Capital punishment

CHAPTER 1.
HISTORY OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Early Capital punishment Laws

The first established capital punishment laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. The capital punishment was also part of the Fourteenth Century B.C.'s Hittite Code; in the Seventh Century B.C.'s Draconian Code of Athens, which made death the only punishment for all crimes; and in the Fifth Century B.C.'s Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement.

In the Tenth Century A.D., hanging became the usual method of execution in Britain. In the following century, William the Conqueror would not allow persons to be hanged or otherwise executed for any crime, except in times of war. This trend would not last, for in the Sixteenth Century, under the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed. Some common methods of execution at that time were boiling, burning at the stake, hanging, beheading, and drawing and quartering. Executions were carried out for such capital offenses as marrying a Jew, not confessing to a crime, and treason.
The number of capital crimes in Britain continued to rise throughout the next two centuries. By the 1700s, 222 crimes were punishable by death in Britain, including stealing, cutting down a tree, and robbing a rabbit warren. Because of the severity of the capital punishment, many juries would not convict defendants if the offense was not serious. This lead to reforms of Britain's death penalty. From 1823 to 1837, the capital punishment was eliminated for over 100 of the 222 crimes punishable by death. (Randa, 1997)

The capital punishment in America
Britain influenced America's use of the capital punishment more than any other country. When European settlers came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment. The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain. In 1612, Virginia Governor Sir Thomas Dale enacted the Divine, Moral and Martial Laws, which provided the capital punishment for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, and trading with Indians.
Laws regarding the death penalty varied from colony to colony. The Massachusetts Bay Colony held its first execution in 1630, even though the Capital Laws of New England did not go into effect until years later. The New York Colony instituted the Duke's Laws of 1665. Under these laws, offenses such as striking one's mother or father, or denying the "true God," were punishable by death. (Randa, 1997)

The Abolitionist Movement
Colonial Times
The abolitionist movement finds its roots in the writings of European theorists Montesquieu, Voltaire and Bentham, and English Quakers John Bellers and John Howard. However, it was Cesare Beccaria's 1767 essay, On Crimes and Punishment, that had an especially strong impact throughout the world. In the essay, Beccaria theorized that there was no justification for the state's taking of a life. The essay gave abolitionists an authoritative voice and renewed energy, one result of which was the abolition of the death penalty in Austria and Tuscany. ( Schabas 1997)
American intellectuals as well were influenced by Beccaria. The first attempted reforms of the death penalty in the U.S. occurred when Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill to revise Virginia's death penalty laws. The bill proposed that capital punishment be used only for the crimes of murder and treason. It was defeated by only one vote.

Also influenced was Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and founder of the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Rush challenged the belief that the death penalty serves as a deterrent. In fact, Rush was an early believer in the "brutalization effect." He held that having a death penalty actually increased criminal conduct. Rush gained the support of Benjamin Franklin and Philadelphia Attorney General William Bradford. Bradford, who would later become the U.S. Attorney General, led Pennsylvania to become the first state to consider degrees of murder based on culpability. In 1794, Pennsylvania repealed the death penalty for all offenses except first degree murder. (Bohm, 1999; Randa, 1997; and Schabas, 1997)
Nineteenth Century
In the early to mid-Nineteenth Century, the abolitionist movement gained momentum in the northeast. In the early part of the century, many states reduced the number of their capital crimes and built state penitentiaries.In 1834, Pennsylvania became the first state to move executions away from the public eye and carrying them out in correctional facilities.
In 1846, Michigan became the first state to abolish the capital punishment for all crimes except treason. Later, Rhode Island and Wisconsin abolished the capital punishment for all crimes. By the end of the century, the world would see the countries of Venezuela, Portugal, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Brazil and Ecuador follow suit. (Bohm, 1999 and Schabas, 1997).

Although some U.S. states began abolishing the capital punishment, most states held onto capital punishment. Some states made more crimes capital offenses, especially for offenses committed by slaves. In 1838, in an effort to make the capital punishment more palatable to the public, some states began passing laws against mandatory death sentencing instead enacting discretionary death penalty statutes. The 1838 enactment of discretionary death penalty statutes in Tennessee, and later in Alabama, were seen as a great reform. This introduction of sentencing discretion in the capital process was perceived as a victory for abolitionists because prior to the enactment of these statutes, all states mandated the capital punishment for anyone convicted of a capital crime, regardless of circumstances. With the exception of a small number of rarely committed crimes in a few jurisdictions, all mandatory capital punishment laws had been abolished by 1963. (Bohm, 1999)

During the Civil War, opposition to the death penalty waned, as more attention was given to the anti-slavery movement. After the war, new developments in the means of executions emerged. The electric chair was introduced at the end of the century. New York built the first electric chair in 1888, and in 1890 executed William Kemmler.

Early and Mid-Twentieth Century
Although some states abolished the capital punishment in the mid-Nineteenth Century, it was actually the first half of the Twentieth Century that marked the beginning of the "Progressive Period" of reform in the United States. From 1907 to 1917, six states completely outlawed the capital punishment and three limited it to the rarely committed crimes of treason and first degree murder of a law enforcement official. However, this reform was short-lived. There was a frenzied atmosphere in the U.S., as citizens began to panic about the threat of revolution in the wake of the Russian Revolution. In addition, the U.S. had just entered World War I and there were intense class conflicts as socialists mounted the first serious challenge to capitalism. As a result, five of the six abolitionist states reinstated their capital punishment by 1920.(Bedau, 1997 and Bohm, 1999)

In 1924, the use of cyanide gas was introduced, as Nevada sought a more humane way of executing its inmates. Gee Jon was the first person executed by lethal gas. The state tried to pump cyanide gas into Jon's cell while he slept, but this proved impossible, and the gas chamber was constructed. (Bohm, 1999)
From the 1920s to the 1940s, there was a resurgence in the use of the capital punishment. This was due, in part, to the writings of criminologists, who argued that the capital punishment was a necessary social measure. In the United States, Americans were suffering through Prohibition and the Great Depression. There were more executions in the 1930s than in any other decade in American history, an average of 167 per year. (Bohm, 1999 and Schabas, 1997)
In the 1950s, public sentiment began to turn away from capital punishment. Many allied nations either abolished or limited the capital punishment, and in the U.S., the number of executions dropped dramatically. Whereas there were 1,289 executions in the 1940s, there were 715 in the 1950s, and the number fell even further, to only 191, from 1960 to 1976. In 1966, support for capital punishment reached an all-time low. A Gallup poll showed support for the capital punishment at only 42%. (Bohm, 1999 and BJS, 1997 )
Constitutionality of the Death Penalty in America
The 1960s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the capital punishment. Before then, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the capital punishment was a "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. In 1958, the Supreme Court had decided in
Trop v. Dulles (356 U.S. 86), that the Eighth Amendment contained an "evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society." Although Trop was not a capital punishment case, abolitionists applied the Court's logic to executions and maintained that the United States had, in fact, progressed to a point that its "standard of decency" should no longer tolerate the capital punishment. (Bohm, 1999).

In the late 1960s, the Supreme Court began "fine tuning" the way the death penalty was administered. To this effect, the Court heard two cases in 1968 dealing with the discretion given to the prosecutor and the jury in capital cases. The first case was U.S. v. Jackson (390 U.S. 570), where the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding a provision of the federal kidnapping statute requiring that the death penalty be imposed only upon recommendation of a jury. The Court held that this practice was unconstitutional because it encouraged defendants to waive their right to a jury trial to ensure they would not receive a death sentence.
The other 1968 case was Witherspoon v. Illinois (391 U.S. 510). In this case, the Supreme Court held that a potential juror's mere reservations about the capital punishment were insufficient grounds to prevent that person from serving on the jury in a death penalty case. Jurors could be disqualified only if prosecutors could show that the juror's attitude toward capital punishment would prevent him or her from making an impartial decision about the punishment.

In 1971, the Supreme Court again addressed the problems associated with the role of jurors and their discretion in capital cases. The Court decided Crampton v. Ohio and McGautha v. California (consolidated under 402 U.S. 183). The defendants argued it was a violation of their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process for jurors to have unrestricted discretion in deciding whether the defendants should live or die, and such discretion resulted in arbitrary and capricious sentencing. Crampton also argued that it was unconstitutional to have his guilt and sentence determined in one set of deliberations, as the jurors in his case were instructed that a first-degree murder conviction would result in a death sentence. The Court, however, rejected these claims, thereby approving of unfettered jury discretion and a single proceeding to determine guilt and sentence. The Court stated that guiding capital sentencing discretion was "beyond present human ability."

Suspending the Death Penalty
The issue of arbitrariness of the capital punishment was again be brought before the Supreme Court in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia, Jackson v. Georgia, and Branch v. Texas (known collectively as the landmark case Furman v. Georgia (408 U.S. 238)). Furman, like McGautha, argued that capital cases resulted in arbitrary and capricious sentencing. Furman, however, was a challenge brought under the Eighth Amendment, unlike McGautha, which was a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim. With the Furman decision the Supreme Court set the standard that a punishment would be "cruel and unusual" if it was too severe for the crime, if it was arbitrary, if it offended society's sense of justice, or it if was not more effective than a less severe penalty.

