Appropriate methods of execution
 

Im not sure where this belongs... but I have been thinking about the death penalty a bit recently (because of a the serial killer in my home town recently being found guilty)

I do believe that the death penalty should exist - for the crimes which society finds most horrible. i do not believe that it is a deterrent, and I believe miscarriages of justice are possible - but I believe it is a necessary ritual which society must observe to cleanse the horror of the most unacceptable crimes (as defined by the general will of the population)

I saw a show tonight about how the lethal injection is cruel, and I never really thought about it before... but if people are to be killed by the state, does cruelty come into it?

I never really thought of any other method of execution than hanging by the neck - which is instant at least. I dont understand the rationale of gruesome things like electricution and chemical death - does anyone know how such things came to be practised?

They came into practice in an attempt to be less cruel, though the electric chair was also part of the AC/DC debate, with an attempt to show AC as dangerous.

Though if we want to really work the deterrent angle I'm all for burning at the stake again ;)

Part of it was the (American) idea that NEWER = BETTER.

Long drop hanging (as practiced by the British and all across the Empire) was a well established system and well understood - there were rules for calculating the drop and the type of rope, relating to the weight and height of the victim, and it is one of the most consistently reliable, dignified, and low tech methods of execution that humanity has ever created.

I personally am revolted by the idea of killing anyone as there are so many reasons the death penalty can be incorrectly used - mainly sumarised by "people can be wrong, corrupt and venial" - and that we ought not risk cocking it up.

That said, if it were to happen, I'd say that long drop hanging done correctly is "best".

Injections, electrocution, gas chambers and so on all require loads of technical euipment and are frequently alleged to be ineffective on the first go.

I am fairly sure Strange Famous does not want this turning into a debate on whether or not we should use the death penalty, as I am sure there are plenty of threads already beating that dead horse.

I have few facts to bring to this. I have contemplated these methods of execution and here are some of my thoughts.

• Hanging was not always an instant death. If the knot is not placed correctly, one's neck is not broken by the fall and one would be strangled by the rope.
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Methods of Execution History: Hanging is the oldest method of execution in the United States, but fell into disfavor in the 20th century after many botched attempts, and was replaced by electrocution as the most common method.

  I guess the Brits came up with an equation based on the weight of a person to determine the length of the drop required to only break a person's neck. Otherwise:
  • Too short a drop and the person would slowly be strangled by the rope, disgusting the onlookers; or
  • Too long and the head would be broken off, again disgusting the onlookers.
  They just were ultimately going for people not to be disgusted by the hanging. @ Daniel_: you beat me to it.
  
  
• Electrocution was considered inhumane as a means of execution (supposedly heads started on fire). So gas was implemented. I cannot remember, but I have memories of stories of people that survived the gas chambers, which is why it is no longer used (as far as I know).
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Methods of Execution The most common problems encountered are the obvious agony suffered by the inmate and the length of time to cause death.

  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Ustwo with an attempt to show AC as dangerous.

  Damn Edison. At least AC still won, good one for Tesla.
  
  
• Lethal injection as cruel? I thought it was painless, quick acting, and for sure. I guess if a technician missed the vein, then the process would be FUBAR'ed, but then it is a failure of the State for not hiring a more competent technician, and not a fault of the process.
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Methods of Execution The most common problem encountered is collapsing veins and the inability to properly insert the IV. Some states allow for a Thorazine or sedative injection to facilitate IV insertion. History: Lethal injection had first been proposed as a means of execution in 1888 when New York considered it but ultimately opted for electrocution. In 1977, Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection. Texas performed the first execution by lethal injection in 1982 with the execution of Charlie Brooks.

Some links I came across:
The History of Execution Methods (not including modern methods)
Methods of Execution (modern methods of execution)

My understanding is too that the executioner had an equation, or a table, and they would base the length of the "drop" on the person's weight, leading to instant death by broken neck... but I guess if it was bungled somehow I could see that it could go wrong and lead to strangulation or beheading.

If the death penalty was carried out in public, and the victim's family was permitted to participate if they wished then there would be a deterrent to these crimes. However, that will never happen again.

As for the methods of execution being considered too cruel, I must object. I think about a recent incident in my hometown where an 18 year old girl was terrorized for the last hour of her life. The one who committed this crime has confessed. What manner of execution could possibly be considered too cruel? Perhaps we should do away with him in the same manner that he ended that young woman's life? Is that too cruel? Would that be justice for her family? I have no compassion for this monster. This will be resolved in the courts, and he will probably spend the rest of his 60 or so years in prison, at our expense.

