title: Robby Krieger

text: Krieger attended a Hebrew school with his twin brother Ronny. While Krieger was a boarding student at a private school called Menlo School in Menlo Park, California, there was study time at night that allowed him to teach himself to play the guitar. He began by first de-tuning a ukulele to the bottom four strings of a guitar and mimicking a record he had. Later, in the mid-1960s, scholar Frank Chin taught Krieger how to play the flamenco guitar. During a Christmas break, Krieger and two classmates took a vacation to Puerto Vallarta where he purchased a peg-tuned Ramírez guitar and took lessons for a few months. He played many genres, including flamenco, folk, blues, and jazz and played in a jug band—the Back Bay Chamber Pot Terriers—at Menlo.


title: Robby Krieger

text: After high school, Krieger attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. Krieger listed guitarists Wes Montgomery, Albert King, and Larry Carlton among the biggest influences on his style. Krieger's flamenco guitar playing can be heard in the song "Spanish Caravan".


title: Robby Krieger

text: Krieger became a member of the Doors in 1965, joining keyboard player Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and vocalist Jim Morrison, after Manzarek's brothers left the group. At an early Doors rehearsal Morrison heard Krieger playing bottleneck guitar and initially wanted the technique featured on every song on the first album. Krieger's fingerstyle approach to the electric guitar, broad musical tastes, and songwriting helped establish the Doors as a successful rock band in the 1960s. Together with Densmore, he studied under Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar at the Kinnara School of Music in Los Angeles.


title: Robby Krieger

text: Krieger occasionally sang lead vocal with the Doors. He can be heard on the song "Runnin' Blue". He also sang on the last two Doors albums, recorded after Morrison's death, "Other Voices" and "Full Circle".


title: Robby Krieger

text: After Morrison's death in 1971, Krieger, Manzarek and Densmore carried on as a trio. They released two more albums as the Doors before disbanding in 1973, though they did reconvene a few years later to create music for poetry that Morrison had recorded shortly before his death, released as the 1978 album "An American Prayer".


title: Robby Krieger

text: After the Doors disbanded in 1973, Krieger formed the Butts Band with Densmore. He enjoyed some success as a jazz-fusion guitarist, recording a handful of albums in the 1970s and 1980s, including "Versions" (1982), "Robby Krieger" (1985), and "No Habla" (1989). For his first solo release in 1977, "Robbie Krieger & Friends", Krieger worked with rock artist Jim Evans to create a painting that became the album package.


title: Robby Krieger

text: In 1982, Krieger appeared on four tracks of the album "Panic Station" by the Los Angeles group The Acid Casualties ("Shadow Street," "Solid Sound," "Armies of the Sun," and "She's a Lost Soul").


title: Robby Krieger

text: In the early 90s, Krieger formed a trio called the 'Robby Krieger Organization' featuring Skip Van Winkle (electric organ, organ pedal bass) and Dale Alexander (drums, backing vocals). In 1991, Krieger formed a new band simply known as the "Robby Krieger Band," which featured his son Waylon Krieger (guitar), Berry Oakley Jr. (bass, backing vocals), Dale Alexander (keyboards), and Ray Mehlbaum (drums). The band performed shows in North America and Europe between 1991 and 1998. In 2000, Krieger released "Cinematix", an entirely instrumental fusion album, with guest appearances from Billy Cobham and Edgar Winter.


title: Robby Krieger

text: Krieger and Manzarek reformed as the "Doors of the 21st Century" in 2002 with vocalist Ian Astbury of the Cult. (Astbury had also performed a solo cover of "Touch Me" and a cover of "Wild Child" with the Cult on the tribute album ""). Following a dispute with Densmore over the Doors name, the band then became known as "Riders on the Storm", "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors", and finally, "Manzarek–Krieger". For a brief period, the reformed band also included Police drummer Stewart Copeland.


title: Robby Krieger

text: Krieger played guitar on a few tracks by Blue Öyster Cult and has worked on a number of tribute projects organized by Billy Sherwood. Krieger has made some guest appearances with the band Particle and appears on the album "Transformations Live". In June 2008, ZYX Studio released his concert with Eric Burdon, called "Live at the Ventura Beach California". They also played "Back Door Man" and "Roadhouse Blues".


title: Robby Krieger

text: In April 2009, Krieger and Ray Manzarek appeared as special guests for Daryl Hall's monthly concert webcast "Live From Daryl's House". They performed several Doors tunes ("People Are Strange", "The Crystal Ship", "Roadhouse Blues" and "Break On Through"), with Hall providing lead vocals. Krieger has participated in the "Experience Hendrix" series of concerts, joining a number of high-profile guitar players paying tribute to the musicianship and songwriting of Jimi Hendrix.


title: Robby Krieger

text: In May 2012, Robby Krieger toured with the Roadhouse Rebels, a trio side-project consisting of founding members Particle's (and Rich Robinson's keyboardist) Steve Molitz (hammond organ, keyboards) and Oingo Boingo/Mutaytor's John Avila (bass), only this time with two additional musicians, the Black Crowes's Rich Robinson (guitar/vocals) and Rich Robinson's drummer Joe Magistro. The shows' setlists featured a range of material, including Doors standards, classic soul and rock 'n' roll covers from the '60s and '70s, and material from Robinson's new Through a Crooked Sun album. The group performed on May 25, 2012, in Los Angeles, on May 26, 2012, at the Bella Fiore Music Festival at Harmony Park Music Garden in Clarks Grove, Minnesota, and on May 27, 2012, at the Oriental Theater in Denver.


title: Robby Krieger

text: Krieger is featured on the Fuel album "Puppet Strings". On December 31, 2013, Krieger played alongside Southern rock band Gov't Mule at the Beacon Theatre (New York City). In July 2017, Krieger tossed out the first pitch at a Dodgers game in Los Angeles.


title: Robby Krieger

text: On August 29, 2018, Krieger joined Alice in Chains onstage at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles to close out their sold-out concert with a performance of their hit song "Rooster". On August 14, 2020, Krieger released his solo album, "The Ritual Begins At Sundown." On September 10, 2020, Krieger was announced as a headliner featuring Maki Mae in the Asian Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.


title: Robby Krieger

text: In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, Krieger began uploading guitar tutorials for various Doors songs to the band's official YouTube channel.


title: Robby Krieger

text: On October 12, 2021, Krieger released a memoir "Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar With the Doors," cowritten with author and musician Jeff Penalty Alulis.


title: Robby Krieger

text: In 2022, Krieger's custom-built home in Bel-Air, California was put up for sale by its current owner for $13.9 million. The property features 1.4 acres of land, a pool, spa and 6,600 square feet of living space. At one time it had been owned by Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst.


title: Robby Krieger

text: Robby used a variety of electric guitars models during his time with the Doors, most notably the following ones:


title: Condor

text: Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua "kuntur". They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere.


title: Condor

text: Condors are part of the family Cathartidae which contains the New World vultures, whereas the 15 species of Old World vultures are in the family Accipitridae, that also includes hawks, eagles, and kites. The New World and Old World vultures evolved from different ancestors. They both are carrion-eaters and the two groups are similar in appearance due to convergent evolution.


title: Condor

text: Both condors are very large broad-winged soaring birds, the Andean condor being shorter (beak to tail) on average than the northern species, but heavier and larger in wingspan. The Andean condor has a wingspan of 2.7-3.2 metres and a weight of 7.7–15 kg. with the California condor weight of 9-11 kg, and wingspan of 2.89 metres (9.5 feet). California condors are the largest flying land birds in North America. Among all living flying birds, the Andean condor is the third heaviest after the Kori bustard and great bustard (up to ), and second only to the wandering albatross (up to ) in wingspan.


title: Condor

text: The adult plumage is uniformly black, with the exception of a frill of white feathers nearly surrounding the base of the neck which are meticulously kept clean by the bird. As an adaptation for hygiene, the condor's head and neck have few feathers, which exposes the skin to the sterilizing effects of dehydration and solar ultraviolet light at high altitudes. The head is much flattened above. In the male it is crowned with a caruncle or comb, while the skin of the neck in the male lies in folds, forming a wattle. The skin of the head and neck is capable of flushing noticeably in response to emotional state, which serves to communicate between individuals.


title: Condor

text: The middle toe is greatly elongated, and the hinder one but slightly developed, while the talons of all the toes are comparatively straight and blunt. The feet are thus more adapted to walking as in their relatives the storks , and of little use as weapons or organs of prehension as in birds of prey and Old World vultures. The female, contrary to the usual rule among birds of prey, is smaller than the male.


title: Condor

text: Although the California condor is, from beak to tail, about longer, the Andean condor has a wider wingspan, ranging from and heavier, reaching up to for males and for females. Overall length can range from Measurements are usually taken from specimens reared in captivity.


title: Condor

text: California condors' wingspan measures up to , and they can weigh up to . The skin on the necks will vary in color, depending on the age of the birds. Adult birds' skin color can range from cream, pink, yellow, or even orange during breeding season.


title: Condor

text: Fossils of both extinct and extant condor species from the Pleistocene era have been found in various parts of North America, including New York and Florida, leading scientists to hypothesize that California condors (as well as their ancestors and relatives) once lived on the west coast of North America as well as all the way to the eastern coast, until their eventual extinction/extirpation. Some scientists also have found that an ancient relative of the condor, "Argentavis magnificens" from South America, may have been the largest flying bird ever with a wingspan of .


title: Condor

text: Sexual maturity and breeding behavior do not appear in the condor until 5 or 6 years of age. They may live for 50 years or more, and mate for life. The world's oldest condor died at 100 in the Jardin d'Essai du Hamma in Algiers.


