Capital punishment in Norway

Capital punishment in Norway (Norwegian: dødsstraff) has been constitutionally prohibited since 2014.

Before that, it had been fully abolished in 1979, and earlier, from 1905 the penal code had abolished capital punishment in peacetime.

In practice the last execution in peacetime was carried out on 25 February 1876, when Kristoffer Nilsen Grindalen was beheaded in Løten, but several persons, mainly Norwegians and Germans, were executed after the Second World War and the years of Nazi occupation; among them Vidkun Quisling.

In addition to the usual capital crimes of murder and treason, medieval Norwegian law demanded execution also of persons who were found guilty of witchcraft. During the witch-hunting of the 16th and 17th centuries, 300 persons were burned. About a hundred of them were from the Vardø area. Women in the north, especially in Finnmark, were at particular risk due to the clergy and authorities believing that the devil resided at the edge of the world.

King Christian V's Norwegian Law of 1687 described several capital crimes. A law of 16 October 1697 increased the penalty for some murders by coupling torture with the executions. On the way to the execution site the convict would be pinched with red hot tongs, and a hand would be cut off prior to decapitation.

Until the 19th century, lèse majesté could result in capital punishment. By 1815 the most inhumane forms of execution were abolished, and decapitation or shooting were the remaining authorised methods. Capital crimes were premeditated or otherwise heinous murders as well as treason.

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