In 9 separate opinions, and by a vote of 5 to 4, the Court held that Georgia's death penalty statute, which gave the jury complete sentencing discretion, could result in arbitrary sentencing. The Court held that the scheme of punishment under the statute was therefore "cruel and unusual" and violated the Eighth Amendment. Thus, on June 29, 1972, the Supreme Court effectively voided 40 death penalty statutes, thereby commuting the sentences of 629 death row inmates around the country and suspending the capital punishment because existing statutes were no longer valid.
Reinstating the Death Penalty
Although the separate opinions by Justices Brennan and Marshall stated that the capital punishment itself was unconstitutional, the overall holding in Furman was that the specific capital punishment statutes were unconstitutional. With that holding, the Court essentially opened the door to states to rewrite their capital punishment statutes to eliminate the problems cited in Furman. Advocates of capital punishment began proposing new statutes that they believed would end arbitrariness in capital sentencing. The states were led by Florida, which rewrote its death penalty statute only five months after Furman. Shortly after, 34 other states proceeded to enact new capital punishment statutes. To address the unconstitutionality of unguided jury discretion, some states removed all of that discretion by mandating capital punishment for those convicted of capital crimes. However, this practice was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Woodson v. North Carolina (428 U.S. 280 (1976)).

Other states sought to limit that discretion by providing sentencing guidelines for the judge and jury when deciding whether to impose death. The guidelines allowed for the introduction of aggravating and mitigating factors in determining sentencing. These guided discretion statutes were approved in 1976 by the Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia (428 U.S. 153), Jurek v. Texas (428 U.S. 262), and Proffitt v. Florida (428 U.S. 242), collectively referred to as the Gregg decision. This landmark decision held that the new capital punishment statutes in Florida, Georgia, and Texas were constitutional, thus reinstating the capital punishment in those states. The Court also held that the capital punishment itself was constitutional under the Eighth Amendment.

In addition to sentencing guidelines, three other procedural reforms were approved by the Court in Gregg. The first was bifurcated trials, in which there are separate deliberations for the guilt and penalty phases of the trial. Only after the jury has determined that the defendant is guilty of capital murder does it decide in a second trial whether the defendant should be sentenced to death or given a lesser sentence of prison time. Another reform was the practice of automatic appellate review of convictions and sentence. The final procedural reform from Gregg was proportionality review, a practice that helps the state to identify and eliminate sentencing disparities. Through this process, the state appellate court can compare the sentence in the case being reviewed with other cases within the state, to see if it is disproportionate.

Because these reforms were accepted by the Supreme Court, some states wishing to reinstate the capital punishment included them in their new capital punishment statutes. The Court, however, did not require that each of the reforms be present in the new statutes. Therefore, some of the resulting new statutes include variations on the procedural reforms found in Gregg.
The ten-year moratorium on executions that had begun with the Jackson and Witherspoon decisions ended on January 17, 1977, with the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in Utah. Gilmore did not challenge his death sentence. That same year, Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection as a means of execution, though it would be five more years until Charles Brooks became the first person executed by lethal injection in Texas on December 7, 1982
CHAPTER 2.
METHODS OF EXECUTION
Lethal injection.
Lethal injection is now virtually the universal method of execution in the United States, with all but one of the 65 executions carried out during 2003 being by this method. Of the 885 executions in the US to the end of 2003, 720 have been by lethal injection, including those of eight women.
Lethal injection was first considered as a means of execution in 1888 when New York's J. Mount Bleyer MD put it forward in an article in the Medico-Legal Journal suggesting that it would be more humane, cheaper and rob the prisoner of the hero status that often attached to hangings. He suggested the intravenous injection of six grains of Morphine. The idea did not catch on and New York introduced the electric chair instead.
The British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1948-1953) also examined lethal injection but decided against it, partly due to pressure from the BMA who were concerned about the ethics of doctors participating in executions.

It was again put forward in 1977 by Dr. Stanley Deutsch, who at the time chaired the Anaesthesiology Department of Oklahoma University Medical School. In response to a call by an Oklahoma state senator Bill Dawson for a cheaper alternative to repairing the state's derelict electric chair, Deutsch described a way to administer drugs through an intravenous drip so as to cause death rapidly and without pain. "Having been anaesthetised on several occasions with ultra short-acting barbiturates and having administered these drugs for approximately 20 years, I can assure you that this is a rapid, pleasant way of producing unconsciousness," Deutsch wrote to the senator in February 1977.

Oklahoma thus became the first to legislate for it in 1977. Texas introduced similar legislation later in the same year to replace their electric chair and carried out the first execution by this method on December 7th 1982 when Charles Brooks was put to death for the murder of second hand car salesman David Gregory in Huntsville Texas in 1976. Brook's girlfriend Vanessa Sapp witnessed the procedure, which began at 12.07 a.m. He was certified dead at 12.16 a.m. There was no apparent problem and Brooks seemed to die quite easily. At first he raised his head, clenched his fist and seemed to yawn or gasp before passing into unconsciousness.
37 American states now use lethal injection either as their sole method or as an option to one of the traditional methods. These being Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. Alabama has allowed lethal injection from July 1st 2002 as an option to electrocution and has executed four people by this method up to the end of 2003.

Texas has carried out the vast majority of lethal injections in the US, with 313 to the end of 2003. Many states have modified their old execution chambers to save the cost of building a new facility - California carries out injections within the gas chamber at San Quentin and Washington under the gallows traps at Walla Walla State Penitentiary.
The Philippines have also decided to use lethal injection for future executions to replace the electric chair and carried out its first execution since 1976, when Leo Echegaray was put to death for child rape on the 4th of February 1999. A further 6 men have been executed by this method to the end of 2000 but there have been no executions since.

Guatemala has also switched to lethal injection after a botched firing squad execution in 1996 and has carried out three executions since then. The first occurred on the 10th February 1998, when Manuel Martinez, a 42-year-old peasant, was put to death for killing four children, their parents and their aunt in 1995 in a dispute over a small plot of land.
On the 29th June 2000 two members of a Guatemalan kidnapping ring were executed in consecutive and televised executions. Amilcar Cetino Perez and Tomas Cerrate Hernandez were members of a notorious kidnap gang believed to be responsible for death threats against the family of President Alfonso Portillo.
China also been experimenting with lethal injection and is moving to this method to replace shooting.

During early 2003 it has introduced a fleet of eighteen mobile execution vehicles. These are specially converted 24 seat minibuses, which will operate in the southern province of Yunnan and the cities of Harbin and Shanghai. The windowless execution chamber at the back contains a metal bed on which the prisoner is strapped down. The executioner presses a button that starts an automatic injection process which can be watched on a video monitor next to the driver's seat and be recorded if required. Efficiency and cost were apparently the main reasons for the introduction of these vehicle according to Yunnan officials. On was quoted as saying : "With lethal injection, only four people are required to execute the death penalty: one executioner, one member of the court, one from the procuratorate and one forensic doctor. A dozen guards are also required to keep watch around the van". Thailand has moved to lethal injection to replace shooting from December 2003.
U S Federal executions.
The American Federal Bureau of Prisons has a $300,000 lethal injection facility at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The death house is located inside a non-descript brick building outside the main penitentiary compound, and consists of five viewing rooms surrounding the execution chamber.
The chamber is a stark, hospital-like room lined with green tiles and bare except for the large gurney equipped with five Velcro restraints and a sink in one corner.
The intravenous tubes pass through a small opening in the wall and into the executioner's room nearby. All but one room, the executioner's, are equipped with large two-way windows with curtains. The executioner's room is fitted with one-way glass. During an execution, prison officials will maintain an open telephone line to the Justice Department in Washington. The President has sole authority to grant last-minute clemency. Overhead, a camera linked to a monitor inside the executioner's room will watch the process to note whether the prisoner suffers any pain during the procedure.

On the 11th of June 2001 Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber became the first person to be executed under Federal law since 1963. He had placed a bomb outside the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring 850. The intravenous drip that delivered the lethal chemicals went to a catheter in McVeigh's right leg. The first drug was administered at 8.10 a.m., with the second being given at 8.11 and the final one at 8.13 and he was pronounced dead at 8.14 a.m. On the 19th of June 2001, Juan Raul Garza, a Mexican-American drug lord and murderer was executed on the same gurney.
A prisoner found guilty after 1994 of a federal capital crime (of which there are now over 60) in states that do not allow for lethal injection as a method of execution can't legally be executed in Terre Haute. For those prisoners, the federal government will "contract out" the executions and they will use that state's normal method. Two further executions have been carried out under Federal jurisdiction since.
The American military has also moved to lethal injection (from hanging) and now has a facility in the basement of the military prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas which is currently housing six or seven inmates.