title: Condor

text: The young are covered with a grayish down until they are almost as large as their parents. They are able to fly after six months, but continue to roost and hunt with their parents until age two, when they are displaced by a new clutch. There is a well-developed social structure within large groups of condors, recent study showed the 'pecking order' is determined by age group and, within age groups, by sex(which contradicts previous findings).


title: Condor

text: On the wing the movements of the condor are graceful. The lack of a large sternum to anchor correspondingly large flight muscles identifies it physiologically as a primary soarer. The birds flap their wings on rising from the ground, but after attaining a moderate elevation they seem to sail on the air, transiting from one upstream to the next often without flapping its wings. One Andean condor was recording maintaining such flight for , for over five hours.


title: Condor

text: Wild condors inhabit large territories, often traveling a day in search of carrion. They prefer large carcasses such as deer or cattle which they spot by looking for other scavengers, which cannot rip through the tougher hides of these larger animals with the efficiency of the larger condor. In the wild they are intermittent eaters, often going for a few days without eating, then gorging themselves on several kilograms (pounds) at once, sometimes to the point of being unable to lift off the ground.


title: Condor

text: The Moche people of ancient Peru worshiped nature. They placed emphasis on animals and often depicted condors in their art. The Andean Condor lives for a long age, 50 years and it has been said that in the wild they can live to 60 years of age.


title: Glenn Quagmire

text: Glenn Quagmire, often referred to by just his surname, is a fictional character from the American adult animated series "Family Guy". He is a neighbor and friend of the Griffin family and is best known for his hypersexuality and his catchphrase, "Giggity". The show's creator and voice actor Seth MacFarlane describes him as "an appalling human being who is still caught in the Rat Pack era" based on anachronistic 1950s party-animal clichés. The episode "Tiegs for Two" revealed that the surname Quagmire was originally the Polish surname Quagglechek or Quaggleczyk, the suffix -czyk indicating a diminutive in the Polish language.


title: Glenn Quagmire

text: The name "Quagmire" was chosen by a college acquaintance of MacFarlane's. MacFarlane came up with Quagmire's voice after listening to fast-talking radio jockeys from the 1950s era, describing the character as a "50s radio guy on coke." The "giggity" phrase was inspired by Steve Marmel's Jerry Lewis impression.


title: Glenn Quagmire

text: Quagmire is a bachelor who works as a commercial airline pilot. He lives on Spooner Street where he is a neighbor and friend of Peter Griffin, Cleveland Brown and Joe Swanson. He has had two spouses: Joan, a maid for the Griffins who died; and Charmise, a prostitute whom he divorced. The former episode, "I Take Thee Quagmire", was acknowledged by MacFarlane as the first to have a plot revolving around Quagmire.


title: Glenn Quagmire

text: During his time in Korea in service in Busan, he had a brief career as a soap opera star by the name of "American Johnny" and was lovers with his co-star, Sujin. They would reconnect ties during his brief travel there with Peter, Joe and Cleveland. Quagmire briefly dated Cheryl Tiegs in the early 1980s, but she dumped him because of his constant jealousy and his sex addiction. Cheryl, whom Quagmire considers his long-lost one true love, would again appear twice in Quagmire's life, both times due to Brian Griffin's meddling: the first one, when Brian invited him to dinner under the pretense he was going to dinner with her; the second one, when Brian dated her just to torment him (Quagmire retaliates by dating Brian's ex-girlfriend Jillian). Quagmire despises Brian, and they have a feud that spans several episodes.


title: Glenn Quagmire

text: In the episode "Quagmire's Baby", he discovers that he has a daughter, Anna Lee, but puts her up for adoption; several episodes imply that Quagmire has fathered several other children. His father, Dan, is introduced in the episode "Quagmire's Dad"; he is a naval veteran of the Vietnam War who has a sex reassignment and becomes a woman named Ida. Quagmire's sister, Brenda, is first seen in the episode "Jerome is the New Black" and is the subject of "". In both episodes she is the victim of domestic violence from her partner Jeff, whom Quagmire murders in order to protect her. The episode "Quagmire's Mom" reveals that he has a strained, dysfunctional relationship with his mother, who had acted sexually towards him; other episodes have implied that the two have actually had sex.


title: Glenn Quagmire

text: He is characterized as indulging in numerous sexual fetishes such as BDSM, frotteurism, biastophilia, somnophilia, erotic asphyxiation, voyeurism, exhibitionism, zoophilia, and necrophilia. He also has a predilection for teenage girls, including Peter's daughter Meg, whenever they turn 18. Following the episode "Family Goy", he develops a pornography addiction after discovering the existence of internet pornography. When in sexual situations, he often shouts variations of his catchphrase "giggity", which has been used on "Family Guy" merchandise such as keyrings.


title: Glenn Quagmire

text: Scenes involving Quagmire's sexual behavior have sometimes been censored by Fox, such as a cut-away in the episode "Airport '07" which implied that he engaged in sex with a dead virgin at her funeral. The Parents Television Council, a long-term critic of "Family Guy", says that Quagmire provides "some of the tawdriest moments" in the show.


title: Jury nullification

text: Jury nullification (US/UK), jury equity (UK), or a perverse verdict (UK) occurs when the jury in a criminal trial gives a not guilty verdict despite a defendant having clearly broken the law. The jury's reasons may include the belief that the law itself is unjust, that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant's case, that the punishment for breaking the law is too harsh, or general frustrations with the criminal justice system. Some juries have also refused to convict due to their own prejudices in favor of the defendant. Such verdicts are possible because a jury has an absolute right to return any verdict it chooses.


title: Jury nullification

text: Nullification is not an official part of criminal procedure, but is the logical consequence of two rules governing the systems in which it exists:


title: Jury nullification

text: A jury verdict that is contrary to the letter of the law pertains only to the particular case before it. However, if a pattern of acquittals develops in response to repeated attempts to prosecute a particular offence, this can have the "de facto" effect of invalidating the law. Such a pattern may indicate public opposition to an unwanted legislative enactment. It may also happen that a jury convicts a defendant even if no law was broken, although such a conviction may be overturned on appeal. Nullification can also occur in civil trials, but (unlike in criminal trials) if the jury renders a not liable verdict that is clearly at odds with the evidence, the judge can issue a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or order a new trial.


title: Jury nullification

text: In the past, it was feared that a single judge or panel of government officials might be unduly influenced to follow established legal practice, even when that practice had drifted from its origins. In most modern Western legal systems, judges often instruct juries to act only as "finders of fact", whose role it is to determine the veracity of the evidence presented, the weight accorded to the evidence, to apply that evidence to the law as explained by the judge, and to reach a verdict; but not to question the law itself. Similarly, juries are routinely cautioned by courts and some attorneys not to allow sympathy for a party or other affected persons to compromise the fair and dispassionate evaluation of evidence. These instructions are criticized by advocates of jury nullification. Some commonly cited historical examples of jury nullification involve jurors refusing to convict persons accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Act by assisting runaway slaves or being fugitive slaves themselves, and refusal of American colonial juries to convict a defendant under English law.


title: Jury nullification

text: Jury nullification is the source of much debate. Some maintain that it is an important safeguard of last resort against wrongful imprisonment and government tyranny. Others view it as a violation of the right to a jury trial, which undermines the law. Some view it as a violation of the oath sworn by jurors. In the United States, some view the requirement that jurors take an oath to be unlawful in itself, while still others view the oath's reference to "deliverance" to "require" nullification of unjust law: "will well and truly try and a true deliverance make between the United States and the defendant at the bar, and a true verdict render according to the evidence, so help [me] God". Some fear that nullification could be used to permit violence against socially unpopular factions. They point to the danger that a jury may choose to convict a defendant who has not broken the letter of the law. However, judges retain the rights both to decide sentences and to disregard juries' guilty verdicts, acting as a check against malicious juries. Jury nullification may also occur in civil suits, in which the verdict is generally a finding of liability or lack of liability (rather than a finding of guilty or not guilty).


title: Jury nullification

text: The main ethical issue involved in jury nullification is the tension between democratic self-government and integrity. The argument has been raised that prosecutors are not allowed to seek jury nullification, and therefore defendants should not be allowed to seek it either. However, for a prosecutor to nullify a law in this context would require negating the presumption of innocence. (For this reason, prosecutorial nullification is typically defined as declining to prosecute.)


title: Jury nullification

text: Nevertheless, there is little doubt as to the ability of a jury to nullify the law. Today, there are several issues raised by jury nullification, such as:


title: Jury nullification

text: In some cases in the United States, a stealth juror will attempt to get on a jury in order to nullify the law. Some lawyers use a shadow defense to expose the jury to information that would otherwise be inadmissible, hoping that evidence will trigger a nullification.


title: Jury nullification

text: The early history of juries supports the recognition of the "de facto" power of nullification. By the 12th century, common law courts in England began using juries for more than administrative duties. Juries were composed primarily of "laymen" from the local community and provided a somewhat efficient means of dispute resolution with the benefit of supplying legitimacy.


title: Jury nullification

text: The general power of juries to decide on verdicts was recognised in the English Magna Carta of 1215, which put into words existing practices:


title: Jury nullification

text: Largely, the earliest juries returned verdicts in accordance with the judge or the Crown. This was achieved either by "packing the jury" or by "writ of attaint". Juries were packed by hand-selecting or by bribing the jury so as to return the desired verdict. That was a common tactic in cases involving treason or sedition. In addition, the writ of attaint allowed a judge to retry the case in front of a second jury when the judge believed the first jury returned a "false verdict". If the second jury returned a different verdict, that verdict was imposed, and the first jury was imprisoned or fined.


