There was a time when that was pretty much the way it was. In medieval Europe there was "The Wheel" The perpetrator was strapped to a large wheel repeatedly dunked in a trough of water  while the executioner struck him repeatedly with an Iron bar breaking all of his bones as the wheel rotated slowly in between immersions in the water.

In merry old England there was the process of drawing and quartering in which the perpetrator's limbs were severed and his intestines were drawn out and burned in front of him before he died. There was also hanging. If the perpetrator were of royal or noble kin he might be extended the courtesy of being hung with a golden chain rather than the course hemp rope of the common man. There was also the matter of beheading. If you had any money at all you hired your own executioner...a swordsman. The thin razor sharp edge of the sword assured a clean cut and death with the first strike. This was not the case with the duller edge of the ax in which several blows may be needed ...as was the case with Mary, Queen of Scots.

Alexander the Great was particularly ruthless in meting out justice. When he captured the murderers of the Persian King Darius...he had two trees bent, and the limbs of the murderers tied to them. When the trees sprang back into position they literally ripped the perpetrators apart.

When I lived in Istanbul the Turks still had public executions. The perpetrators were hung from the Galata Bridge, and left to hang there all day. At sun set the bloated bodies were cut down. If that has not already changed, it soon will if Turkey's petition for admission to the European Union is granted.

I think the argument presented to the Court today is to assure justice rather than retribution and to prevent a step back into this gruesome history. I think Aeschylus touched on this subject when he wrote of the transformation of the Furies into the Eumenides as far back as the fifth century BC. Some have said that this represented the maturing of a culture into a more civilized form.