Death sentence " Death sentence " and " death penalty " were common names for the capital punishment of execution — the state - sanctioned death of an individual for crimes of an especially grave nature , such as murder or treason . Sometimes , especially in Earth ' s past , or in places without clear governmental structures , it could be carried out against people for less profound crimes , or even for no substantive reason at all . Earth . On Earth , it was a divisive issue . Some people , such as the Briton Professor Kettering , believed that the death penalty was a backwards conception of justice . ( TV : " The Mind of Evil " ) To the contrary , many American s in Jacksonville , Kentucky on " Miracle Day " fully believed that the rapist and murder er Oswald Danes should not have been paroled after his death by lethal injection failed . ( TV : " The New World " ) Indeed , there was a general divide between the British and American viewpoints on the issue . The death penalty was abolished in the United Kingdom at least by the late 20th century , ( TV : " The Mind of Evil " ) whereas it was still an acceptable punishment in at least the state of Kentucky as late as the year 2011 . ( TV : " The New World " ) Rafando ' s organisation gave the death sentence to renegade aliens , among them . ( TV : " Extremis " ) The death penalty was finally all but abolished by the human s at the very least by the 5th millennium , because of the belief that even the worst of criminals might change their way of thinking . ( AUDIO : " Davros " ) In 54 , a Jewish girl named Ruth was ordered stoned by the Pharisee Hieronymous for converting to Christianity . ( PROSE : " Byzantium ! " ) In 1492 , one of the factions angling to succeed to the duchy of San Martino , sanctioned the beheading of the Fourth Doctor . ( TV : " The Masque of Mandragora " ) In the 15th century , Ian Chesterton was framed for attacking the Aztec High Priest of Knowledge Autloc while finding a way back to the TARDIS . He escaped his imprisonment before he could be executed . ( TV : " The Day of Darkness " ) Lady Jane Grey , the nine day queen in July 1553 , was quietly executed by the new queen , Mary I at the Tower of London , following months of Jane being locked up . ( TV : " Lost in Time " , PROSE : " The Nine - Day Queen " ) In 1599 , following a performance of William Shakespeare ' s " Love ' s Labour ' s Won " in the Globe Theatre , Mary ' s sister , Elizabeth I , called for the Tenth Doctor ' s head , but the Doctor escaped in his TARDIS . ( TV : " The Shakespeare Code " ) Following this , Guy Fawkes and his anti - parliament group were executed after they were caught trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 . ( PROSE : " The Plotters " ) After the Roundhead s emerged victorious from the English Civil War , they beheaded King Charles I in 1649 . ( PROSE : " The Roundheads " ) During World War I in 1918 , shell shock ed Tommy Brockless was killed by a British firing squad for cowardice . ( TV : " To the Last Man " ) In the year 4000 , Mavic Chen and Karlton were sentenced to execution for high treason when a message by Marc Cory revealed they had been conspiring with the Dalek s against Earth , although Chen was already dead before this was discovered . ( PROSE : " The Mutation of Time " ) Gallifrey . Time Lord s exercised the death penalty , largely for crimes against the Laws of Time . It was applied at least until the presidency previous to the Fourth Doctor ' s one ( TV : " The Deadly Assassin " ) but , by the time of Borusa ' s presidency , capital punishment was said to had long been abolished . ( TV : " Arc of Infinity " ) Vapourisation was the penalty for setting oneself up as a god in a more primitive civilisation ( AUDIO : " False Gods " ) or for the murder of a Lord President . ( TV : " The Deadly Assassin " ) The death penalty on Gallifrey was sometimes effected through a " Warrant of Termination " . One was served on the Fifth Doctor . In that instance , however , he wasn ' t threatened with death ( through molecular dispersal ) because of any actual wrongdoing , but because he had become controlled by a malevolent entity that posed a grave risk to the entire universe . ( TV : " Arc