title: Jury nullification

text: That history is marked by a number of notable exceptions. In 1554, a jury acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton but was severely punished by the court. Almost a century later, in 1649, in the first known attempt to argue for jury nullification, a jury likewise acquitted John Lilburne for his part in inciting a rebellion against Oliver Cromwell's regime. The theoretician and politician Eduard Bernstein wrote of Lilburne's trial:


title: Jury nullification

text: In 1653, Lilburne was on trial again and asked the jury to acquit him if it found the death penalty "unconscionably severe" in proportion to the crime he had committed. The jury found Lilburne "not guilty of any crime worthy of death".


title: Jury nullification

text: In 1670, a petit jury refused to convict William Penn of unlawful assembly. The judge held the jury in contempt of court, which was ruled inappropriate by the Court of Common Pleas in "Bushel's Case".


title: Jury nullification

text: In 1681, a grand jury refused to indict the Earl of Shaftesbury. In 1688, a jury acquitted the Seven Bishops of the Church of England of seditious libel. Juries continued, even in non-criminal cases, to act in defiance of the Crown. In 1763 and 1765, juries awarded £4,000 to John Wilkes and £300 to John Entick in separate suits for trespass against the Crown's messengers. In both cases, messengers had been sent by Lord Halifax to seize allegedly-libellous papers.


title: Jury nullification

text: In Scotland, jury nullification had the profound effect of introducing the three-verdict system including the option of "not proven", which remains in Scotland to this day. In 1728, Carnegie of Finhaven accidentally killed the Earl of Strathmore. As the defendant had undoubtedly killed the Earl, the law, as it then stood, required the jury merely to look at the facts and to pass a verdict of "proven" or "not proven", depending on whether it believed that the facts proved the defendant had killed the Earl. If the jury brought in a "proven" verdict, that would lead to Carnegie's hanging though he had not intended any harm to the Earl. To avert that injustice, the jury decided to assert what it believed to be its "ancient right" to judge the whole case, not just the facts, and rendered the verdict of "not guilty". Over time, juries have tended to favour the "not guilty" verdict over "not proven" and so the interpretation has changed. The "not guilty" verdict has become the normal verdict when a jury is convinced of innocence, and the "not proven" verdict is used only if the jury is not certain of innocence or guilt.


title: Jury nullification

text: The standard jury trial practice in the United States during the Founding Era and for several decades afterward was to argue all issues of law in the presence of the jury so that it heard the same arguments as the bench in reaching its rulings on motions. That is evidenced by such decisions as the 1839 case "Stettinius", which held, "The defense can argue law to the jury before the court gives instructions." Later, judges began to demand the parties submit motions in writing, often before the jury was empaneled, to be argued and decided without the jury being present. The transition began with motions "in limine" to exclude evidence on which it was felt the jury should not hear the argument because it would be informed of the evidence to be excluded. Later, that was expanded to include all legal argument and so that today, the earlier practice of arguing law before the jury has been largely forgotten, and judges even declare mistrials or overturn verdicts if legal arguments are made to the jury.


title: Jury nullification

text: In 1921, the Armenian genocide survivor Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated Talat Pasha, who was considered the main architect of the genocide, in Berlin. Although Tehlirian's lawyers did not contest that their client had killed Talat, the jury (Germany used jury trials until 1924) returned a verdict of not guilty.


title: Jury nullification

text: Although extremely rare, jury nullification occurs in Canada. As the prosecution has powers to appeal the resulting acquittal, it lacks the finality found in the United States. However, the Crown cannot appeal on grounds of an unreasonable acquittal although it can appeal on errors of law. In "R. v. Latimer", 2001 SCC 1, the Supreme Court discussed jury nullification and indicated that it is a duty of the presiding justice to try to prevent it from occurring.


title: Jury nullification

text: Perhaps the most famous cases of jury nullification in Canada were the various trials of Henry Morgentaler, who openly operated a private abortion clinic in violation of the Criminal Code. Repeated attempts at prosecuting Morgentaler resulted in acquittals at jury trials in the 1970s and the 1980s. In the 1988 Supreme Court case, "R. v. Morgentaler", 1988 SCR 30, a nullification was appealed all the way to the country's highest court, which struck down the law in question. In "obiter dicta", Chief Justice Dickson wrote:


title: Jury nullification

text: The Supreme Court in 2006 issued a decision, "R. v. Krieger", 2006 SCC 47, which confirmed that juries in Canada have the power to refuse to apply the law when their consciences require that they do so. The decision stated that "juries are not entitled as a matter of right to refuse to apply the law—but they do have the power to do so when their consciences permit of no other course".


title: Jury nullification

text: By the late 17th century, the court's power to punish juries was removed in "Bushel's Case" involving a juror on the case against William Penn. Penn and William Mead had been arrested in 1670 for illegally preaching a Quaker sermon and disturbing the peace, but four jurors, led by Edward Bushell, refused to find them guilty. Instead of dismissing the jury, the judge sent them back for further deliberations. Despite the judge demanding a guilty verdict, the jury now unanimously found Penn guilty of preaching but acquitted him on the charge of disturbing the peace and acquitted Mead of all charges. The jury was then subsequently kept for three days without "meat, drink, fire and tobacco" to force it to bring in a guilty verdict. When it failed to do so, the judge ended the trial. As punishment, the judge ordered the jurors imprisoned until they paid a fine to the court.


title: Jury nullification

text: Four jurors refused to pay the fine, and after several months, Bushell sought a writ of habeas corpus. Chief Justice Vaughan, sitting on the Court of Common Pleas, discharged the writ, released them, called the power to punish a jury "absurd" and forbade judges from punishing jurors for returning a verdict the judge disagreed with. That series of events is considered a significant milestone in the history of jury nullification. The "courage and endurance" of the jury is celebrated in a plaque displayed in the Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey) in London.


title: Jury nullification

text: In a criminal libel case, "R. v. Shipley" (1784), 4 Dougl. 73, 99 E.R. 774, at p. 824, Lord Mansfield, sitting as a judge in the case, disparaged the practice of jury nullification:


title: Jury nullification

text: A 2016 study exploring the history of juror punishment in England and Wales after Bushel's Case found no clear examples of jurors being punished solely for returning the "wrong" verdict. The closest that a jury came to that was in 1917, when a jury acquitted two teenage boys of arson. The boys had confessed at their pre-trial hearing but entered pleas of not guilty at their trial. Home Office civil servants suspected the difference between the pleas could be explained by the difference between the boys' admitting that they had caused the fire and their denial that they had done so maliciously. The trial judge did not consider that possibility or was not satisfied with it. On receiving the jury's verdict, he told them that "you have been absolutely regardless of your oath. These men have pleaded guilty, and the evidence is of the clearest possible nature. You are none of you fit to serve on a Jury, but you will remain here until the end of the Sessions".


title: Jury nullification

text: The foreman, George Lathan, considered that a form of punishment for the jury, as the jurors were not going to be permitted to serve on any more juries but were nonetheless required to keep attending court or face contempt proceedings, which Lathan considered a tacit form of imprisonment. Officials in the Lord Chancellor's Office noted that while the judge's conduct "was ill-judged and arbitrary, he did not, so far as I can see, do any act which would justify the Lord Chancellor in removing him from the Bench". Home Office officials wrote to the judge, advising him that his actions "would be impossible for the Home Secretary to defend as constitutional or right", and after several days, the jurors were relieved of their duties. Home Office minutes suggest they did not think that kind of informal punishment of jurors who had returned the "wrong" verdict to be unheard of.


title: Jury nullification

text: In 1982, during the Falklands War, the British Royal Navy sank an Argentine cruiser, the ARA "General Belgrano". Three years later a civil servant, Clive Ponting, leaked two government documents concerning the sinking of the cruiser to a Member of Parliament (Tam Dalyell) and was subsequently charged with breaching section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The prosecution in the case demanded for the jury to convict Ponting, as he had clearly contravened the Act by leaking official information about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War. His main defence was that it was in the public interest that the information be made available. The judge, Sir Anthony McCowan, "indicated that the jury should convict him", and had ruled that "the public interest is what the government of the day says it is". However, the jury acquitted him, much to the consternation of the government.


title: Jury nullification

text: In 2001, two people were charged with conspiracy to cause criminal damage to a Trident submarine in a Barrow-in-Furness shipyard. Though the two admitted their intention to trash the submarine, the two said they were planning to do so due to nuclear bombs being immoral and illegal. The judge told the juries that such ideals were not a defence against the charge. The jury brought a verdict of not guilty on these two anti-nuclear protesters.


title: Jury nullification

text: In 2021, six activists associated with the environmental protest organisation Extinction Rebellion were tried for causing criminal damage to the British headquarters of the multinational oil company Royal Dutch Shell. The judge told the jury that there was 'no defence in law' for the protestors' actions, which according to the prosecutor had caused 'significant damage' to the building, but the activists were acquitted.


title: Jury nullification

text: In the United States, jury nullification first appeared just before the American Revolutionary War, when colonial juries frequently exercised their nullification power, principally in maritime cases and cases implicating free speech. Jury nullification became so common that many British prosecutors gave up trying maritime cases since conviction seemed hopeless. Before the American Civil War, juries sometimes refused to convict for violations of the Fugitive Slave Act. Later, during Prohibition, juries often nullified alcohol control laws. That resistance may have contributed to the adoption of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment.


title: Jury nullification

text: In a well-known example of jury nullification, at the end of Wild Bill Hickok's trial for the manslaughter of Davis Tutt in 1865, Judge Sempronius Boyd gave the jury two instructions. He first instructed the jury that a conviction was its only option under the law. He then instructed them that they could apply the unwritten law of the "fair fight" and acquit. Hickok was acquitted; the verdict was not popular with the public.


