Methods Of Torture In The Spanish Inquisition

There were three main punishments to trials in the Spanish Inquisition. The punishments were being relaxed, reconciled, and penanced. The most minor punishment was being penanced. People were fined, banished from the country or forced to wear an embarrassing hat called Sanbenito to show to the public that they have sinned. After the person’s time of wearing the hat it was hung up so the public humiliation would continue for many years to come. Being reconciled was the second worst punishment. People were sentenced to different punishments if they were reconciled. They were sentenced to row the galleys for extensive periods of time, flogging, or serve long prison terms. All of the person’s property and goods were taken if they were reconciled. Being relaxed is ironically the most serious punishment involving death. People were burned at the stake alive. If they died or escaped while awaiting their trial they were burned in effigy, which is a sculpture of a person. This punishment was for heretics that didn’t repent or those who had been on trial before. Auto da fe was a special form of being relaxed. There was a ceremony that took place in public. It was a big event and was planned ahead of time.

Torture is something that is known as wrong internationally. Torture is “deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting on the orders of authority, to force a person to yield information, to confess, or any other reason” (World Medical Association, 1975, pg.1). There is a general consensus that there is a right to be free from any kind of torture as it can be found in many different human rights treaties around the world. The treaties show that all of the thoughts about torture are pointing away from the right to torture someone no matter what the case

David Figueroa Eng. 101A Professor Stern 4/20/15 Final draft In conclusion, in discussions of torture, one controversial issue has been on the use of it. On one hand, the people against torture argue that it is cruel and unusual punishment. On the other hand, those for torture argue that it should be used for the greater good. Others even maintain that under extreme circumstances, it may be admissible if it can save American lives. My own view is that no one should be subjected to cruel punishment because it is not only illegal, unreliable, ineffective, time consuming, it also has too many flaws that could potentially ruin innocent lives. The definition of torture is any act, whether physical or emotional, or maybe both, is intentionally subjected to a specific individual or a group for many reasons. Most of these reasons that torture is administered is for extracting information from an individual or just for punishing him/her for a crime that he/she has committed or is suspected of committing. The use of torture can be used to intimidate a person to give information that may be beneficial for a nation. The use of torture has been used for many centuries. The purposes of using torture have changed over the years as well as the methods in which a person is tortured. One crucial piece that has been established that separates us human beings from barbarians is the prohibition of using torture. There are many reasons why torture has been deemed a crime now in society. There are

In “The Torture Myth”, the author, Anne Applebaum successfully uses logos by including quotes from various sources to support her main claim. Her main claim is the following: “Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well.”(Applebaum) Throughout the piece, she provides several expert testimonies to enforce her claim. The situation of this writing is to clarify what society thinks the effectiveness of torture is compared to the reality. The target audience of this piece is educated people that read the Washington Post, but more specifically law enforcement personnel and or agencies that can possibly use this information in the field. The purpose of this article is to inform society about the misconceptions regarding torture. Although people think that torture is an effective method, because of Applebaum's successful use of logos, diction, and repetition, it is understood that torture is ultimately self-defeating and self-destructive.

The community’s response became more agitated as the trials continued. Those who confessed were neither tried nor sentenced. (LaPlante 138) The number of confessions only supported the girls’ accusations allowing them more credibility. Those who claimed to be innocent were hung following their trial or for one man tortured.

If they confessed, they were released, but if they did not confess, they were either killed and tortured or sentenced to life in prison. If people were found guilty during their trials, they were burned at the stake. Suspects would be tortured for weeks, and it was intended to be excruciatingly painful. One form of torture included lying face down on the floor with a board on your back, then heavy weights would be dropped onto the board and would crush anything beneath it. More than 323,300 people were killed during the Spanish Inquisition.

The War on Terror has produced several different viewpoints on the utilization of torture and its effectiveness as a means to elicit information. A main argument has been supplied that torture is ineffective in its purpose to gather information from the victim. The usefulness of torture has been questioned because prisoners might use false information to elude their torturers, which has occurred in previous cases of torture. It has also been supposed that torture is necessary in order to use the information to save many lives. Torture has been compared to civil disobedience. In addition, the argument has been raised that torture is immoral and inhumane. Lastly, Some say that the acts are not even regarded as torture.

Torture and punishment has been used for decades in many different situations. In the story of the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Cora faces many different variations of torture both physically and mentally. All of the situations Cora faced throughout her enslaved years up until she gained her freedom brought on many mental and physical defects, all while shaping her character. Throughout the story, Cora suffered from many different types of abuse and neglect.

This was the start of the first inquisition. After that, it was a common practice in much of Europe to take Heretics before a trial, then inflict torture on them forcing them to convert. Those that did not convert were sent to a public burning or hanging. In 1252 AD, Pope Innocent IV agreed to use inquisitors to torture sinners who would not repent their sins and confess. By the fifteen hundreds, the Inquisition became corrupt, powerful, and greedy.

Have you ever thought of what it would be like to live in the Elizabethan Era? Let me just say, it may not be as fun as it seems. In the Elizabethan Era, crimes were punishable with grueling forms of torture that killed or severely hurt thousands of criminals.

The punishments in the Middle Ages were severely brutal.For stealing you would get your right hand cut off and for rape you would be quartered. One of the most severe punishments in the middle ages was Impalement. It worked by forcing your victims to sit on a sharp and thick pole. The pole was then raised upright and the victim was left to slide further down the pole by his or her own weight. This was among the most brutal of punishments ever imagined and practiced by humans. Theft was considered a petty crime. But even though it was considered petty your right hand was still chopped off.If you were drunk in public you would get a fine. Victims were sawed in half, they did this because it was a cheap way to torture and kill a victim accused

The question of unusual and cruel punishment is one that is undeniably at the forefront of the debate relating to the death penalty and whether or not, as well as how, it should be administered. Unusual and cruel punishment is prohibited under U.S, Const. Amend. VIII. As such, in the administration of the death penalty, there must be no element of cruelty or unusual punishment.

Torture (Latin torquere, “to twist”), in law, infliction of severe bodily pain either as punishment, or to compel a person to confess to a crime, or to give evidence in a judicial proceeding. Among primitive peoples, torture has been used as a means of ordeal and to punish captured enemies. Examination by torture, often called the “question,” has been used in many countries as a judicial method. It involves using instruments to extort evidence from unwilling witnesses.

They tortured people to gain confessions. The church handled all confessions, however could not witness the bloodshed that they caused to get the accused to confess. All punishments were vary physical two of the most infamous were the strappado and aselli. The strappado, meaning pulley, was a device containing ropes to strap a person down from their arms and legs and weights were attached on the ropes. The person would be raised and their body would stretch causing mass amounts of pain and sometimes-immediate death. The aselli was a water torment. A person would lie down and be drowned rapidity until it looked like their veins would explode.

Some tortures included strapping the accused's feet in a pair of metal boots and then filling the boots with boiling hot oil. The accused were often whipped for their purification, sometimes they were left out in the open for hours after having been whipped while the torturers went out to lunch. They had to hang there and wait until they returned and often they received additional torture after their wait just to be certain they had been purified. Tortures were so extreme that many people took their practices underground to avoid the Inquisition.