Typical execution procedure.
Lethal injection protocols vary from state to state.
Typically the prisoner is strapped to a gurney (which is a wheeled hospital style trolley bed) or a fixed execution table rather like an operating theatre table by leather or webbing straps over the body and legs.

Their bare arms are strapped to boards projecting from the sides of the gurney. Trained technicians then insert a 14 gauge catheter (the largest commercially available needle) into a vein in each arm, a process that sounds much simpler than it often is. Once the catheters are in place, they are flushed with 10ml of a Heperin solution, to prevent clots forming inside the catheter, then a 1000 ml bag of saline solution is connected to the catheter ends and the prisoner is either wheeled into the execution chamber or the curtains surrounding it are drawn back to allow the witnesses to see the procedure. When the condemned person has made any final statement, the prison warden gives the signal for the execution to begin and the technician(s), hidden from view behind a two way mirror, begins to manually inject the three chemicals comprising typically 15 - 50 cc of Sodium thiopental, 15 - 50 cc of Pavulon (the generic name for Pancuronium bromide) and 15 - 50 cc of Potassium chloride. There is a short interval between each chemical during which saline solution is injected to clean the IV line and prevent any chemical reaction which could block it. Typically the actual injections will take from three to five minutes to complete.
All the chemicals used in America are standard medical drugs. Sodium thiopental is a short acting barbiturate which is used widely as an anaesthetic and normally causes unconsciousness very quickly if injected into a vein. Pavulon is a muscle relaxant that paralyses the diaphragm and thus arrests breathing whilst Potassium chloride finishes the job by causing cardiac arrest. It is used in cardiac surgery to stop the heart.
In most cases the prisoner is unconscious about a minute after the Sodium thiopental has been injected and is dead in around eight minutes, with no obvious signs of physical suffering.

In some states a fully automated lethal injection machine is used that runs off a 12 volt battery. It injects the chemicals in the right order and amount once the catheters are in place. This considerably assists matters and avoids the problems of mixing of the chemicals which can lead to a reaction causing precipitation which makes them impossible to inject.
The machine has eight syringes. Three with lethal Chemicals that are electrically operated, three with lethal chemicals which are mechanically operated (back-up) and two filled with saline solution used to bleed or purge air form the manifold and the IV lines. Two buttons control the machine, one for the lethal syringes and one for the identical looking harmless ones. The two executioners each press a button, and the syringes release the drugs into the IV line.

Multiple executions.
In Arkansas in 1994, prison officials, citing the disruptive impact of executions on staff and other prisoners and the high cost of "rehearsal time" and overtime pay, took steps to reduce both problems by conducting multiple executions. They carried out two unrelated executions on the night of May the 11th and a further three on August the 3rd of that year with a 45 minutes interval between them so that the chamber could be cleared between each prisoner and to allow prison officials time to replace needles and tubes used to administer the injection. The sheet on the gurney was also changed between executions.
Texas has also carried out multiple executions. On 30th January 1995, in that state's first multiple execution in 44 years. 33-year-old Clifton Russell was put to death just after midnight and Willie Williams, 38, was injected about an hour and a half later. Texas carried out a further double injection in 1997. (Dorsie Johnson-Bey & Davis Losada on the 5th June)

Is lethal injection the humane alternative?
Execution by lethal injection takes much longer from start to finish than any other method, typically 30 - 45 minutes depending on the execution protocol and ease or otherwise of locating a vein. In the U.K. a hanging took around 15 seconds to carry out in the later part of the 20th century. For the majority of this time the condemned person is fully aware of what is happening to them and able to experience their execution. They know that they will be dead at the end of it and the fear of suffering (particularly in front of an audience) and of the unknown is strong in most of us. It is difficult to see therefore how it can be considered more humane, as the prisoner is subjected to far more mental anguish over a longer period.

It is fair to say that injection is much less dramatic than the electric chair or hanging and probably easier for the staff and witnesses as it looks more like a surgical procedure than an execution. But does it cause the prisoner less suffering overall?
When all goes well, the only physical pain is the insertion of the catheters. If the person's veins are easy to find this can be done in a minute or so. The catheters are connected to the saline drip and the prisoner is wheeled into the execution chamber where they are in full view of the witnesses and journalists. After they have made their final statement the injection of the lethal chemicals can begin and they may pass almost instantly from full consciousness into unconsciousness or they may feel themselves becoming drowsy and know that they are beginning to die.

In modern hanging they are alive one second and unconscious the next (if everything goes to plan). It is unlikely that they feel themselves slipping into death.
Not everyone is of the opinion that death by lethal injection is painless - Dr. Edward Brunner, chairman of the Department of Anaesthesia at North-western University Medical School, submitted an affidavit on behalf of death row inmates in Illinois in which he states that lethal injection "create[s] the substantial risk that prisoners will suffocate or suffer excruciating pain during the three chemical injections but will be prevented by the paralytic agent from communicating their distress." It is notable also that Albert Pierrepoint, who was one of Britain's most prolific hangmen and who witnessed an early lethal injection execution considered that the process was "sadistic" mainly due to the length of time it took to render the prisoner unconscious.
In the minds of the American public and of jurors in capital cases the perception of lethal injection is of a clean, clinical and painless end. 71% of those responding to my 2001 survey considered injection to be the least cruel form of execution.

This perception is a great advantage to the state because the public are much more willing to accept execution in this form and jurors more willing to convict and pass the death sentence. The media interest in the eventual execution is also diminished. Texas which has carried out around a third of all post 1977 executions finds that there is now very little interest in them unless the criminal is particularly notorious and thus avoids much of the protest that attends other methods.
There was intense media interest in the three hangings in Washington and Delaware and the two shootings in Utah because these methods were perceived as old fashioned and barbaric.

Utah may well abandon shooting in favour of injection not because either execution was in any way botched but because they were perceived as being gruesome. It is probable that there will be only a very few if any more hangings in Washington for the same reason.
One wonders, however, if injection is as much of a deterrent as hanging or the electric chair, to would be criminals or whether they feel it is a "soft option"? This is an important point because if the state is going to take the life of a person surely it should seek to produce the maximum deterrence from doing so within the realms of a providing the prisoner with a quick and pain free death. Interestingly in those states that allow the prisoner the choice of execution method, not everyone does choose injection.
The problems with injection.
One of the main problems with lethal injection is the aqueous pressure in the executee's veins. Veins have an internal pressure (blood pressure) which has to be overcome to allow injection into them. A doctor, when giving a normal intravenous (IV) injection, has to equal and then slightly exceed this pressure. If he produces a pressure that is too great he will rupture the vein. The doctor accomplishes this through his training, fingertip dexterity and experience built up from giving repeated injections. He feels the pressure in the vein against the top of the plunger of the syringe. In the case of a lethal injection the volume of the of fluid required to fill the plumbing of the IV tubes running between the executioner's cubicle and the prisoner means that the syringes must be of 50 - 60 cc capacity. Syringes of this size are too big to give any real feel to the person administering the injection. Thus too much pressure can easily be applied and a rupture of the vein may occur. This can happen in the case of giving a non lethal injection into the good healthy veins in a normal person.

It is not unusual for the condemned prisoner to be a former intravenous drug abuser, with delicate, collapsed veins that can stand far less overpressure. This is also true of people who are insulin injecting diabetics. When a person with normal veins is frightened their veins contract and become hard to find.
Before insertion of the catheters a good vein must be located. It is not unusual for an "cut-down procedure" to have to be performed to find a usable (not necessarily suitable) vein. This entails a minor surgical procedure on the arm, leg or groin carried out under local anaesthetic, using a sub-cutaneously injected dose of Xylocaine or similar local anaesthetic, administered by a medical technician. The public are seldom made aware of this and the witnesses would not typically see any evidence of it during the execution.

To produce a quick and painless death it is vital that the chemicals are injected into a vein, rather of an artery. Veins carry blood to the heart and arteries away from the heart. The path of the chemicals (particularly the potassium chloride) should be via the quickest route to the heart so as not to prolong the execution. If an artery is used by mistake, instead of a vein, the blood carrying the chemicals has to go the "long way round" significantly increasing the time taken to stop the heart. The distinction between a vein and an artery is not an easy one to make. Even a doctor can make a mistake! It is clear from reading reports of executions that the time between commencing the injection and certifying death varies a great deal.
THE CHAMBER GAS
Between 1930 and 1980, 945 men and seven women were put to death in the gas chambers of various states. 11 states have used lethal gas, these being, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming.
11 men have been gassed in 5 states since the resumption of executions in 1977, these being in Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, California and Mississippi. The last was Walter LeGrand in Arizona in 1999 (see below).
Of the 38 states with capital punishment, only Arizona, California, Maryland, Missouri and Wyoming still allow for the use of lethal gas and all offer lethal injection as an option.
Gassing is not used in by other country as a means of judicial execution.

