summary executions
Killings without trial
Summary executions are killings carried out immediately, without trial or legal process.
The term typically describes state actors—soldiers, police, or officials—killing prisoners, suspects, or civilians on the spot rather than affording them due process: Reports emerged of summary executions following the coup.
The "summary" indicates the absence of formal proceedings that would normally precede a death sentence.
- extrajudicialOutside court authority
- arbitraryBased on personal whim
- killingCausing death deliberately
- bloodBody's oxygen carrier
- macabreDisturbing, death-obsessed
immediate · murders · unlawful · blindfold · Geneva Conventions · squad · kangaroo court · death squad · human rights violations · crimes against humanity · September Massacres · mass graves · political purges · ethnic cleansing · massacres · military · hangings · civilian casualties
- state terrorgulags, purges, political prisoners, secret police, show trials
- War Atrocitiestorture, mass graves, concentration camps, prisoner abuse, reprisals
summary executionsdue process
Guaranteed judicial fairness
fair trial · legal execution · judicial proceedings · trial by jury · criminal trial
summary executionsacquittal
Formal clearing of charges
exoneration · pardon · clemency · commutation · not guilty verdict
summary, summaries, summarize, summarized, summarizing, summarization, summarily, summed, summing