July 1st of 1867 was the day the king D. Luís, the first constitutional king of Portugal (the fine gentleman in the painting) signed the decree to end capital punishment.
(image retrieved from http://www.vortexmag.net/historias-insolitas-de-portugal-rei-de-dia-dr-tavares-de-noite/)
Just a small note on this king, that unlike his predecessor and brother, D. Pedro V, he greatly enjoyed night clubs, tobacco, women, and good food, which lead him to adopt the pseudonym of Dr. Tavares so he could go out with his best mate, Dr. Magalhães Coutinho.
This was a great mark in Portugal's history (and in Europe's), and was highly praised by french writer Victor Hugo:
“The death penalty has been abolished in that noble Portugal, small country with a great history (…) I send my congratulations to your nation. Portugal sets the example to Europe. (…) Death to Death. War to War. Long live life! Hatred to hatred. Freedom is a huge city where we are, all of us, fellow citizens”. (Published in Diário de Notícias, 1967 - see image)
Unfortunately, many others countries took a long time to do the same, with, for example, France abolishing it in 1981 and the UK in 1998, and other countries still continue this practice to this day, including the USA, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China (leading the whole group).
This was a step towards a new penal reform and the birth of prisons as we now know them. Punishments were to be given justly and appropriately, as had been suggested almost a century earlier by Cesare Beccaria. The abolishment of the death penalty also marked a move towards a greater concern over human dignity and allowed the possibility of treatment/reform of criminals. With the advent of Lombroso's Criminal Man, a larger debate of nature vs nurture took place in penal sciences over the success of these practices (but this is a discussion for another time).
Lets take this day to think that just a little over 150 years ago there were public beheadings, gathering hundreds and thousands of citizens in a grand spectacle (Durkheim had something to say about the function of these to maintain cohesion of the whole society, i think i'll prepare another post on that). I wonder if these still happened today, with our current famous and reality tv shows fascination (schadenfreude anyone?), how many would be sitting at home every sunday with their families waiting for the live broadcasting of "extreme living", perhaps in a contest-type of event, where you could phone in and bet on what type of death that person would go through, sponsored by some type of booze and cleaning appliances (gotta clean them bloodstains).
Sebastian Sonntag - Flugblatt Nachrichtensammlung Wick (1560-1586) - retrieved from wikipedia
Why do you think death penalty is still applied to this day?
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