Gassing was originally proposed by Dr. Allen McLean Hamilton who was a toxicologist and who suggested an execution method that would be more humane than hanging or shooting, which were the choices offered to condemned men in Nevada in the early part of the century. Electrocution was also seen as gruesome by the Nevada legislature and so the new method was quickly adopted, coming into law in 1921 in that state. The original idea, was to gas the prisoner in his cell, as he slept, without prior warning. This proved impracticable and thus the gas chamber, as such, was invented by Major Delos A Turner, an army medical corps officer and was first used in 1924.

The first person to die in Nevada's new gas chamber was Chinese born Gee Jong on the 8th February 1924 for the murder Tom Quong Kee, a member of a rival gang. His lawyers had fought a long battle in the courts to show that the gas chamber was a "cruel and unusual punishment" and as such was illegal under the Eight Amendment to the Constitution. The execution commenced at 9.30 a.m. when Gee Jong was led from a holding cell and secured to the chair within the chamber. He appeared to struggle a little after the gas was manually pumped in and then lapse into unconsciousness but as no external stethoscope had been used he was left in the chamber for 30 minutes to ensure death.

It is difficult nowadays to imagine a more cruel, expensive, or dangerous (to the staff and witnesses) method of execution than gassing. The prisoner is expected to contribute to his (or her) own death by actively inhaling the lethal fumes in a mechanism that cost a fortune to buy and is likely to leak deadly fumes if it is not meticulously maintained. Execution by lethal gas requires considerable preparation and always takes several minutes to cause death after the cyanide pellets drop into the acid. The prisoner generally struggles and shows signs of great suffering.
California has executed 192 men and 4 women by gassing at San Quentin prison, between 1938 and 1994. The first gas executions at San Quentin took place at 10.00 a.m. on December 2nd 1938 when Robert Lee Cannon and Albert Kassell were put to death simultaneously for the murder of a prison warden. The cost to the state of this, for the cyanide and acid, was $1.80. Ethel Leta Juanita Spinelli became the first woman to be executed in California and the first woman to die in the gas chamber, when she was executed for murder on November 21, 1941.

The California gas chamber at San. Quentin (pictured) is in a basement room and is a pale green painted octagonal metal box, six feet across and eight feet high, built in 1938. There is a 30 feet high chimney outside to take the gas away.
The entrance is through a steel door closed by a large locking wheel onto rubber seals. There are windows in five of the sides for the witnesses to view the execution.
Inside the chamber are two identical metal chairs with perforated seats, marked "A" and "B." (The two chairs were last used in a double execution in 1962) Two guards strap the prisoner into chair A, attaching straps across his upper and lower legs, arms, thighs and chest. They will also affix a long Bowles stethoscope to the person's chest so that a doctor on the outside can monitor the heartbeat and pronounce death. Beneath the chair is a bowl filled with sulfuric acid mixed with distilled water, with a pound of sodium cyanide pellets suspended in a gauze bag just above. After the door is sealed and when the warden gives the signal, the executioner, in a separate room, operates a lever that releases the cyanide into the acid. This causes a chemical reaction that releases hydrogen cyanide gas, which rises through the holes in the chair. (2 NaCn + H2SO4 = 2 HCN + Na2SO4)

Prisoners are advised to take deep breaths after the gas is released as this will considerably shorten their suffering. Easy for the Warden to say, no doubt, but much harder for the prisoner to intentionally inhale the gas designed to kill them, even if they accept the logic of the advice they are given.
A typical witnesses' view of gassing is as follows "At first there is evidence of extreme horror, pain and strangling. The eyes pop, the skin turns purple and the prisoner begins to drool".
In medical terms, victims of cyanide gas die from hypoxia, which means the cut-off of oxygen to the brain. The initial result of this is spasms, as in an epileptic seizure. Because of the straps, however, involuntary body movements are restrained. Seconds after the prisoner first inhales, he/she will feel himself unable to breathe, but will not lose consciousness immediately. "The person is unquestionably experiencing pain and extreme anxiety," according to Dr. Richard Traystman of John Hopkins University. "The pain begins immediately and is felt in the arms, shoulders, back, and chest. The sensation is similar to the pain felt by a person during a heart attack, where essentially the heart is being deprived of oxygen." "We would not use asphyxiation, by cyanide gas or by any other substance, in our laboratory to kill animals that have been used in experiments."

A study of the execution records of 113 prisoners executed at San Quentin showed that the average time taken to kill them was 9.3 minutes. The prisoner will usually loose consciousness between one and three minutes after the gas hits their face and the doctor will pronounce them dead in around ten to twelve minutes. An exhaust fan then sucks the poison air out of the chamber. The corpse is sprayed with ammonia, which neutralizes traces of the cyanide that may remain. After about half an hour, prison staff enter the chamber, wearing gas masks and rubber gloves. Their training manual advises them to ruffle the victim's hair to release and trapped cyanide gas before removing him.
The end of the gas chamber?
Lethal injection is rapidly becoming the universal method of execution in America although some of the states which previously used the gas chamber, such as Arizona and California, now offer it as an alternative method.
On Tuesday, April 21st, 1992, 39 year old Robert Alton Harris was put to death in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison in California's first execution for 25 years.
At 6.07. a prison official operated the lever, slowly lowering the pellets of cheesecloth wrapped sodium cyanide into the small vat of sulfuric acid beneath the chair to create the lethal, hydrocyanic gas. Harris took a number of deep breaths and for several minutes appeared to gasp and twitch convulsively. His head snapped back and then dropped as he strained against the straps. After a minute his hands seemed to relax. His mouth was open and his face flushed and turning blue. Three minutes later there was a cough and a convulsion.

At 6.21 a.m. (eleven minutes after the start) Warden Daniel Vasquez declared Harris dead and announced the words Harris had chosen to be remembered by. Taken from the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, they were: "You can be a king or a street sweeper. But everybody dances with the grim reaper."
David Edwin Mason became the next person to suffer death by lethal gas in California. He was executed, in accordance with Procedure No. 762 at San Quentin, on August 24th 1993 for the murders of four elderly women in 1980 and of a fellow inmate in 1982. At 12:05 a.m. Mason was escorted into the chamber. At 12:09 a.m. the lethal gas was introduced into the chamber and Mason was pronounced dead at 12:23 a.m.

It looked at the time as though Mason's gassing would be the last but on January 30th 1998 Ricky Sanderson was executed in the gas chamber at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina for stabbing a 16-year old girl to death in 1985. Having been on death row for nearly 13 years 38 year old Sanderson waived his right to further appeals. His last words were "I'm dying for a deed I did and I deserve death for it and I'm glad Christ forgave me."
The execution commenced at 2.01 a.m. EST and he was pronounced dead at 2:19 a.m., 18 minutes later. He died in just a pair of white boxer shorts, which is standard procedure, according to prison officials. He was seated in a wooden chair and wearing a leather mask to hide facial contortions.
The last person to be gassed was Walter LeGrand, on March 4th 1999. He was executed in Arizona's gas chamber at his request (apparently as a protest against the death penalty). A week previously his brother Karl had chosen lethal injection.)

LaGrand also took 18 minutes to die after his executioners dropped the cyanide pellets into the acid, enveloping him in a cloud of white, steam-like fumes. This was Arizona's first gassing since Donald Eugene Harding in 1992, who's death took 11 minutes and prompted the change to lethal injection.
The cruelty of gassing is well illustrated by the two films based upon the case of who went to the San Quentin gas chamber on June 3rd 1955 for a murder that many believe she was framed for.

Lindsey Wagner played Barbara Graham in the later version of "I Want to Live" and gave a very moving performance. Her portrayal showed clearly the time it takes to prepare the prisoner, get them into the gas chamber and for them to pass into unconsciousness when the gas is finally released.
For reasons of humanity, safety and cost most states have now abandoned gassing. Most of America's gas chambers were built in the 1920's by Eaton Metal Products of Salt Lake City Utah and are all getting very old. The seals have hardened and are liable to leak. Meticulous maintenance of the chamber is therefore vital as a leak could have fatal consequences to staff and witnesses. It is estimated that to build a new gas chamber would cost at least $300,000 and this cannot be justified when set against the cost of the equipment required for lethal injection.
Wyoming has the old gas chamber from its Rawlins Prison on display and the public are invited to sit in it and even be strapped in and have the door closed on them!
When things go wrong.
Jimmy Lee Gray Mississippi - September 2nd. 1983.
Eight minutes after the gas had been released officials cleared the witnesses from the viewing area as Gray continued to convulse. He is reported to have gasped eleven times during this period. Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against the steel pole behind the chair.
Donald Eugene Harding Arizona - April 6th. 1992.