There are no appropriate methods of execution. Frankly I don't see a difference between killing someone slowly and killing someone quickly. They're still dying.

There will always be monsters in society. We can either become the monsters we try to stop (interesting) or we can be above those monsters (not so interesting but better in the long run) and try to ensure it doesn't happen again. Either everyone is allowed to be the monster (and lethal justice is carried out in a dog-eat-dog way) or no one is allowed to be a monster (and we grant the overlookers of society to carry out lethal justice).

I am all about getting use out of prisoners. If they are going to die, donate their body to science. It doesn't have to be living, if they want to be donated after death. Make them do the work that no one else likes doing. Is that slavery... I don't think so but this is just an argument I don't want to go down because... I don't want to Google stuff anymore for right now.


Edit 1: "Everyone or no one is allowed to be a monster..."

I do not believe in execution for any reason.

I'd say that slowly overdosing on morphine via injection would be a decent method of execution. By my understanding it's peaceful, painless, and the person has a euphoric feeling before becoming unconscious. It seems the most humane method.

We know.

Interesting. I like it.

Long drop hanging is not necessarily as humane as lethal injection. When done properly, it severs the spinal cord, causing the heart to stop beating instantly. However, there is still blood in the brain and it takes several seconds for the brain to exhaust its supply of oxygen. This means that unless the prisoner faints, he will experience his neck snapping and probably some associated pain. Since his brain is now disconnected from anything below his neck, he is unable to give any indication of pain or suffering, sparing the audience from this spectacle.

When lethal injection works properly, the prisoner loses consciousness early on, and the only pain he feels is the needle being inserted.

From my perspective, the most humane types of execution are those that cause the prisoner to lose consciousness before any signicant amount of pain is felt, or those that destroy the brain instantaneously (such as a well-placed gunshot to the head).

I think the condemned should be able to choose his or her manner of death.

There's no way to know whether there's 5-10 seconds of unbearable, torturous pain when one is shot in the head. Those who have survived gunshot wounds to the head have said that the pain is the worst imaginable. Somehow I don't think a few seconds of maddening pain isn't humane.

Not in favour of the death penalty but I'd imagine the guillotine would be the quickest, surest way to go, as long as the blade was sharp and heavy.

I understand that with lethal injection, one of the injections is a paralyzing agent - so if something were to go wrong, we'd not likely hear a lot of screams or witness any suffering.

The desire and the struggle of society..
to cleanse the horror of execution,
to me speaks volumes...

I can hear the horrid churning nausea of the executioner....can you?

Ourcrazymodern? Is that you?

You recognize kinship...fellow pack member...bless you..

executions... seem like a good idea until you hear about the rate of wrongful convictions

Google: David Milgard, Guy Paul Morin, Steven Truscott and more

While I do not advocate wanton cruelty, I must say that the thought of the last few seconds of a murderer or rapists life being filled with excruciating pain doesn't cause me to lose sleep at night. Long drop hanging works great, if the head pops, then so be it. The condemed will know no difference.

Ace, I think that is going off topic.

To stray off topic even further - I think that in nations with lesser homicide rates and consequently more attention being levelled at wrongful convictions a la Milgard and Truscott, we back further away from capital punishment. In large nations with big homicide rates, such instances receive lesser attention, with more concern placed on punishing the bad guys and reducing high homicide rates.

It also seems that huge nations/empires - the US, China, Russia/USSR, Britain back in the day, Rome - have always meted out the most severe punishments more readily than other nations of lesser power.

I don't think I'd have to dig hard to point out this is a oversimplification.

They stone you for being a homosexual in Iran still for example.

Egypt has sentenced 400 people to death over a 10 year period but reports are the actual number is much higher.

My guess is you only hear/read/learn about the big boys, the little boys can play too, and this doesn't even address places like Cambodia.

Not if you see it as making the point that there are no appropriate methods of execution when there is an unknown rate of false imprisonment.

Seems pretty fundamentally tied to the question to me.

You'd think but:
Strange Famous addressed this in his original post. As I read it, he just wants the history of execution and how it was deemed more humane to kill people in such fashions.

If you're happy comparing the US to modern day Cambodia, Egypt and Iran, go ahead. I believe the more appropriate comparisons are to other nations occupying some similar economic or social strata.

I wish it was simple execution style the person on his knees, and someone behind him fires a bullet in his head.

..

So in other words we execute and Western Europe doesn't anymore.

Just say that then instead of making a point about size and empire like status.

People wrongfully convicted and then executed aside, I still believe killing people is wrong.

Grant the onlookers their rights and they might change their minds; grant the over-lookers theirs and they can't.

