summary execution

English

Noun

summary execution (plural summary executions)

  1. An execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial.
    • 1904 January 29 – October 7, Joseph Conrad, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, London, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], published 1904, →OCLC:
      It was a wonder that he had not been a victim of the ferocious and summary executions which marked the course of that tyranny; for Guzman had ruled the country with the sombre imbecility of political fanaticism.
    • 1913 October, Jack London, The Valley of the Moon, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC:
      The Tribune demanded a quick trial and summary execution, calling on the prospective jury manfully to do its duty and dwelling at length on the moral effect that would be so produced upon the lawless working class.
    • 2023 May 18, Angelique Chrisafis, “French resistance fighter, 98, reveals mass execution of German prisoners”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:
      French and German authorities are preparing to dig in search of a mass grave in a forest in Corrèze after a 98-year-old former French resistance fighter who had kept silent for decades described the summary execution of German soldiers there in 1944.

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