"Civilized countries don't have a death penalty"

I guess you have to define "civilized" carefully, because Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore have it.

Japan executed a man in August of this year. They even have a _mandatory_ death penalty for specific crimes.

I'm not arguing for or against. I just hate it when people make statements which show they haven't bothered to check their facts.

The only way that statement works is if "civilized" means "no death penalty", in which case it's a tautology.