Quote:
Originally posted by Bungleau:
And bsftcs, methinks I know which chapters of the law books you were studying...  I expect a new post every day with the latest of the obscure laws you've come across 
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You know what? I think I just might…
Well perhaps not every day, but sometimes. So let me start by making a clarification on this issue.
I know it sounds vehement, but in practice it was of course not so strict a system at all.
”Danske Lov” from 1683 was a remarkable piece of legislation in its time. Apart from many casuistic regulations it contains sections of remarkable clarity upon which much of daily life rests and are still in place in the Danish judicial system today! The penal regulations, though, obviously quickly became obsolete.
Almost already from the start the courts were quick to use other types of punishment regardless of what the law stated, and furthermore every death sentence had to be put before the king himself who pardoned the offender in MORE than half of all cases. The last execution by burning took place in the early 1700’s.
In 1849 Denmark got a democratic constitution and in1866 was the first time that a legislature elected by the people passed a penal code. It was not complete and was based a great deal on already existing legislation. It did not specifically abolish the section concerning animal sodomy. Neither did the penal code of 1905 which came into force in 1906. However, it stated that from now on the death penalty could only be used in the cases specifically mentioned in the code. No executions ever took place according to this law, and only 4 executions ever took place from 1866 to 1906. The last one in 1892 – the last woman to be executed in Denmark ever was executed in 1876. The revised civil penal code of 1930 abolished all use of the death penalty. In the Danish military penal code the death penalty was formally abolished in 1978. By then it was over 100 years since it had been used in military cases.
In 1945 following the German occupation of Denmark during the Second World War the death penalty was temporarily reinstated for some crimes commited during the occupation. The war and the occupation had unleashed sprees of violence inf Denmark of proportions unseen at any time before or thereafter. Gangs had terrorized the country, and many of them had been paid by the Germans to do so. Many gang members had killed people by the dozen. The most active gang member of all times, H. Bothildsen-Nielsen, was tried and convicted of having killed 81 people in regular liquidations and railway sabotage actions making him the most deadly (exposed) serial killer/mass murderer in Denmark to this day. Still the retrospective legislation of 1945 was and is a much debated controversial piece of Danish history which most people today see as a disgrace to the country and a very black chapter of our history.
As a result of the temporary penal code addition of 1945, 78 people were sentenced to death by shooting. Only 48 of the executions were carried out. The remaining 30 offenders were pardoned. 2 of the 78 were women. They were both among the pardoned. The last execution took place in 1952.