of Infinity " ) There existed a far worse death penalty for Gallifreyans , and sometimes offworlders , which was the Oubliette of Eternity where you were not only killed but your whole life was removed from the Web of Time , and , unknown to the Time Lords , became Neverpeople . This was the preferred method of sentencing death by the Celestial Intervention Agency . ( AUDIO : " Neverland " ) Elsewhere . On Literatos II , sarcasm was met with the death penalty . ( AUDIO : " The Crimes of Thomas Brewster " ) Eldrad was sentenced to death for his destruction of the spatial barrier s which exposed Kastria to solar wind s . He was consigned to an obliteration module which was detonated prematurely , an nineteen span s , not twenty - five , due to fears that the winds would sever control over the craft . As a result , parts of Eldrad survived and were scattered across space . ( TV : " The Hand of Fear " , AUDIO : " Eldrad Must Die ! " ) Death penalty was used by the Raxacoricofallapatorian s . The Slitheen family , for instance , were tried and sentenced to death " in absentia " . The Ninth Doctor , who had captured Blon Fel - Fotch in Cardiff and wanted to extradite her back to Raxacoricofallapatorius , was faced with the moral dilemma of whether he could become , in effect , her executioner . ( TV : " Boom Town " ) Later , in 2009 , members of the Slitheen - Blathereen family apprehended two other Slitheen , teleporting them on board their ship to send to Raxacoricofallapatorius for execution . Other members of the Slitheen were said to have been " brought to justice " . ( TV : " The Gift " ) The Judoon HO scooped Royal Hope Hospital off of the Earth and onto the Moon to execute Florence Finnegan , who had murdered the Child Princess of Padrivole Regency 9 . While searching for Florence , they quickly tried a human for assaulting them , executing him on the spot . ( TV : " Smith and Jones " ) On the Trion prison planet Sarn , the followers of the fire - god Logar sanctioned the " unbelievers " with " the burning " . ( TV : " Planet of Fire " ) On the planet Androzani Major , the Fifth Doctor and Peri were nearly executed by firing squad by the authority of the quasi - governmental Sirius Conglomerate . ( TV : " The Caves of Androzani " ) As part of an agreement , the Master was sent to Skaro by the Time Lords and subsequently tried and executed by the Dalek s , though he survived in the body of a Deathworm . ( TV : " Doctor Who " , PROSE : " The Eight Doctors " ) Similarly , the being known as the Wire evaded its physical execution by transferring its consciousness into electrical energy . ( TV : " The Idiot ' s Lantern " ) In certain cultures , such as the Dalek s , leaders would punish the failure of their subordinates with execution . ( TV : " The Daleks ' Master Plan " , " Planet of the Daleks " , COMIC : " The Threat from Beneath " , " The Dalek Revenge " , PROSE : " Prisoner of the Daleks " ) however Daleks executed their leaders for failure . On orbit of Ecros , two Daleks killed the Dalek Commander for failure and a Dalek drone killed a Dalek Strategist for failing to ensure the safety on Weston ' s base . ( COMIC : " The Dalek Revenge " , " The Only Good Dalek " ) Jack Harkness was once sentenced to death , but after consuming some hypervodka s as a last request , ended up in bed with both his executioners instead of being executed . He later compared his ship containing a German bomb about to explode with no chance of escape to this sentence . ( TV : " The Doctor Dances " ) On board Skybase One , before Professor Jaeger interrupted him , the Marshal of Solos sentenced Stubbs and Cotton ( for treason ) , Ky ( for conspiracy , sabotage and terrorism ) and Jo Grant ( for unspecified crimes ) , to death by firing squad . ( TV : " The Mutants " ) In the city of Millennius on Marinus , Ian Chesterton was framed for the murder of Eprin and sentenced to death . When more evidence was found , he was let go . ( TV : " The Keys of Marinus " ) Red Rocket Rising had no death penalty . After seeing what he thought was Asha Gryvern walk free after her escort vehicle crashed , Lowell told the Eighth Doctor , " If only we had the death penalty . " ( AUDIO : " Blood of the Daleks " )