title: Jury nullification

text: There have been contemporary instances of activists being arrested for informing jurists of their right of jury nullification in front of court houses with subsequent rulings that the arresting people for this activity is unconstitutional.


title: Jury nullification

text: Juries across the North acquitted defendants who had clearly breached the Fugitive Slave Act in the 1850s. Part of the Compromise of 1850, it had been passed to mollify Southern slaveowners, who were otherwise threatening to secede from the Union.


title: Jury nullification

text: Secretary of State Daniel Webster was a key supporter of the law as expressed in his famous "Seventh of March" speech. He wanted high-profile convictions, but the jury nullifications ruined his presidential aspirations and his last-ditch efforts to find a compromise between North and South. Webster led the prosecution when defendants were accused of rescuing Shadrach Minkins in 1851 from Boston officials who intended to return Minkins to his owner. The juries convicted none of the men. Webster tried to enforce a law that was extremely unpopular in the North, and his Whig Party passed over him again when it chose a presidential nominee in 1852.


title: Jury nullification

text: White defendants accused of crimes against black people and other minorities were often acquitted by all-white juries, especially in the South, even in the face of irrefutable evidence.


title: Jury nullification

text: In the 21st century, many discussions of jury nullification center on drug laws, which some consider unjust in principle or because they are seen to discriminate against certain groups. A jury nullification advocacy group estimates that 3–4% of all jury trials involve nullification, and a recent rise in hung juries is seen by some as being indirect evidence that juries have begun to consider the validity or the fairness of the laws themselves.


title: Jury nullification

text: In the 1895 case of "Sparf v. United States", written by Justice John Marshall Harlan, the US Supreme Court held 5-4 that a trial judge has no responsibility to inform the jury of the right to nullify laws. That decision, often cited, has led to a common practice by US judges to penalize anyone who attempts to present a nullification argument to jurors and to declare a mistrial if such argument has been presented to them. In some states, jurors are likely to be struck from the panel during "voir dire" if they do not agree to accept as correct the rulings and instructions of the law as provided by the judge.


title: Jury nullification

text: In later rulings the courts continued to prohibit informing juries about jury nullification. In a 1969, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, "U.S. v. Moylan", 417 F.2d 1002 (4th Cir.1969), the Court affirmed the concept of jury nullification, but upheld the power of a court to refuse to permit an instruction to the jury to this effect. In 1972, in "United States v. Dougherty", 473 F.2d 1113, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling similar to "Moylan" that affirmed the "de facto" power of a jury to nullify the law but upheld the denial of the defense's chance to instruct the jury about the power to nullify.


title: Jury nullification

text: In 1988, the Sixth Circuit upheld a jury instruction: "There is no such thing as valid jury nullification." In "United States v. Thomas" (1997), the Second Circuit ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law. The Supreme Court has not recently confronted the issue of jury nullification.


title: Jury nullification

text: In 2017, a jury was instructed: "You cannot substitute your sense of justice, whatever that means, for your duty to follow the law, whether you agree with it or not. It is not for you to determine whether the law is just or whether the law is unjust. That cannot be your task. There is no such thing as valid jury nullification. You would violate your oath and the law if you willfully brought a verdict contrary to the law given to you in this case." The Ninth Circuit upheld the first three sentences of the jury's instruction and overruled the remainder but deemed that instruction a harmless error and affirmed the conviction.


title: Jury nullification

text: In 2002, South Dakota voters rejected by a 78% margin a state constitutional amendment to permit criminal defendants to argue for jury nullification.


title: Jury nullification

text: On June 18, 2012, New Hampshire passed a law explicitly allowing defense attorneys to inform juries about jury nullification. On October 24, 2014, the New Hampshire Supreme Court effectively nullified the law and held that the wording of the statute does not allow defense attorneys to tell juries they can nullify a law.


title: Cold reading

text: Cold reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, and mediums. Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. during a line of questioning. Cold readings commonly employ high-probability guesses, quickly picking up on signals as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not, then emphasizing and reinforcing chance connections and quickly moving on from missed guesses. Psychologists believe that this appears to work because of the Forer effect and due to confirmation biases within people.


title: Cold reading

text: Before starting the actual reading, the reader will typically try to elicit cooperation from the subject, saying something such as, "I often see images that are a bit unclear and which may sometimes mean more to you than to me; if you help, we can together uncover new things about you." One of the most crucial elements of a convincing cold reading is a subject eager to make connections or reinterpret vague statements in any way that will help the reader appear to make specific predictions or intuitions. While the reader will do most of the talking, it is the subject who provides the meaning.


title: Cold reading

text: After determining that the subject is cooperative, the reader will make a number of probing statements or questions, typically using variations of the methods noted below. The subject will then reveal further information with their replies (whether verbal or non-verbal) and the cold reader can continue from there, pursuing promising lines of inquiry and quickly abandoning or avoiding unproductive ones. In general, while revelations seem to come from the reader, most of the facts and statements come from the subject, which are then refined and restated by the reader so as to reinforce the idea that the reader got something correct.


title: Cold reading

text: Subtle cues such as changes in facial expression or body language can indicate whether a particular line of questioning is effective or not. Combining the techniques of cold reading with information obtained covertly (also called "hot reading") can leave a strong impression that the reader knows or has access to a great deal of information about the subject. Because the majority of time during a reading is spent dwelling on the "hits" the reader obtains, while the time spent recognizing "misses" is minimized, the effect gives an impression that the cold reader knows far more about the subject than an ordinary stranger could.


title: Cold reading

text: James Underdown from Center for Inquiry and Independent Investigations Group said, "In the context of a studio audience full of people, cold reading is not very impressive." Underdown explains cold reading from a mathematical viewpoint. A typical studio audience consists of approximately 200 people, divided up into three sections. A conservative estimate assumes each person knows 150 people. Underdown says:


title: Cold reading

text: Mentalist Mark Edward relates from personal experience as a "psychic performer" how powerful a hit can be when someone in a large audience "claims" a phrase such as a "clown in a graveyard" statement. Edward describes a mental image of a clown placing flowers on graves and adds, "Does that mean anything to someone?" whereupon a woman stands up and claims that he is speaking directly to her. She remembers it as Edward specifically stating that "she" knew a man who dressed as a clown and placed flowers on graves in her hometown. Edward reports that it took some convincing to get her to understand that he was "not" directly talking to her, but had thrown the statement out to the entire audience of 300 people. She made the connection, and because it seemed so personal and the situation so odd she felt that he was talking to her directly.


title: Cold reading

text: "Shotgunning" is a commonly used cold reading technique. This technique is named after the manner in which a shotgun fires a cluster of small projectiles in the hope that one or more of them will strike the target.


title: Cold reading

text: The cold reader slowly offers a huge quantity of very general information, often to an entire audience (some of which is very likely to be correct, near correct or at the very least, provocative or evocative to someone present), observes their subjects' reactions (especially their body language), and then narrows the scope, acknowledging particular people or concepts and refining the original statements according to those reactions to promote an emotional response. A majority of people in a room will, at some point for example, have lost an older relative or known at least one person with a common name like "Mike" or "John".


title: Cold reading

text: The Forer effect relies in part on the eagerness of people to fill in details and make connections between what is said and some aspect of their own lives, often searching their entire life's history to find some connection, or reinterpreting statements in a number of different possible ways so as to make it apply to themselves.


title: Cold reading

text: "Barnum statements", named after P. T. Barnum, the American showman, are statements that seem personal, yet apply to many people. And while seemingly specific, such statements are often open-ended or give the reader the maximum amount of "wiggle room" in a reading. They are designed to elicit identifying responses from people. The statements can then be developed into longer and more sophisticated paragraphs and seem to reveal great amounts of detail about a person. A talented and charismatic reader can sometimes even bully a subject into admitting a connection, demanding over and over that they acknowledge a particular statement as having some relevance and maintaining that they are just not thinking hard enough, or are repressing some important memory.


title: Cold reading

text: Regarding the last statement, if the subject is old enough, their father is quite likely to have died, and this statement would easily apply to a large number of medical conditions including heart disease, pneumonia, diabetes, emphysema, cirrhosis of the liver, kidney failure, most types of cancer, as well as any cause of death in which cardiac arrest precedes death, or damage to the brainstem responsible for cardiopulmonary function.


title: Cold reading

text: Warm reading is a performance tool used by professional mentalists and psychic scam artists. While hot reading is the use of foreknowledge and cold reading works on reacting to the subject's responses, warm reading refers to the judicious use of Barnum effect statements.


title: Cold reading

text: When these psychological tricks are used properly, the statements give the impression that the mentalist, or psychic scam artist, is intuitively perceptive and psychically gifted. In reality, the statements fit nearly all of humanity, regardless of gender, personal opinions, age, epoch, culture or nationality.


title: Cold reading

text: Michael Shermer gives the example of jewelry worn by those in mourning. Most people in this situation will be wearing or carrying an item of jewelry with some connection to the person they have lost, but if asked directly in the context of a psychic reading whether they have such an item, the client may be shocked and assume that the reader learned the information directly from the deceased loved one. Robert Todd Carroll notes in "The Skeptic's Dictionary" that some would consider this to be cold reading.


title: Cold reading

text: The rainbow ruse is a crafted statement which simultaneously awards the subject a specific personality trait, as well as the opposite of that trait. With such a phrase, a cold reader can "cover all possibilities" and appear to have made an accurate deduction in the mind of the subject, despite the fact that a rainbow ruse statement is vague and contradictory. This technique is used since personality traits are not quantifiable, and also because nearly everybody has experienced both sides of a particular emotion at some time in their lives.


title: Cold reading

text: A cold reader can choose from a variety of personality traits, think of its opposite, and then bind the two together in a phrase, vaguely linked by factors such as mood, time, or potential.


