Ending Judicial Torture and the First Abolition of the Death Penalty

Enlightenment arguments helped end judicial torture across much of Europe within a few decades. Frederick II of Prussia restricted torture days after taking the throne in 1740 and abolished it almost entirely by 1754. Sweden abolished it in 1772, Austria under Maria Theresa in 1776, and France in two steps, in 1780 and 1788. In 1786 Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Tuscany went further, issuing a new criminal code that abolished the death penalty and torture, making Tuscany the first modern state to end capital punishment in law.

His brother Joseph II's 1787 code also largely abolished the death penalty in ordinary courts, though it imposed harsh alternatives such as forced labor. Historians debate the causes: some credit humanitarian ideas, others point to changing legal rules of evidence and the growth of prisons as alternative punishments. These reforms were partial and sometimes reversed, but they marked a decisive shift in how states justified punishment.