How did capital punishment become a practise? We are vindictive.

Use a guillotine and then let them eat cake. At least the innocent will then have a sweet taste in their mouth when they expire.

Got morphine? Give me a little.

flat5 might have a point.

(willravel? It wasn't me.)

OP: This was not a thread-jack.

Oh snap.

Unfortunately, you have again missed the point and made a false assumption.

Large, powerful countries have large, complex problems - both internally and externally - somewhat moreso than their smaller neighbours. The often have high crime rates and any individual crime is usually lost in the shuffle.

The desire to bring a sense of order to what some sometimes seems a disordered out of control society is perhaps more powerful in those large, powerful societies given the many pressures the society faces. Stronger measures are sometimes enacted - death penalty, longer prison sentences, 3 strikes - in reponse and the people may approve of such measures more readily.

Individual instances of a miscarriage of justice seem to pale in comparison to the thousands of killings that occur yearly.

In a nation such as Canada, where even in the largest cities like Toronto and Montreal the murder rates are far lower, when someone (as Ace pointed out) like Truscott, Milgard or Morin gets wrongly imprisoned for what, at one point, would have been a crime for which execution was the punishment, the population, in large part, recoils and sets themselves more firmly against the concept of capital punishment.

In larger nations, this reaction does not seem as strong.

Amen.

Ropes and bullets are cheap.

there is no appropriate method of execution.
the idea of public execution as some kind of ritual geared toward expelling a sin and rebuilding collective solidarity is barbaric.
there are a few things about the modern world that it's hard not to approve of: indoor plumbing, electricity and the rule of law are three of them. in the modern world, the state substitutes itself for the victim of a crime. that shortcircuits all this nonsense about revenge and such logic as there might be behind ritual murder as a curative.

and ritual sacrifice was never about prevention. it was reactive.

Depending on the crime, if heinous enough to be considered for death, the family of the victim should choose if the perp dies and the method, given there is ample proof that person created a heinous crime.ie eye witness accounts, videotape etc

I would prefer the guillotine. As for the last meal,...treat the family. To hell with the person who will die.

To me hanging seems more dignified too... and I am referring to the dignity of the state, not the victim/condemned.

It is fundamentally DIFFERENT to everyday.

The lethal injection or the gassing seem to be pervesions of normal life events (the hospital for example), the electric chair a perversion of industrialisation... the gallows are unique for their purpose at least.

Humanely killing a person is one of the more ridiculous oxymorons out there. And yes, I read the OP just like everyone else. However, my statement was disagreeing with the fact that it is indeed a necessary ritual, as stated by the OP

Mod powers, not yours.

I don't believe in rehabilitation. However, I do believe in making sure that one is deserving of death.

I vote for either will's idea or my own idea which involves placing the prisoner between two heavy metal slabs that are about to collide with eachother at a very high speed.

I'm with ring.

There is no humane way to kill a person. But in any case, governments shouldn't be in the position of killing people, anyhow. The death penalty is vengeance, pure and simple. Not justice.

On the other hand, I don't necessarily have anything against vengeance. In my opinion, those found guilty of murder should be sentenced to life in prison. But in the case of murderers in the first degree (I don't believe anything else should warrant the death penalty) they should serve their prison terms in near-isolation, like in a supermax prison. If the family of the victim wishes, they should be able to challenge the murderer to a duel to the death, permitted by the state, with the victim's family choosing the weapons: two-handed broadsword, mace and buckler, or spear. The murderer can decline, and spend life in prison, or fight, and if he wins, he may choose to serve his time in a regular maximum security prison ward, rather than in near-isolation.

I don't see the death penalty as vengeance. I see it as, "You fucked up big time and we can't have you around anymore."

They really can only do a very limited amount of harm in prison, and prison breaks are practically a myth (they almost never happen). They're not around when they're locked up.

I dont want to get off topic, but the death penalty really does exist to satisfy the will of the people - not to make the world safer.

You may say that the right to life should be absolute and it is wrong to sacrifice some individuals (who we all agree do terrible things) to satisfy this, but I think this is the rationale

I think though, 'the people' have mental difficulty in accepting that the death penalty appeases something in them that precedes the development of the 'civil society.' Therefore they endeavor to imagine all sorts of practical reasons for deliberately killing these people. I have far more tolerance for people who just accept and voice clearly that their support of the death penalty is based on simple emotional appeasment, rather than some practical fantasy about making the world a safer place.

*edit* or even worse, the 'saving money' tact...

I know. But why start a line of discussion that will almost guarantee a post filled with bold orange letters?

