The death penalty was completely abolished in Australia with the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Bill 2009 passing the Australian Senate without amendments in March 2010.
Ronald Ryan was the last man hanged in Australia, 50 years ago on 3 February 1967. Ryan and his accomplice Peter Walker escaped from Pentridge Prison on 19 December 1965. The escape set in motion a chain of events which would lead to Ryan's execution and, eventually, to the abolition of the death penalty in Australia.
The decision of the New South Wales Legislative Council to perform judicial executions as private rather than public events was innovative but still controversial.
George Stinney, Youngest Executed – StoryCorps.
Small groups, mostly of women, stood opposite the main entrance to Pentridge Prison on the morning of the executions. The three bodies were buried in the gaol graveyard reserved for executed prisoners. Jean Lee was the last woman to be executed in Australia.
Barrett and two of his co-conspirators were sentenced to execution; the other two were subsequently reprieved, but Barrett was hanged on 27 February 1788, becoming the first person executed in the new colony.
DNA evidence reveals family man in Australia was teenage killer who escaped Nebraska jail. William Leslie Arnold was just 16 years old in 1958 when he killed his parents and buried them in the backyard after they refused to let him borrow the family car to take his girlfriend to a drive-in movie showing of The Undead.
In 2003, Kathleen Folbigg was sentenced to prison on three counts of murder and one of manslaughter. A woman condemned as Australia's worst female serial killer has been pardoned after serving 20 years behind bars for killing her four children in what appears to be one of the country's gravest miscarriages of justice.
Life imprisonment is the most severe penalty now available in Australia, and, currently, about 5 percent of the total prison population in Australian correctional institutions are serving an indeterminate life sentence. However, the average term of incarceration for these prisoners is about 13 years.
MORATORIUM ON THE USE OF THE DEATH PENALTY
Australia opposes the death penalty, in all circumstances and for all people. Australia's opposition to the death penalty is a long-standing, bipartisan policy position. All jurisdictions in Australia abolished the death penalty by 1985.
Duration of a Life Sentence in Australia
In New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, these periods are 25 years. Tasmania has set it at 20 years and Queensland at 15 years.
Death penalty in Australia
A total of 66 people were hanged in South Australia and 45 of these hangings took place at Adelaide Gaol. These hangings were undertaken: 7 outside the front door.
During the 19th century, these crimes saw about 80 people hanged each year throughout Australia. Before Federation, each colony made its own criminal laws and punishments. Since then the States have been responsible for most criminal law. Since Federation in 1901, 114 people have been legally executed in Australia.
On Monday, 21 January 1793, arguably one of the most significant public executions in history took place – King Louis XVI of France was beheaded by guillotine in the centre of Paris, ending with the drop of the blade over a thousand years of monarchy in France.
July 28, 2022: Alabama executed Joe Nathan James, Jr. He was 50 years old. Officials took three hours to set an IV line before putting James to death. The Death Penalty Information Center called it "the longest botched lethal injection execution in U.S. history."
Ivan Milat, (1944–2019) convicted of the murder of seven young men and women between 1989 and 1993; known as Australia's most prolific serial killer. His crimes are collectively referred to as the "Backpacker murders".
Victor George Peirce was the sixth child of Kath Pettingill. Together with his de facto partner, Wendy Peirce, he fathered five children. He was convicted for drug trafficking and served a six-year prison sentence during the 1990s. He once worked as a bodyguard for murdered businessman Frank Benvenuto.
An Irishman who was killed in Australia has been named locally as Damian Conlon from Co Sligo.
The Western Australian records we've been using for our recent research and digitised for the Digital Panopticon project reveal the story of Samuel Speed, the last living Australian convict. He was transported to Western Australia in 1866 and died in 1938, just short of his 100th birthday.
1880, 5, whose attending reporter wrote that “Kelly, on coming out [of the cell onto the gallows], exclaimed, 'Ah, well! It's come to this at last'.
The Graeme Thorne kidnapping is the name given to the 1960 kidnapping and murder of Graeme Thorne for money that his father, Bazil Thorne, had won in a lottery. A crime which caused massive shock at the time and gathered huge publicity, it was the first known kidnapping for ransom in Australian history.