title: Cold reading

text: The mentalist branch of the stage-magician community approves of "reading" as long as it is presented strictly as an artistic entertainment and one is not pretending to be psychic.


title: Cold reading

text: Some performers who use cold reading are honest about their use of the technique. Lynne Kelly, Kari Coleman, Ian Rowland, and Derren Brown have used these techniques at either private fortune-telling sessions or open forum "talking with the dead" sessions in the manner of those who claim to be genuine mediums. Only after receiving acclaim and applause from their audience do they reveal that they needed no psychic power for the performance, only a sound knowledge of psychology and cold reading.


title: Cold reading

text: In an episode of his "Trick of the Mind" series broadcast in March 2006, Derren Brown showed how easily people can be influenced through cold reading techniques by repeating Bertram Forer's famous demonstration of the "personal validation fallacy", or "Forer effect".


title: Cold reading

text: In a detailed review of four sittings conducted by medium Tyler Henry, Edward and Susan Gerbic reviewed all statements made by him on the TV show "Hollywood Medium". In their opinion not one statement made by Henry was accurate, yet each sitter felt that their reading was highly successful. In interviews with each sitter after their sitting, all four claimed specific statements made by Henry, but, after reviewing the show, it was shown that he had not made those statements. Each sitter had misremembered what Henry said. One of many examples of this was when Henry, during a session with celebrity Ross Mathews, stated "Bambi, why am I connecting to Bambi?" Mathews stated that his father, who was a hunter, would not shoot deer because of the movie "Bambi". In the post-interview, Mathews stated that "It was weird that Henry knew that my father would not shoot deer because of Bambi", demonstrating that Mathews did not remember that he, not Henry, had supplied the connection to Bambi.


title: Cold reading

text: Gerbic has pointed out the broader issue of the human brain attempting to make connections that then make it appear that the psychic was correct. She lists this among a number of techniques or situations that psychics take advantage of.


title: Cold reading

text: Former New Age practitioner Karla McLaren has spoken about developing a system of cold reading without realising, saying in a 2004 interview that "I didn't understand that I had long used a form of cold reading in my own work! I was never taught cold reading and I never intended to defraud anyone; I simply picked up the technique through cultural osmosis." McLaren has said that since she was always very perceptive, she could easily figure out many of the issues that people brought into sessions with them. In order to reduce the appearance of unusual expertise that might have created a power differential, she posed her observations as questions rather than facts. This attempt to be polite, she realized, actually invited the other person, as McLaren has said, to "lean into the reading" and give her more pertinent information.


title: Cold reading

text: After some people have performed hundreds of readings, their skills may improve to the point where they may start believing they can read minds. They may ask themselves if their success is because of psychology, intuition or a psychic ability. This point of thought is known by some skeptics of the paranormal as the "transcendental temptation". Magic historian and occult investigator Milbourne Christopher has warned that the transcendental choice may lead one unknowingly into a belief in the occult and a deterioration of reason.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times.


title: Stoning

text: The Torah and Talmud prescribe stoning as punishment for a number of offenses. Over the centuries, Rabbinic Judaism developed a number of procedural constraints which made these laws practically unenforceable. Although stoning is not mentioned in the Quran, classical Islamic jurisprudence ("fiqh") imposed stoning as a "hadd" (sharia-prescribed) punishment for certain forms of "zina" (illicit sexual intercourse) on the basis of hadith (sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad). It also developed a number of procedural requirements which made "zina" difficult to prove in practice.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning appears to have been the standard method of capital punishment in ancient Israel. Its use is attested in the early Christian era, but Jewish courts generally avoided stoning sentences in later times. Only a few isolated instances of legal stoning are recorded in pre-modern history of the Islamic world. Criminal laws of most modern Muslim-majority countries have been derived from Western models. In recent decades several states have inserted stoning and other "hudud" (pl. of "hadd") punishments into their penal codes under the influence of Islamist movements. These laws hold particular importance for religious conservatives due to their scriptural origin, though in practice they have played a largely symbolic role and tended to fall into disuse.


title: Stoning

text: In recent times, stoning has been a legal or customary punishment in Iran, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, northern Nigeria, Afghanistan, Brunei, and tribal parts of Pakistan, including northwest Kurram Valley and the northwest Khwezai-Baezai region though it is rarely carried out. In some of these countries, including Afghanistan, where stoning is not legal, it has been carried out extrajudicially by militants, tribal leaders, and others. In some other countries, including Nigeria and Pakistan, although stoning is a legal form of punishment, it has never been legally carried out. Stoning is condemned by human rights organizations. Punishing adultery with stoning has varying levels of public support in the Muslim world, ranging from 86% of Muslims in Pakistan to 6% of Muslims in Albania and Bosnia.


title: Stoning

text: The Jewish Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) serves as a common religious reference for Judaism. Stoning is the method of execution mentioned most frequently in the Torah. (Murder is not mentioned as an offense punishable by stoning, but it seems that a member of the victim's family was allowed to kill the murderer; see avenger of blood.) The crimes punishable by stoning were the following:


title: Stoning

text: A case noted in the Bible, not falling into any of the above categories, was that of Achan, stoned to death together with his sheep, other livestock and his children for having pillaged valuables from Jericho during Joshua's Conquest of Canaan.


title: Stoning

text: The Talmud describes four methods of execution: stoning, pouring molten lead down the throat of the condemned person, beheading, and strangulation (see Capital and corporal punishment in Judaism). The Mishna gives the following list of persons who should be stoned.


title: Stoning

text: As God alone was deemed to be the only arbiter in the use of capital punishment, not fallible people, the Sanhedrin made stoning a hypothetical upper limit on the severity of punishment.


title: Stoning

text: Prior to early Christianity, particularly in the Mishnah, doubts were growing in Jewish society about the effectiveness of capital punishment in general (and stoning in particular) in acting as a useful deterrent. Subsequently, its use was dissuaded by the central legislators. The Mishnah states:


title: Stoning

text: A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says that this extends to a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: Had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: they would have multiplied shedders of blood in Israel.


title: Stoning

text: In the following centuries the leading Jewish sages imposed so many restrictions on the implementation of capital punishment as to make it "de facto" illegal. The restrictions were to prevent execution of the innocent, and included many conditions for a testimony to be admissible that were difficult to fulfill.


title: Stoning

text: Philosopher Moses Maimonides wrote, "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death." He was concerned that the law guard its public perception, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect. He saw errors of commission as much more threatening to the integrity of law than errors of omission.


title: Stoning

text: In rabbinic law, capital punishment may be inflicted by only the verdict of a regularly constituted court of twenty-three qualified members. There must be the most trustworthy and convincing testimony of at least two qualified eyewitnesses to the crime, who must also depose that the culprit had been forewarned of the criminality and the consequences of his project. The culprit must be a person of legal age and of sound mind, and the crime must be proved to have been committed of the culprit's free will and without the aid of others.


title: Stoning

text: On the day the verdict is pronounced, the convict is led forth to execution. The Torah law (Leviticus 19:18) prescribes, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"; and the Rabbis maintain that this love must be extended beyond the limits of social intercourse in life, and applied even to the convicted criminal who, "though a sinner, is still thy brother" (Mak. 3:15; Sanh. 44a): "The spirit of love must be manifested by according him a decent death" (Sanh. 45a, 52a). Torah law provides (Deut. 24:16), "The parents shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the parents; every man shall be put to death for his own sins", and rabbinic jurisprudence follows this principle both to the letter and in spirit. A sentence is not attended by confiscation of the convict's goods; the person's possessions descend to their legal heirs.


title: Stoning

text: In theory, the Talmudic method of how stoning is to be carried out differs from mob stoning. According to the Jewish oral law, after the Jewish criminal has been determined as guilty before the Great Sanhedrin, the two valid witnesses and the sentenced criminal go to the edge of a two-story building. From there the two witnesses are to push the criminal off the roof of a two-story building. The two-story height is chosen as this height is estimated by the Talmud to effect a quick and painless demise but is not so high that the body will become dismembered. After the criminal has fallen, the two witnesses are to drop a large boulder onto the criminal – requiring both of the witnesses to lift the boulder together. If the criminal did not die from the fall or from the crushing of the large boulder, then any people in the surrounding area are to quickly cause him to die by stoning with whatever rocks they can find.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning is not mentioned as a form of capital punishment in the canonical text of the Quran. However, Islamic scholars have traditionally postulated that there is a Quranic verse ("If a man or a woman commits adultery, stone them...") which was "abrogated" textually while retaining its legal force.


title: Stoning

text: In the extant text of the Quran, the punishment for an unmarried adulterer (Zani) or adultress (Zania) is flogging:


title: Stoning

text: Stoning in the Sunnah mainly follows on the Jewish stoning rules of the Torah. A few hadiths refer to Muhammad ordering the stoning of a married Jewish man and a married woman committing an illegal sexual act after consulting the Torah.


title: Stoning

text: In a few others, a Bedouin man is lashed, while a Jewish woman is stoned to death, for having sex outside marriage.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning is described as punishment in multiple hadiths. Shia and Sunni hadith collections differ because scholars from the two traditions differ as to the reliability of the narrators and transmitters and the Imamah. Shi'a sayings related to stoning can be found in Kitab al-Kafi, and Sunni sayings related to stoning can be found in the Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Based on these hadiths, in some Muslim countries, married adulterers are sentenced to death, while consensual sex between unmarried people results in 100 lashes.