At 12:18. the sodium cyanide pellets dropped into the vat beneath Harding's chair containing six quarts of distilled water and six pints of sulfuric acid. Cameron Harper, a reporter for KTVK-TV said, "I watched Harding go into violent spasms for 57 seconds. Then he began to convulse less frequently. His back muscles rippled. The spasms grew less violent. I timed them as ending six minutes and 37 seconds after they began. His head went down in little jerking motions. Obviously, the gentlemen was suffering. This was a violent death, make no mistake about it." Harper went on, "It was an ugly event. We put animals to death more humanely. This was not a clean and simple death". Another Witness, Carla McClain, a reporter for the Tucson Citizen said, "Harding's death was extremely violent. He was in great pain.

I heard him gasp and moan. I saw his body turn from red to purple."
Arguably the cruelest method of execution, the gas chamber has now been outlawed, at least in California, after the American Civil Liberties Union took the California Department of Corrections to court in San Francisco in 1994 on behalf of 375 condemned inmates on San Quentin's death row, saying that the gas chamber violates the U.S. Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual punishment because it inflicts needless pain and suffering.
District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled on October 5th 1994 that the gas chamber is an inhumane method of punishment and thus outlawed the practice in California.
On February 21st 1996 a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the her ruling that gas chamber executions in California violated the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution because there was a risk that an inmate could suffer "horrible pain" for up to several minutes.
"The district court's findings of extreme pain, the length of time this extreme pain lasts, and the substantial risk that inmates will suffer this extreme pain for several minutes require the conclusion that execution by lethal gas is cruel and unusual," Judge Harry Pregerson wrote.

"This decision is the death knell for the gas chamber in the United States," predicted Michael Laurence, an attorney who fought to stop the use of the gas chamber.
Only time will tell will tell whether the gas chamber will survive into the 21st century. It may because there are a substantial number of prisoners on death row who have the legal right to insist upon being gassed (as Walter LeGrand did in 1999) Strangely gassing is seen as humane and an acceptable method of execution by a substantial number of women under 25 who responded to my survey. I have no idea why this should be.
The only other users of execution by lethal gas were, of course, the Nazis during World War 2 when they killed several million people using carbon monoxide or cyanide gas.

The electric chair.
The electric chair was introduced as a "modern" and humane alternative to hanging by New York state in 1890. It soon became the preferred method of execution in the majority of retentionist states, although not all continued to use it. Ohio was the second state to introduce the electric chair, in 1896 - 17 year old William Hass becoming its first victim the following year. Massachusetts followed in 1898, with New Jersey in 1906, with Virginia in 1908 and North Carolina in 1910.
4,308 people have been electrocuted in 27 states between 1890 and 1966 (See analysis by state below). Most of these executions were for murder, including over 600 at New York's famous Sing Sing prison (the largest number of executions at any single US prison). However 458 men have been put to death in the electric chair for rape and at least one man and one woman (the Rosenbergs) for treason. Six people were electrocuted for wartime sabotage in Washington DC on August 8th 1942. A further 148 men and two women have been electrocuted (all for murder) since the resumption of executions in 1977 up to the end of 2002, bringing the total to 4434 men and 24 women.

Alabama carried out most of the post Furman electrocutions, with 4 in 2000. Nationwide there were no electrocutions in 2001 and both Georgia and Ohio removed electrocution as an option during that year. Alabama executed one person in its electric chair in 2002.
After the particularly cruel hanging of 40 year old murderess, Roxalana Druse in New York in 1887, who took 15 minutes to strangle to death, the state Governor, David B Hill, was searching for a more acceptable form of execution. He set up a legislative committee in 1886 to examine other methods. At that time there was a lot of interest and experimentation with electricity so it was perhaps obvious that a politician would opt for a new, "more scientific", method such as electrocution.
The first electric chair was designed in 1888/9. Although the stated reason for its development was that it was to be a more humane method of execution, there was also another interesting reason.
In the 1880's, electricity was a new and novel power source. Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were the two major players in the struggle to control electrical utilities. Technical and economic circumstances made Westinghouse's alternating current superior to Edison's direct current. Alternating current was soon adopted as the standard for electrical transmission world wide.
Edison had tried to convince everyone that Westinghouse's AC current was unsafe and was delighted when New York State introduced the electric chair, which required alternating current.
The electric chair was used in 19 states at various times and also by the Philippines, the only country outside America to use it.

Into law in New York.
On June 4th 1888 the New York Legislature passed Chapter 489 of Laws of New York of 1888, providing for the execution by "a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death" for offences committed after January 1st 1889.
There was one small problem - New York did not possess an electric chair and had to commission Harold Brown, an electrician, to build a chair for each of the three prisons where executions were to take place - Auburn, Sing Sing and Clinton. This seemed an over provision for an average of 8 executions per annum state-wide.
Brown favored Westinghouse's alternating current for the purpose, which made him most unpopular with George Westinghouse who was trying to promote it as a safe form of domestic energy. Westinghouse refused to supply Brown with the necessary generators and he was forced to buy second hand units.
The chairs were solid oak constructions and each had two electrodes, one for the prisoner's head and one for the lower back.

The first electrocution - William Kemmler August 6th 1890.
William Kemmler was convicted of the murder of his lover Tillie Ziegler and became the first man to be sentenced to death under the new law.
Kemmler's lawyers appealed, sighting the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit "cruel and unusual punishment". The appeal was turned down on October 9th 1889 and the execution date was fixed for August 6th 1890. It was a strangely casual affair carried out in the presence of twenty five witnesses, fourteen of them doctors. Kemmler was led into the execution chamber in the basement of Auburn prison and was introduced to the witnesses before taking off his coat and seating himself into the chair.

The head and spinal electrodes each consisted of a 4 inch diameter wooden cup, containing a three inch diameter metal plate faced with a layer of sponge which was soaked in brine to improve conductivity.
Kemmler was strapped into the chair by leather straps around his arms legs and waist. The head electrode, in a leather harness, was applied and a black cloth was pulled over his face. The warden, Charles Durston, gave the signal to Edwin Davis, the executioner, to throw the switch which caused Kemmler to go completely rigid.
He remained in this condition for seventeen seconds until the current was turned off and then his whole body appeared to relax. He was certified dead, but after half a minute there were a series of spasmodic movements of the chest which tended to indicate that he was not, in fact, dead and the warden ordered a second charge of electricity which lasted about seventy seconds until vapor and later smoke could be seen rising from the spinal electrode accompanied by the smell of burning flesh.
At this point the current was again switched off and the body carefully examined. There were no signs of life and Kemmler was dead. Not everyone was impressed by the "humanity" of the new method and an expert interviewed for the New York Times said that the execution was "an awful botch, Kemmler was literally roasted to death".

Women in the chair.
Martha Place became the first woman to die in the electric chair when she was executed on March 20th 1899 at New York's Sing Sing prison for the murder of her step daughter Ida in February of the same year.
An account of the execution in the National Police Gazette said she was guided into the death chamber, clutching a Bible. "Her eyes were closed, she was dressed in a black gown with a few fancy frills at the bosom. She wore russet slippers." A spot had been clipped near the crown of her head to make room for the electrode. Another electrode was fastened to her leg. A current of 1,760 volts went through her body in an execution that was "successful in every way". The doctor who pronounced Martha dead was also a woman.

23 women have been electrocuted in America in the 20th century, for individual details) and one in the 21st century (see below).
Ruth Snyder, who was executed January 12th 1928, aged 33, became the subject of a very famous photograph taken at the moment of her death by New York Daily News photographer, Tom Howard, using a hidden 16-millimeter one-shot camera strapped to his ankle, with the shutter release controlled from his pocket. She had been convicted of murdering her husband.

Judi Beunoano was the first woman to have been electrocuted since the resumption of executions in 1977. She went to the electric chair in Florida's Starke prison on March 30th 1998 for 4 murders, her execution taking 12 minutes to carry out. She was dubbed the "Black Widow" by the press.
Lynda Lyon Block was electrocuted in Alabama on May 10th 2002 for the murder of a policeman in Opelika on October 4th 1993. She may well be the last person to suffer this form of death in America and will almost certainly be the last woman. Her execution was described thus : Wearing a white prison outfit with her shaved head covered by a black hood and wearing light makeup, with mascara and a light shade of pink lipstick she was led into the execution room at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Witnesses said she appeared to pray with her eyes closed about 11:52 p.m. She made no final statement. The execution began with a 2,050-volt, 20-second shock, which caused Block to clench her fists, her body tensed and steam came from the sponge on her head and the electrode on her left leg. She then received 250 volts for 100 seconds. The whole execution took just two minutes.
Modern electrocutions.
149 men and 2 women have been electrocuted in the U.S.A. since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1977, up to the end of 2003, making it the second most common method (after lethal injection). It is still a legal method in seven states - Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee and Virginia. It is only mandatory now in Nebraska and it is doubtful whether it will ever be used there.
On the of April 26th 2002 the state Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, signed a law making lethal injection the primary method of execution there providing that from July 1st 2002 condemned inmates in Alabama will be executed by injection unless they choose the electric chair. Alabama carried out the first electrocution of the new millennium when it put David Ray Duren to death for the robbery murder of a young girl on January 7th 2000. The "Yellow Momma", as its chair is known (pictured left) was last used on the May 10th 2002 for the execution of Lynda Lyon Block.

