Capital punishment

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

is not applied in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. Venezuela was the first country in the world to abolish the death penalty for all crimes, doing so by Constitution in 1863. (San Marino

San Marino

San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino , is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino...

 had abolished

Capital punishment in San Marino

Capital punishment is no longer applied in San Marino. The last execution was carried out in 1468, by hanging. San Marino is one of only two countries in the world to have carried out no executions since before 1800 - the other being Liechtenstein, where the last execution took place in 1785.San...

 the death penalty for ordinary crimes only in 1848.) Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

 followed suit in 1877, making Venezuela one of just three countries to have abolished the death penalty by 1900.