title: Stoning

text: Hadiths describe stoning as punishment under sharia. In others stoning is prescribed as punishment for illegal sex between man and woman, illegal sex by a slave girl, as well as anyone involved in any homosexual relations. In some sunnah, the method of stoning, by first digging a pit and partly burying the person's lower half in it, is described.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning (Arabic: رجم "Rajm", sometimes spelled as "Rajam") has been extensively discussed in the texts of early, medieval and modern era Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh).


title: Stoning

text: According to traditional jurisprudence, zina can include adultery (of married parties), fornication (of unmarried parties), prostitution, bestiality, and rape. Classification of homosexual intercourse as zina differs according to legal school. Although stoning for zina is not mentioned in the Quran, all schools of traditional jurisprudence agreed on the basis of hadith that it is to be punished by stoning if the offender is "muhsan" (adult, free, Muslim, and having been married), with some extending this punishment to certain other cases and milder punishment prescribed in other scenarios. The offenders must have acted of their own free will. According to traditional jurisprudence, zina must be proved by testimony of four eyewitnesses to the actual act of penetration, or a confession repeated four times and not retracted later. The Maliki legal school also allows an unmarried woman's pregnancy to be used as evidence, but the punishment can be averted by a number of legal "semblances" ("shubuhat"), such as existence of an invalid marriage contract. These requirements made zina virtually impossible to prove in practice. Rape was traditionally prosecuted under different legal categories which used normal evidentiary rules. Making an accusation of zina without presenting the required eyewitnesses is called "qadhf" (القذف), which is itself a "hadd" crime liable to a punishment of 80 lashes and to be unacceptable as witnesses unless they repent and reform.


title: Stoning

text: According to the Islamic concept of "Li'an", the testimony of a man who accuses his own wife without any other witnesses may be accepted if he swears by God four times that he is telling the truth with a fifth oath to incur God's condemnation if they be lying. In this case, if his wife counter swears, no punishment will be enforced.


title: Stoning

text: One of the widely followed Islamic legal commentaries, "Al-Muwatta" by Malik ibn Anas, state that contested pregnancy is sufficient proof of adultery and the woman must be stoned to death.


title: Stoning

text: Hanafi jurists have held that the accused must be a "muhsan" at the time of religiously disallowed sex, to be punished by "Rajm" (stoning). A "Muhsan" is an adult, free, Muslim who has previously enjoyed legitimate sexual relations in matrimony, regardless of whether the marriage still exists. In other words, stoning does not apply to someone who was never married in his or her life (only lashing in public is the mandatory punishment in such cases).


title: Stoning

text: For evidence, Hanafi fiqh accepts the following: self-confession, or testimony of four male witnesses (female witness is not acceptable). Hanafi Islamic law literature specifies two types of stoning. One, when the punishment is based on "bayyina", or concrete evidence (four male witnesses). In this case the person is bound, a pit dug, the bound person placed and partially buried inside the pit so that he or she may not escape, thereafter the public stoning punishment is executed. A woman sentenced to stoning must be partially buried up to her chest. The first stones are thrown by the witnesses and the accuser, thereafter the Muslim community present, stated Abū Ḥanīfa and other Hanafi scholars. In second type of stoning, when the punishment is based on self-confession, the stoning is to be performed without digging a pit or partially burying the person. In this case, the qadi (judge) should throw the first stone before other Muslims join in. Further, if the person flees, the person is allowed to leave.


title: Stoning

text: Hanafi scholars specify the stone size to be used for "Rajm", to be the size of one's hand. It should not be too large to cause death too quickly, nor too small to extend only pain.


title: Stoning

text: Hanafis have traditionally held that the witnesses should throw the first stones in case the conviction was brought about by witnesses, and the "qadi" must throw the first stones in case the conviction was brought about by a confession.


title: Stoning

text: The Shafii school literature has the same Islamic law analysis as the Hanafi. However, it recommends, that the first stone be thrown by the Imam or his deputy in all cases, followed by the Muslim community witnessing the stoning punishment.


title: Stoning

text: Hanbali jurist Ibn Qudamah states, "Muslim jurists are unanimous on the fact that stoning to death is a specified punishment for the married adulterer and adulteress. The punishment is recorded in number of traditions and the practice of Muhammad stands as an authentic source supporting it. This is the view held by all Companions, Successors and other Muslim scholars with the exception of Kharijites."


title: Stoning

text: Hanbali Islamic law sentences all forms of consensual but religiously illegal sex as punishable with "Rajm".


title: Stoning

text: Maliki school of jurisprudence (fiqh) holds that stoning is the required punishment for illegal sex by a married or widowed person, as well as for any form of homosexual relations among men. Malik ibn Anas, founder of the Maliki fiqh, considered pregnancy in an unmarried woman as a conclusive proof of zina. He also stated that contested pregnancy is also sufficient proof of adultery and any Muslim woman who is pregnant by a man who she is not married to, at the time of getting pregnant, must be stoned to death. Later Maliki Muslim scholars admitted the concept of "sleeping embryo", where a divorced woman could escape the stoning punishment, if she remained unmarried and became pregnant anytime within five years of her divorce, and it was assumed that she was impregnated by her previous husband but the embryo remained dormant for five years.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning is attested in the Near East since ancient times as a form of capital punishment for grave sins. However stoning as a practice was not geographically limited to only the Near East, and there is significant historical record of stoning being employed in the west as well. The ancient geographer Pausanias describes both the elder and younger Aristocrates of Orchomenus being stoned to death in ancient Greece around the 7th century BCE.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning was "presumably" the standard form of capital punishment in ancient Israel. It is attested in the Old Testament as a punishment for blasphemy, idolatry and other crimes, in which the entire community pelted the offender with stones outside a city. The death of Stephen, as reported in the New Testament (Acts 7:58) was also organized in this way. Paul was stoned and left for dead in Lystra (Acts 14:19). Josephus and Eusebius report that Pharisees stoned James, brother of Jesus, after hurling him from the pinnacle of the Temple shortly before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Historians disagree as to whether Roman authorities allowed Jewish communities to apply capital punishment to those who broke religious laws, or whether these episodes represented a form of lynching. During the Late Antiquity, the tendency of not applying the death penalty at all became predominant in Jewish courts. Where medieval Jewish courts had the power to pass and execute death sentences, they continued to do so for particularly grave offenses, although not necessarily the ones defined by the law, and they generally refrained from use of stoning.


title: Stoning

text: Aside from "a few rare and isolated" instances from the pre-modern era and several recent cases, there is no historical record of stoning for "zina" being legally carried out in the Islamic world. In the modern era, sharia-based criminal laws have been widely replaced by statutes inspired by European models. However, the Islamic revival of the late 20th century brought along the emergence of Islamist movements calling for full implementation of sharia, including reinstatement of stoning and other "hudud" punishments. A number of factors have contributed to the rise of these movements, including the failure of authoritarian secular regimes to meet the expectations of their citizens, and a desire of Muslim populations to return to more culturally authentic forms of socio-political organization in the face of a perceived cultural invasion from the West. Supporters of sharia-based legal reforms felt that "Western law" had its chance to bring development and justice, and hoped that a return to Islamic law would produce better results. They also hoped that introduction of harsh penalties would put an end to crime and social problems.


title: Stoning

text: In practice, Islamization campaigns have focused on a few highly visible issues associated with the conservative Muslim identity, particularly women's hijab and the "hudud" criminal punishments (whipping, stoning and amputation) prescribed for certain crimes. For many Islamists, "hudud" punishments are at the core of the divine sharia because they are specified by the letter of scripture rather than by human interpreters. Modern Islamists have often rejected, at least in theory, the stringent procedural constraints developed by classical jurists to restrict their application. Several countries, including Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, and some Nigerian states have incorporated hudud rules into their criminal justice systems, which, however, retained fundamental influences of earlier Westernizing reforms. In practice, these changes were largely symbolic, and aside from some cases brought to trial to demonstrate that the new rules were being enforced, hudud punishments tended to fall into disuse, sometimes to be revived depending on the local political climate. The supreme courts of Sudan and Iran have rarely approved verdicts of stoning or amputation, and the supreme courts of Pakistan and Nigeria have never done so.


title: Stoning

text: Unlike other countries, where stoning was introduced into state law as part of recent reforms, Saudi Arabia has never adopted a criminal code and Saudi judges still follow traditional Hanbali jurisprudence. Death sentences in Saudi Arabia are pronounced almost exclusively based on the system of judicial sentencing discretion ("tazir") rather than sharia-prescribed ("hudud") punishments, following the classical principle that "hudud" penalties should be avoided if possible.


title: Stoning

text: In China, stoning was one of the many methods of killing carried out during the Cultural Revolution, including the Guangxi Massacre.


title: Stoning

text: As of September 2010, stoning is a punishment that is included in the laws in some countries including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and some predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria as punishment for Zina ("adultery by married persons").


title: Stoning

text: Stoning is legal in Afghanistan with the Taliban making it legal after their takeover in 2021. Before the Taliban government, most areas of Afghanistan, aside from the capital, Kabul, were controlled by warlords or tribal leaders. The Afghan legal system depended highly on an individual community's local culture and the political or religious ideology of its leaders. Stoning also occurred in lawless areas, where vigilantes committed the act for political purposes. Once the Taliban took over, it became a form of punishment for certain serious crimes or adultery. After the fall of the Taliban government, the Karzai administration re-enforced the 1976 penal code which made no provision for the use of stoning as a punishment. In 2013, the Ministry of Justice proposed public stoning as punishment for adultery. However, the government had to back down from the proposal after it was leaked and triggered international outcry.


title: Stoning

text: On 14 September 2009, the outgoing Aceh Legislative Council passed a bylaw that called for the stoning of married adulterers. However, then governor Irwandi Yusuf refused to sign the bylaw, thereby keeping it a law without legal force and, in some views, therefore still a law "draft", rather than actual law. In March 2013, the Aceh government removed the stoning provision from its own draft of a new criminal code.


