Capital punishment, death penalty or execution is government sanctioned punishment by death. The sentence is referred to as a death sentence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences, such as first degree murder, terrorism, and espionage. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" (referring to execution by beheading). There are many execution methods; one widely practiced form historically that is the most common modern method used in jurisdictions with capital punishment is hanging.

Capital punishment has, in the past, been practiced by most societies, as a punishment for criminals, and political or religious dissidents. Historically, the carrying out of the death sentence was often accompanied by torture, and executions were most often public.

Thirty-six countries actively practice capital punishment, 103 countries have completely abolished it de jure for all crimes, 6 have abolished it for ordinary crimes only (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and 50 have abolished it de facto (have not used it for at least ten years and/or are under moratorium). No Western country still uses the death penalty except the United States.

Death penalty may refer to:

In sports

In entertainment

The death penalty is the popular term for the National Collegiate Athletic Association's power to ban a school from competing in a sport for at least one year. It is the harshest penalty that an NCAA member school can receive.

It has been implemented only five times:

In the 1980s, two other Division I men's basketball programs, at the University of San Francisco (1982) and Tulane University (1985), self-imposed "death penalties" after revelations of major NCAA violations. These "death penalties" lasted three and four seasons, respectively. The next self-imposed "death penalty" by a Division I school took place in 2015, when Western Kentucky University (WKU) shut down its men's and women's swimming and diving teams after an investigation into alleged hazing.