Death Penalty in Panama Put to the People

The last recorded execution in Panama was the firing squad shooting of Victoriano Lorenzo on May 15th, 1903 in the Plaza de Francia in Casco Viejo.  Lorenzo was imprisoned for several months before the order came from Bogota, Colombia to shoot him for robbery and murder during the War of a Thousand Days.

Lorenzo was an indigenous leader and Panamanian guerilla born in Penonome in the Province of Cocle, then Colombia.  He is now considered a Panamanian hero and on January 30, 1966, the Panamanian National Assembly declared his execution unjust.

The death penalty in Panama was outlawed in the 1941 constitution and subsequently maintained in the 1946 and 1972 reforms.

In 2003, Deputy Marco Gonzalez submitted a proposal to apply the death penalty in cases of aggravated crimes.  It died on the floor, declared unconstitutional and contrary to the Protocol of the American Convention on Human Rights signed by the Panamanian government in 1991.

Panama’s current president, Ricardo Martinelli, would now like to put the death penalty to a plebiscite vote with the idea of psychologically dissuading criminals from bad behavior such as homicide, armed robbery resulting in permanent injuries, raping of minors, kidnapping and terrorism, La Critica Reports.

Lorenzo Victoriano