Virginia electrocuted 61 year old Earl Conrad Bramblett on April 9th 2003. Bramblett who had been convicted of the murders of a family of four had elected to die this way as a protest against the death penalty. He was strapped into the oak chair and given an initial burst of 1,800 volts for 30 seconds. Bramblett's body tensed against the leather and nylon straps, his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists, his knees slowly opened and his skin turned bright red around the leather face mask. The first jolt was followed by 240 volts for 60 seconds, and then the entire cycle was repeated. A small stream of smoke wafted up from his right leg during the second cycle. He was certified dead 5 minutes later.
Georgia abandoned the electric chair in October 2001. 441 people had been put to death in it since the abolition of hanging there in 1924.
Kentucky has carried out one electrocution since 1977, Nebraska 2, and there have been none in Tennessee although this state has prisoners on death row, including Christa Gail Pike, the youngest woman under sentence of death in the US, 19 at the time of her crime.

On January 6th, 2000 the Florida Senate passed a bill by a vote of 102-5 to give death row inmates the option of lethal injection rather than the electric chair. Apparently they have all elected lethal injection. The electric chair was not used at all in 2001 although John Byrd had elected it in Ohio to protest against what he claimed was the cruelty of capital punishment . His execution was stayed and in the meantime (11/21/01) Ohio altered its law to allow only lethal injection. Georgia's highest court struck down the state's use of the electric chair on October 5th 2001 on the basis that death by electrocution "inflicts purposeless physical violence and needless mutilation that makes no measurable contribution to accepted goals of punishment.''
Execution procedure.

After being led into the execution chamber, the prisoner is strapped into the chair with leather belts across the chest, thighs, legs, and arms. The electrodes are then attached - one or two to the leg(s), where a patch will have been shaved bare to improve conductivity, and the other contained within a helmet, to the shaved head. Some states use helmets with a copper mesh screen covered with 5/8 thick artificial sponge to improve conductivity mesh. All this is attached with a 1/4" x 20 Machine brass screw to the turret electrode on the top. The sponge is usually soaked in brine or treated with gel (Electro-Creme) to increase conductivity and reduce burning. Some states use lead for the leg electrode(s) as it is more easily formed around the leg.

A leather face mask or black face cloth is applied. The prisoner, whether male or female, will also be wearing a diaper.
The executioner presses a button on the control panel to deliver a first shock of between 1700 and 2,400 volts, which lasts for between thirty seconds and a minute. This is automatically timed and controlled. The current must be under 6 amps to ensure the body does not cook. Smoke usually comes from the prisoner's leg and head where the electrodes are in contact with the skin. A doctor then examines the prisoner, who if not dead is given a further shock. (In some states this is done automatically by the control gear)

A third and fourth are given if necessary. (It took five jolts to kill Ethel Rosenberg)
On average the process takes 2 min 10 seconds and two shocks are given.
The first shock runs for up to one minute and normally destroys the brain and central nervous system. It also causes complete paralysis due to every muscle in the body contracting and staying contracted while the current is flowing. This makes heartbeat and respiration impossible. The second shock continues the process to ensure the heart beat does not resume. The prisoner is supposed to be rendered unconscious in 1/240th of a second.
After electrocution the body temperature rises to about 138 degrees F and is initially too hot to touch. Heating destroys the body's proteins and "bakes" the organs.
Physical reactions include heaving chest, gurgles, foaming at the mouth, bloody sweat, burning of the hair and skin, and release of urine and faeces.
The body has to be allowed to cool before an autopsy can be performed.
According to Robert H. Kirschner, the deputy chief medical examiner of Cook County, Illinois, "The brain appears cooked in most cases."
According to Judge Brennan, the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and rest on his cheeks. The prisoner often defecates, urinates, and vomits blood and drool. The body turns bright red as its temperature rises, and the prisoner's flesh swells and his skin stretches to the point of breaking. Sometimes the prisoner catches on fire, particularly if he perspires excessively. Witnesses hear a loud and sustained sound like bacon frying, and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh permeates the chamber.
There is some debate about what the electrocuted prisoner experiences before he dies, many doctors believe that he feels himself being burned to death and suffocating, since the shock causes respiratory paralysis as well as cardiac arrest. According to Harold Hillman, "It must feel very similar to the medieval trial by ordeal of being dropped in boiling oil." Because the energy of the shock paralyses the prisoner's muscles, he cannot cry out. "My mouth tasted like cold peanut butter. I felt a burning in my head and my left leg, and I jumped against the straps," according to Willie Francis, a 17-year-old who survived his execution in 1946. Francis was successfully executed a year later.

When things go wrong.
Though all methods of execution can be botched, electrocutions go wrong frequently and dramatically, in part because the equipment in most states is old and hard to repair. At least five have gone awry since 1983. A particularly appalling instance of this took place on the May 4th 1990, in the case of Jesse Joseph Tafero in Florida. According to witnesses, when the executioner flipped the switch, flames and smoke came out of from around the helmet and mask on Tafero's head. Twelve-inch blue and orange flames sprouted from both sides of the mask. The power was stopped, and Tafero took several deep breaths. The superintendent ordered the executioner to halt the current, then try it again. And again. The helmet used artificial sponge (which was initially blamed for the problem) because it is uniformly conductive as it has a uniform thickness. The subsequent enquiry found that the solder joint on the head electrode had separated causing a major high resistance connection. This was proved in court by the two burns on Mr. Tafaro's head. The electrodes had not been checked but this was “hushed up” by the state. According to the state prison medical director, Frank Kligo, who attended Tafero’s execution, it was "less than aesthetically attractive."

Another electrocution in Florida went seriously wrong in 1997 when Pedro Medina was executed on March 25th. Witnesses saw a blue and orange flame shoot 6-10 inches out of the helmet covering Medina's head. It burned for about 10 seconds, filling the chamber with acrid smoke and the smell of burning flesh.
An investigation by prison officials blamed the flare-up on a corroded brass screen used in the helmet.
Michael Morse and Jay Wiechart, both experienced in electric chair design and operation, blamed the malfunction on a dry sponge used in conjunction with a wet sponge in the helmet.
Electrocution was challenged through the Florida courts, by death row inmate Leo Jones as a "cruel and unusual" punishment, something which is of course banned under the Constitution.

However a Florida Supreme Court hearing ruled by 3 to 1 on October 21st 1997 that it use did not constitute cruel or unusual punishment.
Yet another electrocution in Florida seemed to be botched when Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis was executed for murder on July 9th 1999.
Blood appeared to ooze from Davis' nose and mouth as he was hit with 2,300 volts at 7:10 a.m. The governor's office said it was simply a nosebleed. The official photographs of the execution seem to bear this out and are not suitable for those of a squeamish disposition.
By the time Davis was pronounced dead five minutes later, there was blood on the collar of his white shirt, and the blood on his chest had spread to about the size of a dinner plate, even oozing through the buckle holes on the leather chest strap holding him to the chair.

"Nothing went wrong," said Cory Tilley, a spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush. "The chair functioned as it was designed to function and we're comfortable that that worked." Tilley said that despite how things seemed to witnesses of the execution, there was no blood from the mouth or chest.
"The only source of blood was from the nose. He had a nosebleed. Why that was will be in the autopsy." Tilley said there was some speculation the nosebleed was caused by Davis' high blood pressure.
The photographs of the execution showed "distinct signs of pain," according to Dr. Donald Price, a neuro-physiologist, who was commenting upon Davis' half-shut eyes, scrunched-up nose and bruises on his face.

A physicist who specializes in the effects of electricity testified that it was possible for an inmate to remain conscious more than 15 to 30 seconds into the execution.
"It's my opinion that death is not instantaneous and make take several minutes," said Dr. John Wikswo of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
The autopsy report said Davis had "several predisposing risk factors" for nosebleeds, including hypertension and arthritis that required him to take blood-thinners.
Florida had a new oak chair built in 1998 to replace the original one built in 1923. (see picture) Attorneys acting for Allen Lee Davis claimed that Florida Department of Corrections documents show the chair may be operating with "obsolete breakers" and outdated electrical components that it was proposed to replace in April 1999. Florida decided not to install the new parts, including leg and head electrodes, apparently due to the $265,000 cost.
The electric chair seems to possess an especially gruesome fascination and has been the subject of many films.
Electrocution by state 1890-1966
(pre Furman)
StateUsed from/toNo. electrocuted
Alabama1927-1965153
Arkansas1913-1964169
Connecticut1937-196018
Dist. of Columbia1928-195750
Florida1924-1964197
Georgia1924-1964417
Illinois1928-196298
Indiana1914-196159

Kentucky1911-1962171
Louisiana1941-196168
Massachusetts1901-194765
Mississippi1940-195476
Nebraska1920- 195512
New jersey1907-1963160
New Mexico1933-19567
New York1890-1963695
North Carolina1910-1938167
Ohio1897-1963315
Oklahoma1915-196683
Pennsylvania1915-1962350
South Carolina1912-1962241

South Dakota19471
Tennessee1916-1960125
Texas1924-1964361
Vermont1919-19545
Virginia1908-1962 236
West Virginia1951-19599
Total1890-19664,308
During the period 1977 - April 2003 a further 149 men and 2 women have been electrocuted in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Nebraska and Virginia.
Grand total1890-20034459

FIRING SQUAD
It is estimated that 340 men have been executed in the U.S. by firing squad since 1600. Many of these were military executions carried out in the civil war. In modern times only Idaho and Utah have allowed execution by firing squad but in practice only Utah has used it since the resumption of executions in 1977.
Nevada carried out one execution by shooting using an "execution machine". This was on May 14th 1913 when Andrija Mircovich was executed for murder. It is however the most common method of execution in use worldwide - 71 countries use shooting as the method of execution, either exclusively or for some classes of crime or criminal.