title: Stoning

text: Beginning on 3 April 2019, any Muslim individuals found guilty of gay sex and adultery will be stoned to death, according to a new penal code announced by Brunei. The punishment will be "witnessed by a group of Muslims." Brunei has become the first Southeast Asian country which officially adopts public stoning as a judicial form of punishment.


title: Stoning

text: On 5 May, the Sultan of Brunei confirmed that the de facto moratorium (a delay or suspension of an activity or a law) on the death penalty will apply to the Sharia Penal Code and committed Brunei to ratifying the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT).


title: Stoning

text: The Iranian judiciary officially placed a moratorium on stoning in 2002; however, in 2007, the Iranian judiciary confirmed that a man who had been convicted of adultery 10 years earlier, was stoned to death in Qazvin province. In 2008, the judiciary tried to eliminate the punishment from the books in legislation submitted to parliament for approval. In 2009, two people were stoned to death in Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan Province as punishment for the crime of adultery. The amended penal code, adopted in 2013, no longer contains explicit language prescribing stoning as punishment for adultery. According to legal experts, while an explicit prescription of stoning as punishment for adultery has been removed from Iran's new penal code, stoning remains a possible form of punishment, since the penal code still lists it, without specifying when it should be used, and allows punishment to be based on "fiqh" (traditional Islamic jurisprudence), which includes provisions for stoning. In 2013 the spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's Justice Commission confirmed that while the Penal Code no longer prescribes stoning, it remains a valid punishment under sharia, which is enforceable under the Penal Code. The most known case in Iran was the stoning of Soraya Manutchehri in 1986.


title: Stoning

text: In the 2008 version of the Islamic Penal Code of Iran detailed how stoning punishments are to be carried out for adultery, and even hints in some contexts that the punishment may allow for its victims to avoid death:


title: Stoning

text: Article 102 – An adulterous man shall be buried in a ditch up to near his waist and an adulterous woman up to near her chest and then stoned to death.


title: Stoning

text: Article 103 – In case the person sentenced to stoning escapes the ditch in which they are buried, then if the adultery is proven by testimony then they will be returned for the punishment but if it is proven by their own confession then they will not be returned.


title: Stoning

text: Article 104 – The size of the stone used in stoning shall not be too large to kill the convict by one or two throws and at the same time shall not be too small to be called a stone.


title: Stoning

text: Depending upon the details of the case, the stoning may be initiated by the judge overseeing the matter or by one of the original witnesses to the adultery. Certain religious procedures may also need to be followed both before and after the implementation of a stoning execution, such as wrapping the person being stoned in traditional burial dress before the procedure.


title: Stoning

text: The method of stoning set out in the 2008 code was similar to that in a 1999 version of Iran's penal code. Iran revised its penal code in 2013. The new code does not include the above passages, but does include stoning as a hadd punishment. For example, Book I, Part III, Chapter 5, Article 132 of the new Islamic Penal Code (IPC) of 2013 in the Islamic Republic of Iran states, "If a man and a woman commit zina together more than one time, if the death penalty and flogging or stoning and flogging are imposed, only the death penalty or stoning, whichever is applicable, shall be executed". Book 2, Part II, Chapter 1, Article 225 of the Iran's IPC released in 2013 states, "the hadd punishment for zina of a man and a woman who meet the conditions of ihsan shall be stoning to death".


title: Stoning

text: In 2007, Du'a Khalil Aswad, a Yazidi girl, was stoned by her fellow tribesmen in northern Iraq for dating a Muslim boy.


title: Stoning

text: In 2012 at least 14 youths were stoned to death in Baghdad, apparently as part of a Shi'ite militant campaign against Western-style "emo" fashion. It was followed by condemnation by Shiite scholars.


title: Stoning

text: An Iraqi man was stoned to death by IS, in August 2014, in the northern city of Mosul after one Sunni Islamic court sentenced him to die for the crime of adultery.


title: Stoning

text: Since the sharia legal system was introduced in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria in 2000, more than a dozen Nigerian Muslims have been sentenced to death by stoning for sexual offences ranging from adultery to homosexuality. However, none of these sentences has actually been carried out. They have either been thrown out on appeal, commuted to prison terms or left unenforced, in part as a result of pressure from human rights groups.


title: Stoning

text: As part of Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization measures, stoning to death ("rajm") at a public place was introduced into law via the 1979 Hudood Ordinances as punishment for adultery ("zina") and rape ("zina-bil-jabr") when committed by a married person. However, stoning has never been officially utilized since the law came into effect and all judicial executions occur by hanging. The first conviction and sentence of stoning (of Fehmida and Allah-Bakhsh) in September 1981 was overturned under national and international pressure. Another conviction for adultery and sentence of stoning (of Shahida Parveen and Muhammad Sarwar) in early 1988 sparked outrage and led to a retrial and acquittal by the Federal Sharia Court. In this case the trial court took the view that notice of divorce by Shahida's former husband, Khushi Muhammad, should have been given to the Chairman of the local council, as stipulated under Section-7(3) of the "Muslim Family Laws Ordinance", 1961. This section states that any man who divorces his wife must register it with the Union Council. Otherwise, the court concluded that the divorce stood invalidated and the couple became liable to conviction under the Adultery ordinance. In 2006, the ordinances providing for stoning in the case of adultery or rape were legislatively demoted from overriding status.


title: Stoning

text: Extrajudicial stonings in Pakistan have been known to happen in recent times. In March 2013, Pakistani soldier Anwar Din, stationed in Parachinar, was publicly stoned to death for allegedly having a love affair with a girl from a village in the country's north western Kurram Agency. On 11 July 2013, Arifa Bibi, a young mother of two, was sentenced by a tribal court in Dera Ghazi Khan District, in Punjab, to be stoned to death for possessing a cell phone. Members of her family were ordered to execute her sentence and her body was buried in the desert far away from her village.


title: Stoning

text: In February 2014, a couple in a remote area of Baluchistan province was stoned to death after being accused of an adulterous relationship. On 27 May 2014, Farzana Parveen, a 25-year-old married woman who was three months pregnant, was killed by being attacked with batons and bricks by nearly 20 members of her family outside the high court of Lahore in front of "a crowd of onlookers" according to a statement by a police investigator. The assailants, who allegedly included her father and brothers, attacked Farzana and her husband Mohammad Iqbal with batons and bricks. Her father Mohammad Azeem, who was arrested for murder, reportedly called the murder an "honor killing" and said "I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent." The man whose second wife Farzana had become, Iqbal, told a news agency that he had strangled his previous wife in order to marry Farzana, and police said that he had been released for killing his first wife because a "compromise" had been reached with his family.


title: Stoning

text: Legal stoning sentences have been reported in Saudi Arabia. There were four cases of execution by stoning reported between 1981 and 1992.


title: Stoning

text: In May 2012, a Sudanese court convicted Intisar Sharif Abdallah of adultery and sentenced her to death; the charges were appealed and dropped two months later. In July 2012, a criminal court in Khartoum, Sudan, sentenced 23-year-old Layla Ibrahim Issa Jumul to death by stoning for adultery. Amnesty International reported that she was denied legal counsel during the trial and was convicted only on the basis of her confession. The organization designated her a prisoner of conscience, "held in detention solely for consensual sexual relations", and lobbied for her release. In September, Article 126 of the 1991 Sudan Criminal Law, which provided for death by stoning for apostasy, was amended to provide for death by hanging.


title: Stoning

text: In June 2022, Sudan sentenced a woman named Maryam Alsyed Tiyrab, to death by stoning, although the previous year it had ratified the UN Convention Against Torture which forbids the practice.


title: Stoning

text: In October 2008, a girl, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was buried up to her neck at a Somalian football stadium, then stoned to death in front of more than 1,000 people. The stoning occurred after she had allegedly pleaded guilty to adultery in a sharia court in Kismayo, a city that was controlled by Islamist insurgents. According to the insurgents she had stated that she wanted sharia law to apply. However, other sources state that the victim had been crying, had begged for mercy and had to be forced into the hole before being buried up to her neck in the ground. Amnesty International later learned that the girl was in fact 13 years old and had been arrested by al-Shabab militia after she had reported being gang-raped by three men.


title: Stoning

text: In September 2014, Somali al Shabaab militants stoned a woman to death, after she was declared guilty of adultery by an informal court.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning is a legal form of judicial punishment in UAE for adultery and homosexuality. Article 354 of the Federal Penal Code states: "Whoever commits rape on a female or sodomy with a male shall be punished by death.", In 2006, an expatriate was sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery. Between 2009 and 2013, several people were sentenced to death by stoning. In May 2014, an Asian housemaid was sentenced to death by stoning in Abu Dhabi.


title: Stoning

text: Several adultery executions by stoning committed by IS have been reported in the autumn of 2014. The Islamic State's magazine, Dabiq, documented the stoning of a woman in Raqqa as a punishment for adultery.


title: Stoning

text: In October 2014, IS released a video appearing to show a Syrian man stone his daughter to death for alleged adultery.


title: Stoning

text: The late American Calvinist and Christian Reconstructionist cleric Rousas John (R. J.) Rushdoony, his son Mark and his son-in-law Gary North, supported the reinstatement of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence by stoning would include homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case.


title: Stoning

text: A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2013 found varying support in the global Muslim population for stoning as a punishment for adultery (sex between people where at least one person is married; when both participants are unmarried they get 100 lashes). Highest support for stoning is found in Muslims of the Middle East-North Africa region and South-Asian countries while generally less support is found in Muslims living in the Mediterranean and Central Asian countries. Support is consistently higher in Muslims who want Sharia to be the law of the land than in Muslims who do not want Sharia. Support for stoning in various countries is as follows:


title: Stoning

text: Pakistan (86% in all Muslims, 89% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Afghanistan (84% in all Muslims, 85% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Bangladesh (54% in all Muslims, 55% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)


title: Stoning

text: Palestinian territories (81% in all Muslims, 84% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Egypt (80% in all Muslims, 81% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Jordan (65% in all Muslims, 67% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Iraq (57% in all Muslims, 58% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)


title: Stoning

text: Malaysia (54% in all Muslims, 60% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Indonesia (42% in all Muslims, 48% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Thailand (44% in all Muslims, 51% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)


title: Stoning

text: Niger (70% in all Muslims), Djibouti (67%), Mali (58%), Senegal (58%), Guinea Bissau (54%), Tanzania (45%), Ghana (42%), DR Congo (39%), Cameroon (36%), Nigeria (33%)


title: Stoning

text: Kyrgyzstan (26% in all Muslims, 39% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Tajikistan (25% in all Muslims, 51% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Azerbaijan (16%), Turkey (9% in all Muslims, 29% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)


title: Stoning

text: Russia (13% in all Muslims, 26% in Muslims who say sharia should be the law of the land), Kosovo (9% in all Muslims, 25% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Albania (6% in all Muslims, 25% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land), Bosnia (6% in all Muslims, 21% in Muslims who say Sharia should be the law of the land)


title: Stoning

text: Places where substantial numbers of Muslims did not answer the survey's question or are undecided about whether they support stoning for adultery include Malaysia (19% of all Muslims), Kosovo (18%), Iraq (14%), Democratic Republic of the Congo (12%) and Tajikistan (10%).


title: Stoning

text: Stoning has been condemned by several human rights organizations. Some groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, oppose all capital punishment, including stoning. Other groups, such as RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), or the International Committee against Stoning (ICAS), oppose stoning "per se" as an especially cruel practice.


title: Stoning

text: Specific sentences of stoning, such as the Amina Lawal case, have often generated international protest. Groups such as Human Rights Watch, while in sympathy with these protests, have raised a concern that the Western focus on stoning as an especially "exotic" or "barbaric" act distracts from what they view as the larger problems of capital punishment. They argue that the "more fundamental human rights issue in Nigeria is the dysfunctional justice system."


title: Stoning

text: In Iran, the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign was formed by various women's rights activists after a man and a woman were stoned to death in Mashhad in May 2006. The campaign's main goal is to legally abolish stoning as a form of punishment for adultery in Iran.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning is condemned by human rights groups as a form of cruel and unusual punishment and torture, and a serious violation of human rights.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning has been condemned as a violation of women's rights and a form of discrimination against women. Although stoning is also applied to men, the vast majority of the victims are reported to be women.


title: Stoning

text: According to the international group Women Living Under Muslim Laws stoning "is one of the most brutal forms of violence perpetrated against women in order to control and punish their sexuality and basic freedoms".


title: Stoning

text: Amnesty International has argued that the reasons for which women suffer disproportionately from stoning include the fact that women are not treated equally and fairly by the courts; the fact that, being more likely to be illiterate than men, women are more likely to sign confessions to crimes which they did not commit; and the fact that general discrimination against women in other life aspects leaves them at higher risk of convictions for adultery.


title: Stoning

text: Stoning also targets homosexuals and others who have same-sex relations in certain jurisdictions. In Mauritania, northern Nigeria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, the UAE, and Yemen, the legal punishment for sodomy is death by stoning.


title: Stoning

text: Human rights organizations argue that many acts targeted by stoning should not be illegal in the first place, as outlawing them interferes with people's right to a private life. Amnesty International said that stoning deals with "acts which should never be criminalized in the first place, including consensual sexual relations between adults, and choosing one’s religion".


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: Ramstein Air Base or Ramstein AB is a United States Air Force base in Rhineland-Palatinate, a state in southwestern Germany. It serves as headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA) and also for NATO Allied Air Command (AIRCOM). Ramstein is located near the town of Ramstein-Miesenbach, which stands outside the base's west gate, in the rural district of Kaiserslautern.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: The east gate of Ramstein Air Base is approximately from Kaiserslautern (locally referred to by Americans as "K-Town"). Other nearby civilian communities include Landstuhl, some from the west gate.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: The host unit is the 86th Airlift Wing (86AW), commanded by Brigadier General Otis C. Jones. The 86th Airlift Wing is composed of six groups, 30 squadrons and four bases in Germany, Spain, the Azores, and Belgium. Its mission is the operation and maintenance of airlift assets consisting of C-130Js, C-21s, and C-37A Gulfstream aircraft throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: Also at Ramstein is the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing (formerly the 435th Air Base Wing) (435AGOW), which focuses on base-support responsibilities within the KMC. It is composed of five groups and 20 squadrons. The wing provides rapid mobility and agile combat support for military operations, and maintains expeditionary forces and infrastructure.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: The new 521st Air Mobility Operations Wing stood up on . , the commander of the 521st AMOW is Colonel Adrienne Williams.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: Ramstein's wings are assigned to the headquarters 3rd Air Force also based at RamsteinAB that controls most of the USAF Wings throughout Europe.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: Ramstein AB is part of the Kaiserslautern Military Community (KMC), where more than 54,000 American service members and more than 5,400 US civilian employees live and work. U.S. organizations in the KMC also employ the services of more than 6,200 German workers. Air Force units in the KMC alone employ almost 9,800 military members, bringing with them nearly 11,100 family members. There are more than 16,200 military, U.S.civilian and U.S.contractors assigned to RamsteinAB alone.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: In 1984, an enlisted airman (Sgt Darrel Dietlein), assigned to the 1964th Communications Group, solicited National Headquarters Civil Air Patrol to charter the first "Cadet Squadron" in Germany, naming the unit "Ramstein Cadet Squadron" and becoming the unit's first commander as a CAP First Lieutenant. The Ramstein Cadet Squadron was formed with Captain Mark Bailey serving as the unit's first liaison officer, as well as other like minded military volunteers and roughly six cadets. To this day, the squadron enjoys vibrant member participation, as well as base support, hosting drill competitions and encampments along with their traditional military studies and aerospace education efforts. The Ramstein Cadet Squadron commander was Lt Col Chris Blank. The squadron is the parent unit for 2 flights located at Wiesbaden Army Airfield and Patch Barracks, Stuttgart. Membership was 124 members.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: In the subsequent years, a companion cadet squadron was formed at Spangdahlem Air Base. Distance learning cadets are located at SHAPE, Belgium and Hohenfels, Germany.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: From 2004 to 2006, Ramstein Air Base underwent an extensive expansion with a major construction project – including an all-new airport terminal, among other new facilities, through the so-called Rhein-Main Transition Program which was initiated in support of the total closure of Rhein-Main Air Base on and transferring all its former capacities to Ramstein Air Base (70%) and Spangdahlem Air Base (30%).


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: While the KMC remains the largest U.S.community overseas at 53,000 people, the defense drawdown continues to shape its future. Due to the departure of other main operating installations, more than 100 geographically separated units receive support from Ramstein.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: Ramstein Air Base also served as temporary housing for the United States men's national soccer team during the 2006World Cup.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: There is often a Summer Camp to Ramstein from British CCF (RAF) and ATC cadets, as well as Civil Air Patrol encampments and tours like the ones held in July 2015 and June 2016.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: Currently, Ramstein Air Base consists of two runways09/27 and 08/26two large aprons, one near a hangar north of Runways 27 and 26, and one to the north of 09 and 08. The north-western apron also has a small passenger terminal with two jetways. This means the air base is capable of joint-use operations, although currently there are no scheduled airlines running flights to and from Ramstein.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: The construction of the air base was a project designed and undertaken by the French Army and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1949 to 1952. It was an example of international collaboration: designed by French engineers, constructed by local businesses and large number of temporary and migrant workers of Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Turkey and operated by Americans.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: The area was a swamp that had to be built up by two meters (six feet). A train line was laid out from in a yoke shape around to the current base and back down to the Landstuhl spur in 1948 by agreement of the U.S. and French Occupational Forces. Trainloads of earth were moved over the line and spread over the base's current area to raise it to its current level. Once the ground was level, building construction began. Two bases were laid out. Landstuhl Air Base on the south side and Ramstein Air Station (station, no airstrip) on the north. From 1948 to the opening of the bases in 1953, it was the largest one spot construction site in Europe employing over 270,000 Europeans at one time.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: In 1940, construction of today's was stopped when a bridge that was being built across the Rhine River near Mannheim collapsed, leaving a section of autobahn that could not be used. A part of the unused autobahn to the west of Mannheim, near Kaiserslautern, was used as an airstrip by the Luftwaffe. The airstrip was also used by the advancing U.S. Army Air Forces during the final months of World WarII. The old autobahn section is still used as the access road to the east and west gates of the base and the A6 was rebuilt south of the air base after the war.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: During the initial postwar era, the USAAF repaired several former Luftwaffe airfields in Bavaria, part of the American occupation zone of Germany. With the advent of the Berlin Blockade and the chilling of relations with the Soviet Union, by 1948, it became obvious to United States Air Force planners that these bases were tactically untenable because of their proximity to the East German and Czechoslovakian borders.


title: Ramstein Air Base

text: With the creation of NATO in response to Cold War tensions in Europe in 1949, USAFE wanted its vulnerable fighter units in what was then West Germany moved west of the Rhine River to provide greater air defense warning time. France agreed to provide air base sites within their zone of occupation in the Rhineland-Palatinate as part of the NATO expansion program.