Haven't seen it yet. Maybe because it wasn't even off topic. But this bickering is, if you want to bitch more, PM me.

I haven't noticed anything go off topic. Let's not quibble. :)

All right, all right. I was being a preemptive dickface here. Can you forgive me?

@ Will:
Why is it Olive?

No, it doesn't - in the UK, for instance, there is a small majority (and has been for some years) in support of the death penalty - yet the death penalty was abolished.

It obviously does not exist to satisfy the will of the people. It was abolished in spite of what "the people" may have wanted.

Agreed! You just did something so barbaric / heinous that you do not belong here anymore, good luck in the afterlife.

But the real question here is should death row inmates get the right to vote, and would they overwhelmingly support Obama? :hyper:

This line of inquiry is not productive

Because I'm colorblind. :thumbsup:
I'd be willing to bet that a lot would vote for Hillary because she has a vujayjay.

Well, the will of the people if not always carried out.

sorry if this seems like a threadjack, but what form of execution might be appropriate here:


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080321/...HL6Zcxk10E1vAI

That's flawed logic arising from an admittedly incomplete statement. In order to be complete, Strange Famous' statement should've read 'where it exists, the death penalty exists to satisfy the will of the people,' thus removing anywhere the death penalty isn't used from the discussion. If the majority of the population in a democratic state supports a policy and that policy isn't enacted, the failure belongs to the governing body of that state and not to the policy itself.

EDIT for Unclephil - that is something of a threadjack as it strays outside of the original stated premise of the thread. The appropriate argument would be whether or not the death penalty is appropriate in that case, which is a different discussion and one that's been done to death. Suffice to say that as I'm against the death penalty I don't think any form of execution is appropriate. Lock them away for life? Sure. But I will not be a party to murder, state-sanctioned or not. The problem is that this seems to be largely a matter of opinions and the old saying about how opinions are like assholes seems to apply here.

I started another thread regarding this very article. The actions of these people made me incredibly ill and sad all at the same time.

I stand by my original answer regarding this subject... killing people is wrong.

your point being?

qualified...stated...opinion?

I could not call for the hanging of a woman, under any circumstances... even a crime as disgusting as the one quoted above... but for I think for any crime the appropriate measure is for the killer to swing for it. The death penalty must carry gravitas, if it does exist.

Define a qualified opinion. These are, as always, simply my musings on the subject. I am not an expert in these matters, I have no credentials. I personally do not believe in execution as a penalty. I do not believe that it serves as an effective deterrent and I find the concept of an eye for an eye to be morally objectionable. However, if you're looking for me to come right out and say 'execution is wrong because...' you are unfortunately doomed to disappointment. I have no reason to think that my opinion carries any more weight than that of anyone else and will therefore not state it as fact.

The only appropriate execution is self-defense or defense of others. It is wrong to kill another when other options are readily available, and by executing someone, we are sinking to the level of the murderers.

Execution is not murder exactly, it is an act of proof that the murder is cast out of the human race.

One thing I think of is the executioner. On top of the rest of it, the death penalty forces someone to kill legally. I read a biography of Albert Pierrepoint recently... who was the last well known hangman in the UK: he was self important, pompous, arrogant, greedy, ultimately indiscrete... but a hard man - someone forced to wear the blood on his hands that the police, the politicians, the people all called for, but could not stomach. I couldnt help but admire this man who did the job that his political masters were not man enough to do themselves.

I agree


I disagree.

"The true face of America..."

The disgust alone makes me laugh such that my face is red and my stomach hurts.

"Maybe something else sucks... the public."

Well, you could always go for the same means of execution that befell Ole Hugh, gay lover of King Edward II....

(Those Brits don't fuck around)


Immediately after the trial, he was dragged behind four horses to his place of execution, where a great fire was lit. He was stripped naked, and biblical verses denouncing arrogance and evil were written on his skin. He was then hanged from a gallows 50 ft (15 m) high, but cut down before he could choke to death, and was tied to a ladder, in full view of the crowd. The executioner climbed up beside him, and sliced off his penis and testicles which were then burnt before him, while he was still alive and conscious. Subsequently, the executioner plunged his knife into his abdomen, and slowly pulled out, and cut out, his entrails and heart, which were likewise burnt before the ecstatic crowd. Just before he died, it is recorded that he let out a "low inhuman howl," much to the delight and merriment of the spectators. Finally, his corpse was beheaded, and his body cut into four pieces, and his head was mounted on the gates of London.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_the_younger_Despenser

You read children bedtime stories, too, huh? :oogle:

Oh, and there's always sawing... (for all you blood lust folks)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawing