As far as I know, no European states have a death penalty any longer, although quite a few countries did within the past 40 years. Britain had hanging. The national mood changed on a day when there was to be a hanging, and people would be talking about it at school.
More recently, I’ve read ”The Hangman’s Tale”, the autobiography of Syd Dernley, who served the government as a professional hangman. When I read this book, I came to realise that such executions were much more swift than I could have imagined. The condemned person would have been assessed – the person’s weight was critical, as this determined the distance of the drop which itself was controlled by the length of the rope which was attached to a wooden beam by means of a metal peg. The peg could be inserted into one of a number of holes arranged vertically in the beam to alter its effective length. Someone of small stature might have to be dropped 7’6” or even 8’, but for a large man the drop would need to be only about 6’6”. Forget TV dramatisations with the Priest, the glass of brandy etc.; it wasn’t like that. Dernley and crew would burst into the cell, the condemned person would be seized, rushed into the adjoining gallows room and blindfolded, and his feet bound together with a leather strap. Once the rope had been put around his neck and the noose tightened, the crew vacated the platform, the lever was pulled and the floor fell away. Dernley assures the reader that in most cases, this entire procedure was over in about 8 or 9 seconds. We are also led to believe that death was instantaneous, the neck being broken like a dried twig. Dernley and his team would then go to enjoy a breakfast of bacon and eggs, returning some 45 minutes later to take down the body. The death penalty in Britain was abolished in 1965.
In France, there was the guillotine, which seemed to be a somewhat foolproof method. I never heard of any botched jobs. Spain had a firing squad, and also garrotting. I didn’t like the sound of garrotting at all. Some sort of strangulation which culminates in the snapping of the spinal cord.
That’s all history now, with the USA as the only remaining country in the civilised western world to retain capital punishment. I am actually in favour of the death penalty. I feel that if murder has been committed, the perpetrator deserves to forfeit his or her own life. However, I also believe that there should be no spectacle. It should be as humane as possible, regardless of the crime committed. But what method would that be? Is there any “nice” way to go?
In 1981 when I was living in Illinois, the execution of Steve Judy was carried out in the electric chair of the neighbouring state of Indiana. I saw Judy interviewed on TV, and he was just a few years younger than I was. He had killed three girls in front of their mother, and then killed the mother. A heinous crime indeed, and there is no doubt that Judy deserved to die – he said so himself. He could have intervened on his own behalf and had the sentence commuted to life imprisonment, but didn’t. The damnedest thing is that he seemed so rational in those TV interviews.
I couldn’t sleep that night. The following day, news of Judy’s execution was announced by the newscaster Sam Donaldson, who actually made two errors. The first error was that the voltage used was given as 23 thousand volts – the initial voltage was actually 23 hundred volts. And the second error was that he was grinning from ear to ear as he said it. My gut reaction to that was “you ****ing ***t. A measure of decorum would have been appropriate there”. Yeah I know, some crimes are bad, but it does not behove a civilised society to glorify the moment at which a condemned man is put to death.
I have often wondered which choice of execution method I would make if I were a condemned man facing capital punishment, were I to be in that unfortunate position, and were such choice to be offered. Electric chair? Surely the most terrifying form. Gas Chamber? Not pleasant. Firing squad? Probably swift, but violent. Lethal injection? Possibly the best of a bad bunch – what do you think? Maybe hanging wasn’t so bad after all...