Utah.
Under Utah law since 1852 the condemned man had the choice of shooting by firing squad (which complies with the Mormon doctrine of Blood Atonement) or hanging, most prisoners choosing shooting. To date, there have been forty-eight legal executions in the state of Utah. Of these, thirty-nine were by firing squad, six by hanging, and two by lethal injection.
On 17 January 1977 Gary Mark Gilmore became the first person to be executed in the U.S. for ten years after putting up a strenuous campaign to be allowed to die. He had been convicted of the murders by shooting of a motel owner and of a gas station attendant. At the time of the killings Gilmore was on parole from a twelve-year sentence for armed robbery.
Gilmore chose shooting. He was executed just after 8.00 a.m. by six volunteers in the old canning factory in the prison grounds using .30-.30 rifles only five of which had live ammunition, the sixth containing a blank round so that the firing squad would not know who had fired the fatal shots.
He was tied to a chair and had a white target pinned over his heart. After the death warrant had been read to him he was asked if there was anything he wanted to say and uttered the famous line "Lets do it". His execution renewed the capital punishment process in America and was graphically described in the Norman Mailer book and subsequent film "The Executioner's Song".
19 years later John Taylor became the second person to suffer the same fate.
Taylor, 36, was convicted of the 1988 rape and strangulation of 11-year-old Charla King and was duly executed on 26th January 1996 at 12:03 a.m. Mountain Time.
One of the nine media witnesses, Paul Murphy of KTVX-TV Salt Lake, described the scene saying we "saw this very large man strapped to a chair. His eyes were darting back and forth".

He was strapped to the chair (see picture) by his hands and feet and lifted his chin for Warden Hank Galetka to secure a strap around his neck and place the black hood over his head.
At 12:03 a.m., on the count of three, the five riflemen standing 23 feet away fired standard Winchester Model 94 lever-action rifles. Four of these were loaded with a single Winchester Silver Tip 150-grain .30-.30 cartridges while the fifth contained a blank round. The relatively light bullets which expand well at short distances, were fired at a white cloth target pinned over Taylor's heart. Blood rapidly darkened the chest area of his navy blue clothing, and four minutes later, a doctor pronounced him dead. Very little blood spilled into the pan under the chair's mesh seat.

According to a witness as the volley hit him, "Taylor's hands squeezed up, went down, and came up and squeezed again. His chest was covered with blood."
The prison doctor came in, cut holes in the hood and examined Taylor's pupils to verify he was dead, pronouncing him dead at 12:07, according to Ray Wahl, director of field operations at the Utah State Prison. "It went like clockwork, just like we rehearsed." prison warden Hank Galetka said.
"There was no hesitation at all," "Taylor went to his death with steely determination even though only hours before he had to be given medication because his stomach was "doing flip-flops."

Utah’s protocol on execution by firing squad.
Executions are carried out at Point of the Mountain state penitentiary near Salt Lake City.
The firing squad is composed of six members who have volunteered for the job.
At the appropriate time, the condemned prisoner is led to the execution area or chamber. The prisoner is placed in a specially designed chair which has a pan beneath it to catch the blood and other fluids. Restraints are applied to the prisoner’s arms, legs, chest and head. A head restraint is applied loosely around the prisoner’s neck to hold his neck and head in an upright position. The prisoner is dressed in a dark blue boiler suit with a white cloth circle attached by Velcro to the area over the his heart. Behind the execution chair are sandbags to absorb the volley and prevent ricochets. Dark sheets are draped over the sandbags.
Approximately 20 feet in front of the prisoner is a partition. This has firing ports for each member of the execution team. There is a platform rest inside the partition, below the firing ports, for the shooters to steady their rifles. 30-30 calibre rifles are used with standard Winchester Silver Tip 150-grain ammunition.
On one side of the execution area is a room for the state's witnesses. On the other side of the execution area are two witness rooms: one room for witnesses selected by the offender; one room for media witnesses.

When the prisoner is restrained, he is asked by the warden if has any last statement to make. When he has finished a black hood is placed over the his head and the warden leaves the room.
The firing squad members stand in the firing position and take aim at the white cloth circle on the prisoner’s chest. On the command to fire, they fire simultaneously. A physician and medical personnel from the Utah Department of Corrections examine the prisoner after the volley has been fired to determine death.
The estimated average length of time that elapses from the time that the prisoner is restrained to the time that death is determined is eight to ten minutes.
Individuals authorised to attend an execution by firing squad include witnesses selected by the offender, the victim’s family, government witnesses, and administrative staff (as determined by the executive director).
It is possible that other prisoners will elect to die by firing squad in Utah over the coming years, rather than choose the lawful alternative of lethal injection.
How shooting kills
Shooting can be carried out by a single executioner who fires from short range at the back of the head or neck as is the case in China. The intention of shooting at short range is to destroy the vital centers of the medulla (lower brain stem), as happens when a captive bolt is used for slaughtering cattle.
The traditional firing squad is made up of three to six shooters per prisoner who stand or kneel opposite the condemned who is usually tied to a chair or to a stake. Normally the shooters aim at the chest, since this is easier to hit than the head. A firing squad aiming at the head produces the same type of wounds as those produced by a single bullet, but bullets fired at the chest rupture the heart, large blood vessels, and lungs so that the condemned person dies of hemorrhage and shock. It was not unusual in earlier times for the officer in charge of the firing squad to have to give the prisoner a "coup de grace" - a pistol shot to the head to finish them off after the initial volley failed to kill them.

A bullet produces a cavity which has a volume many times that of the bullet. Cavitation is caused by the heat dissipated when the impact of the bullet boils the water and volatile fats in the tissue which it strikes. According to Dr. Le Garde, in his book "Gunshot Injuries", it is proved both in theory and by experimentation, that cavitation is caused by the transfer of the momentum from the fast moving bullet to the tissue which is mostly comprised of incompressible liquid.
Persons hit by bullets feel as if they have been punched - pain comes later if the victim survives long enough to feel it.
When all goes well shooting can provide a quick death but there are many recorded instances of it failing to kill the condemned person immediately. There are also instances of people surviving their execution. It would seem that one of the problems of the firing squad is that it is, typically, composed of volunteers rather than professional executioners and it is a task that many people would not find easy to perform when the time comes to actually squeeze the trigger.

Authorized Methods of Execution by State
AlabamaEffective 7/1/02, lethal injection will be administered unless the inmate requests electrocution.
ArizonaAuthorizes lethal injection for persons sentenced after 11/15/92; those sentenced before that date may select lethal injection or lethal gas.
ArkansasAuthorizes lethal injection for persons committing a capital offense after 7/4/83; those who committed the offense before that date may select lethal injection or electrocution.

CaliforniaProvides that lethal injection be administered unless the inmate requests lethal gas.
ColoradoLethal injection is the sole method.
ConnecticutLethal injection is the sole method.
DelawareLethal Injection is the sole method. Hanging was an alternative for those whose offense occurred prior to 6/13/86, but as of July 2003 no inmates on death row were elligible to choose this alternative and Delaware dismantled its gallows.
FloridaAllows prisoners to choose between lethal injection and electrocution
GeorgiaLethal injection is the sole method. (On October 5, 2001, the Georgia Supreme Court held that the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment and struck down the state's use of the method)

IdahoAuthorizes firing squad only if lethal injection is "impractical".
IllinoisLethal injection is the state's method. However, it authorizes electrocution if lethal injection is ever held to be unconstitutional.
IndianaLethal injection is the sole method.
KansasLethal injection is the sole method.
KentuckyAuthorizes lethal injection for those convicted after March 31, 1998; those who committed the offense before that date may select lethal injection or electrocution
LouisianaLethal injection is the sole method.
MarylandAuthorizes lethal injection for those whose capital offenses occurred on or after 3/25/94; those who committed the offense before that date may select lethal injection or lethal gas.
MississippiLethal injection is the sole method.
MissouriAuthorizes lethal injection or lethal gas; the statute leaves unclear who decides what method to use, the inmate or the Director of the Missouri Department of Corrections.

