughter with a weapon and robbery. In
Moldavia, the Callimachi Code of 1817 allowed the death penalty for homicide, patricide,
robbery, poisoning and arson Leaders of the Wallachian Revolution of 1848 called for abolition
in the Islaz Proclamation and soon issued a decree to the effect. Their Moldavian counterparts
were less focused on the issue, with only Mihail Koglniceanu bringing up abolition in his
proposed constitution. After the revolutions were crushed, the ruling princes maintained the
death penalty: it is mentioned in the Penal Codes both of Wallachia's Barbu Dimitrie tirbei and
of Moldavia's Grigore Alexandru Ghica.
Two of the leaders of the Revolt of Horea, Cloca and Crian were broken on the wheel
by the Imperial Austrian authorities (who then controlled Transylvania) in 1785. Liviu
Rebreanu's 1922 novel Pdurea spnzurailor ("Forest of the Hanged"), as well as its 1965 film
adaptation, draws upon the experience of his brother Emil, hanged for desertion in 1917, shortly
before Austria-Hungary dissolved and Transylvania united with Romania.

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II.2. Kingdom of Romania

The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 after the unification of the Danubian
Principalities, and a Penal Code was enacted in 1864 that did not provide for the death penalty
except for several wartime offences. The 1866 Constitution, inspired by the liberal Belgian
model of 1831, confirmed the abolition of capital punishment for peacetime crimes. By the end
of the 19th century, just six other European countries had abolished the death penalty: Belgium,
Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal
Abolition with respect to peacetime crimes was reaffirmed by article 16 of the 1923
Constitution. However, the rising crime rate had produced a shift in favour of capital
punishment. In 1924 a special statute (the Mrzescu Law) allowed communist agitators to be
executed. The new Criminal Code of 1936 incorporated some sections of the Law despite the
drafters' opposition to capital punishment. The 1938 Constitution, which established a royal
dictatorship, expanded the scope of capital crimes by authorizing the death penalty for offences
against the royal family, against high-ranking public figures, for politically motivated murders,
and for killings caused during burglaries. The Penal Code was subsequently amended to
implement the constitutional mandate. Some of these executions were quite summary: for
instance, after Prime Minister Armand Clinescu was assassinated in September 1939, 253 Iron
Guard activists were killed without trial in the next few days; members of the Guard would
themselves carry out the Jilava Massacre a year later. During World War II, under the
dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, criminal laws became even more repressive. Burglary, theft of
weapons, arson, smuggling, and several other crimes were made capital; the Iron Guard was
targeted after its violent suppression, with the Jilava executioners and participants in the
Legionnaires' rebellion figuring among those executed by firing squad. Also during the period,
capital punishment was used as a tool of political repression against some Romanian Communist
Party members and anti-German resistance fighters. Examples include Francisc Panet and
Filimon Srbu. According to writer Marius Mircu, thirty anti-fascists were executed during the
war, of whom all but three were Jews.

II.3. Communist Romania

Two statutes dealing with war crimes were passed in 1945; the following year, Antonescu
and a number of his followers were executed by firing squad. Between 1945 and 1964, largely
corresponding with the rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, 137 people were executed in Romania,
including Lucreiu Ptrcanu, Eugen urcanu, the Ioanid Gang, a member of the Berne group,
members of the anti-communist resistance movement and protesters during the Hungarian
Revolution of 1956. These executions came about following a 1950 decree modifying a 1949
law defining offences against the communist state and the planned economy. The decree, which
marked the first legal mention of the death penalty under communism, was abrogated in 1953. It
provided for the death penalty for some crimes against the state, peace and humanity, for
aggravated murder and for burglary resulting in death. In 1957, the death penalty was introduced
into the Penal Code for the first time under communism; at the same time, large-scale
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embezzlement causing serious damage to the national economy was added to the list of crimes
eligible for the execution.
In 1958, the act of contacting foreigners in order to provoke the state into neutrality or an
act of war was made subject to the death penalty; this was a clear reference to measures taken by
Imre Nagy during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and was made more urgent by the
withdrawal of Soviet occupying forces that summer, which led the regime to clamp down on
internal dissent. The definition of "economic sabotage" and "hooliganism" was broadened, and
the first executions under the new measures took place that autumn. Under Nicolae Ceauescu, a
new Penal Code adopted in 1969 featured 28 capital offences, including economic and property
crimes. This number was substantially reduced in the 1970s; in particular, the death penalty for
economic crimes was abolished. Among those executed during this period were Ion Rmaru and
Gheorghe tefnescu. From 1980 to 1989, 57 death sentences were passed, and at least fifty
executions carried out. Most convictions involved murder, but some were for large-scale theft of
state property. For instance, in 1983, five individuals were sentenced to die for organized and
systematic stealing of large quantities of meat.
During Ceauescu's entire time in power (196589), 104 people were executed by firing
squad at Jilava and Rahova prisons, with commutations reinforcing his image as a stern but kind
father to the nation. Of the 96 executions that took place between 1977 and 1988, 93 were for
homicide; in the same period, there were 34 commutations to 25 years' imprisonment. At Jilava,
prisoners were taken outside, to the right side of the prison, tied to a post and shot by six, ten or
even twelve junior officers, while at Rahova, they were shot in an underground room; the entire
process was shrouded in secrecy. Executions normally happened days after an appeal was
rejected, and those shot at Jilava were usually buried in the village cemetery. Minors, pregnant
women and women with children aged under 3 were exempt from the death penalty. The death of
Ion Pistol, shot for aggravated homicide in May 1987, marked the country's last regular
execution. Romania's last executions were those of Ceauescu himself and his wife Elena,
following the overthrow of the regime in the Romanian Revolution of 1989; they were subjected
to a show trial and then shot by a firing squad. Elena Ceauescu was the only woman executed in
modern Romania.

II.4. Romania since 1989

On 7 January 1990, shortly after the Ceauescus were summarily shot, the leaders of the
National Salvation Front abolished the death penalty by decree; some Romanians saw this as a
way for former Communists to escape punishment and demanded reinstatement of the death
penalty in a series of protests in January 1990. In response, the leadership scheduled a
referendum on the question for 28 January, but cancelled the vote ten days before it was to take
place. On 27 February 1991, Romania ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant (Law nr. 7/1991). The constitution ratified that December explicitly prohibited the
death penalty; the prohibition was retained when an updated version of the constitution was
adopted in 2003. The Constitution provides that no amendment is allowed if it were to result in
the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms, which has been interpreted to mean that the
death penalty may not be reinstated as long as the present constitution is in force. Romania is
also subject to the European Convention on Human Rights (since May 1994) and the Charter of
Fundamental Rights of the European Union (since January 2007), both abolitionist documents.
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Ahead of the 2000 presidential election, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who finished in second place,
made reintroduction of capital punishment a major plank of his campaign.

Webography

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.historia.ro/exclusiv_web/general/articol/ce-tari-mai-aplica-pedeapsamoartea
https://www.aclu.org/case-against-death-penalty
https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
http://www.gandul.info/international/pedeapsa-cu-moartea-pro-si-contra-de-ce-esteimposibila-in-romania-cand-au-avut-loc-ultimele-executii-in-europa-si-in-suaanaliza-gandul-9378290
https://ro.wikipedia.org

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