MontanaLethal injection is the sole method.
NebraskaElectrocution is the sole method.
NevadaLethal injection is the sole method.
New HampshireAuthorizes hanging only if lethal injection cannot be given.
New JerseyLethal injection is the sole method.
New MexicoLethal injection is the sole method.
New YorkLethal injection is the sole method.
North CarolinaLethal injection is the sole method.
OhioLethal injection is the sole method.
OklahomaAuthorizes electrocution if lethal injection is ever held to be unconstitutional and firing squad if both lethal injection and electrocution are held unconstitutional.

OregonLethal injection is the sole method.
PennsylvaniaLethal injection is the sole method.
South CarolinaAllows prisoners to choose between lethal injection and electrocution
South DakotaLethal injection is the sole method.
TennesseeAuthorizes lethal injection for those sentenced after Jan. 1, 1999; others choose between the electric chair and lethal injection.
TexasLethal injection is the sole method.
UtahAllows prisoners to choose between lethal injection and firing squad.
VirginiaAllows prisoners to choose between lethal injection and electrocution
WashingtonProvides that lethal injection be administered unless the inmate requests hanging.
WyomingAuthorizes lethal gas if lethal injection is ever held to be unconstitutional.
U.S. MilitaryLethal injection is the sole method
U.S. GovernmentThe method of execution of Federal prisoners for offenses under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is that of the state in which the conviction took place, pursuant to 18 USC 3596. If the state has no death penalty, the judge may chose the method of another state. For offenses under the 1988 Drug Kingpin Law, the method of executions is lethal injection, pursuant to 28 CFR, Part 26.
(Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment 1996 Bulletin, Table 2 (Dec. 1997); updated by DPIC)
CHAPTER 3.
PROS AND CONS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND PUBLIC OPINION
proscons

The principle of capital punishment is that certain murderers deserve nothing less than death as a just, proportionate and effective punishment. There are problems with the death penalty, but these are with its implementation rather than its principle. Murderers forgo their rights as humans at the moment when they take away the rights of another human. By wielding such a powerful punishment as the response to murder, society is affirming the value that is placed upon the right to life of the innocent person. Many more innocent people have been killed by released, paroled or escaped murderers than innocent people executed. Execution is, in simplest terms, state-sanctioned killing, and it devalues the respect we place on human life; how can we say that killing is wrong if we sanction killing criminals? More importantly, the whole principle is outweighed by the proven risk of executing innocent people. 23 innocent people were executed in the USA in the 20th century. The avoidable killing of an innocent person can never be justified, in any circumstances.

Capital punishment is 100% effective as a deterrent to the criminal being executed; that killer cannot commit any more crimes. As a deterrent to others, it depends on how effectively the death penalty is applied; in the USA where less than 1% of murderers are executed, it is difficult to assess the true effect of deterrence. But for example, a 1985 study (Stephen K. Layson, University of North Carolina) showed that 1 execution deterred 18 murders. Higher execution rates can actually increase violent crime rates. California averaged 6 executions a year from 1952 to 1967, and had twice the murder rate than the period from 1968 until 1991 when there were no executions. In New York, from 1907 to 1964, months immediately following an execution showed a net increase of two murders - an average over a 57-year period.

If and when discrimination occurs, it should be corrected. Consistent application of the death penalty against murderers of all races, and in cases where the victims were of all races, would abolish the idea that it can be a racist tool. This could be done by making it mandatory in all capital cases. Implementation of the death penalty, particularly in America, can suffer from social or racial bias and in fact be used as a weapon against a certain section of society. In the USA nearly 90% of those executed were convicted of killing whites, despite the fact that non-whites make up more than 50% of all murder victims.

Opponents of the death penalty prefer to ignore the fact that they themselves are responsible for its high costs, by causing a never-ending succession of appeals. Prisons in many countries are over-crowded and under-funded, and this problem is made worse by life sentences or delayed death sentences for murderers. Why should the taxpayer bear the cost of supporting a murderer for an entire lifetime? Capital punishment costs more than life without parole. Studies in the US show that capital cases, from arrest to execution, cost between $1 million and $7 million. A case resulting in life imprisonment costs around $500,000.

Different countries and societies can have different attitudes towards the justifiability of executing mentally incompetent or teenaged murderers. If society is against such executions, then in cases where they happen it is a problem with the implementation of capital punishment. For opponents to seize on such cases is to cloud the issue; this is not an argument against the principle. Defendants who are mentally incompetent will often answer "Yes" to questions in the desire to please others. This can lead to false confessions. Over 30 mentally retarded people have been executed in the USA since 1976.

Some criminals are beyond rehabilitation; it may be that capital punishment should be reserved for serial killers, terrorists, murderers of policemen and so on. By executing criminals you are ruling out the possibility of rehabilitation - that they may repent of their crime, serve a sentence as punishment, and emerge as a reformed and useful member of society.
PUBLIC OPINION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Most people, 63 percent, support the death penalty when no other option is presented. But that's down from a high of 80 percent seven years ago, and it's weakly held: Support for executions drops to 46 percent when life without parole is offered as an alternative.

Which penalty do you prefer for murderers
Death penalty46%
Life without parole45

While support for the death penalty is widely known, polls less frequently delve into the public's ambivalence about it, and the support for alternatives. One reason for these views is a growing sense that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to murder; a majority now holds this view, up 20 points in the last 15 years.
This ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll finds broad agreement with two other arguments against the death penalty: That it's applied unfairly across jurisdictions, and that innocent people are sometimes executed. And the strongest argument in favor — that it prevents killers from killing again — is also achieved by life in prison without parole.

Given these views, 51 percent of Americans say they'd support a law replacing the death penalty with mandatory life; 46 percent would oppose such legislation. Equal numbers would support it "strongly" as oppose it strongly — about a quarter on each side.
Fifty-one percent also say they'd support a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty while a commission studies whether it's been administered fairly. And when people are told that such a moratorium currently exists in Illinois, support for a national moratorium advances to 57 percent.

Support or Oppose
SupportOppose
Law replacing death with life/no parole51% 46
National moratorium on death penalty5143
National moratorium (Illinois noted)5746

Pro and Con

There are persuasive arguments for the death penalty as well as against it in the public's mind, which fuels the public's ambivalence about it.
Strongest is that it prevents the killer from killing again: Seventy-two percent of Americans agree with this as an argument in favor of executions, and 48 percent agree strongly. As noted, life without parole presumably accomplishes the same goal, which likely is one reason it's an acceptable alternative to many people.
Sixty percent also think the death penalty is fair because it gives satisfaction and closure to the families of victims; and 56 percent agree with the argument that it's fair because it represents "an eye for an eye — the killer is killed."
At the same time, 68 percent of Americans say the death penalty is unfair "because sometimes an innocent person is executed," and 63 percent say it's unfair because it's applied differently from county to county and state to state.
Another argument gets less credence: Just 37 percent say the penalty is unfair "because it's applied unequally to blacks compared to whites."

Death penalty is...
AgreeDisagree
Fair because killers can't kill again72% 27
Unfair because of mistaken executions6830
Unfair because of jurisdictional differences6331
Fair because it provides closure6037
Fair because it's an eye for an eye56 42
Unfair because of racial differences3753

Deterrent
Another argument in support of the death penalty has lost favor: The notion that it acts as a deterrent to murder. In a 1985 Gallup poll, 62 percent agreed with that view. By 1991 it was down to 51 percent. Today just 43 percent agree.

Is the death penalty a deterrent to murder?
YesNo
April 2001 43% 52
June 1991 5141
January 1985 6231

Political
The death penalty also is less of a political issue than might be assumed: Just 28 percent of Americans say it's "very important" in their vote that a candidate for state or national office agrees with their position on the issue. That includes roughly equal numbers of supporters and opponents of the death penalty.
It's political in another sense, however: The issue is one that sharply divides political groups in this country. Given a choice of the death penalty vs. life in prison for convicted murderers, Republicans favor the death penalty by a 2-1 margin, while more Democrats prefer the life sentence. Independents divide right down the middle.
Similarly, while 61 percent of Democrats said they'd support a law replacing the death penalty with mandatory life, this declines to 49 percent of independents and 36 percent of Republicans. Democrats and independents each account for just under a third of the public, slightly outnumbering Republicans.

Men and Women
There's also a sharp division on the death penalty between the races, with blacks much more apt to oppose it; and between the sexes. On the basic measure, the death penalty with no alternative offered, it's supported by 70 percent of men, compared to 58 percent of women.
Given the alternative of life without parole, 55 percent of men prefer the death penalty, compared to 39 percent of women. And a law replacing the death penalty with mandatory life is favored by 44 percent of men, compared to 57 percent of women.