Who comes up with execution methods?

[CRSP]

Methods like lethal injection, gas chambers, and the electric chair. Who dreams these things up, and how are they tested?

[Mister Peanut]

I think we should bring back the firing squad. Shooting some murderer would be a lot more fun than shooting skeets!

[Oliveloaf]

Hanging is the horror that creeps me out most. The hood, the waiting, the tying the fee together.

Awful.

[TheFlame]

[modhat:1k6xooi0]Please note that this thread is in QA, and try to answer the question rather than simply posting your thoughts on the topic of the OP. Thanks.[/modhat:1k6xooi0]

[danceswithcats]

Hanging is the horror that creeps me out most. The hood, the waiting, the tying the fee together.

Awful.

They charge a fee to hang you?

[danceswithcats]

Hanging is the horror that creeps me out most. The hood, the waiting, the tying the fee together.

Awful.

They charge a fee to hang you?

[modhat:2wg5ufl6]Stop that![/modhat:2wg5ufl6] Sorry-I admonished myself.

[Santo Rugger]

Wiki has a pretty good synopsis of the electric chair.

Alfred P. Southwick developed the idea of using electric current as a method of execution when he saw an intoxicated man die after touching an exposed terminal on a live generator.[2]

As Southwick was a dentist accustomed to performing procedures on subjects in chairs, his electrical device appeared in the form of a chair.

In 1887, after a particularly gruesome and bloody hanging was reported,[citation needed] New York State established a committee to determine a new, more humane system of execution to replace hanging. Neither Thomas Edison nor Nikola Tesla—as part of the War of Currents—wanted their electrical system to be chosen because they feared that consumers would not want in their homes the same ("dangerous") type of electricity used to kill criminals.

The first electric chair was made by Harold P. Brown. Brown was an employee of Thomas Edison, hired for the purpose of researching electrocution and for the development of the electric chair.[citation needed] Since Brown worked for Edison, and Edison promoted Brown's work, the development of the electric chair is often erroneously credited to Edison himself. Brown's design was based on use of Nikola Tesla's alternating current (AC), which was marketed by George Westinghouse and was then just emerging as the rival to Edison's less transport-efficient direct current (DC), which was further along in commercial development. The decision to use AC was partly driven by Edison's claims that AC was more lethal than DC. However, at the very high currents used for the device, which could be as high as ten amperes, the difference in lethality between the two types of currents was approximately a factor of two, which was marginal.

In order to prove that AC electricity was dangerous and therefore better for executions, Brown and Edison, who promoted DC electricity, publicly killed many animals with AC for the press in order to ensure that alternating current was associated with electrical death. It was at these events that the term "electrocution" was coined. The term "electrocution" originally referred only to electrical execution (from which it is a portmanteau word), and not to accidental electrical deaths. However, since no English word was available for the latter process, with the new rise of commercial electricity, the word "electrocution" eventually took over as a description of all circumstances of electrical death. Edison tried to introduce the verb "to Westinghouse" for denoting the art of executing persons with AC current. Most of their experiments were conducted at Edison's West Orange, New Jersey, laboratory in 1888.

The demonstrations on electrocution apparently had their intended effects, and the AC electric chair was adopted by the committee in 1889.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair#History

ETA: Lethal injection too:

The concept of lethal injection as a means of putting someone to death was first proposed in 1888 by Julius Mount Bleyer,[2] a New York doctor who praised it as being cheaper and more humane than hanging.[3] Bleyer's idea, however, was never used. The British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1949–53) also considered lethal injection, but eventually rejected it after pressure from the British Medical Association (BMA).[3]

In 1977, Oklahoma's state medical examiner, Jay Chapman, proposed a new, 'more humane' method of execution, known as Chapman's Protocol: "An intravenous saline drip shall be started in the prisoner's arm, into which shall be introduced a lethal injection consisting of an ultra-short-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic."[4] After being approved by anesthesiologist Stanley Deutsch, Reverend Bill Wiseman introduced the method[5] into the Oklahoma legislature where it passed and was quickly adopted (Title 22, Section 1014(A)). Since then, thirty-seven of the thirty-eight states using capital punishment have introduced lethal injection statutes.[4] On 7 December 1982, Texas became the first state to use lethal injection to carry out capital punishment, for the execution of Charles Brooks, Jr..[6]

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

[danceswithcats]

Wasn't the church (choose your branch) responsible for developing some means of torture/execution?

[DocCathode]

Wasn't the church (choose your branch) responsible for developing some means of torture/execution?

I'm guessing that the Spanish Inquisition was inventive in those areas. I'll see if I can find my copy of a History Of Torture. Information on capital punishment will be in Pannati's Extraordinary Endings Of Practically Everything And Everybody.

[McNutty]

I've always wondered why they don't anesthetize the subjects before execution. There are always arguments about whether lethal injection is humane (and there are cases where it goes wrong and pushes the argument toward the "inhumane" side). Wouldn't anesthetizing the subject make that pretty much moot?

[Santo Rugger]

They do. That's what the sodium pentothal is for.

[McNutty]

Huh. I was under the impression they were kept conscious. Learn something new every day, I guess.

[Zsofia]

Most of the modern ones are invented by people trying to make it more humane. The guillotine, for example, is a marvel of efficiency and a hell of a lot more humane than hanging or decapitation by axe - it never misses and it's over in seconds. It's also pretty error-proof. And cheap! People just don't like it because of that nasty French Revolution, and plus it's gross. So they try, say, lethal injection, which is much nicer for the witnesses, but there are doubts about how humane it is. It's always a trade off.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

Most of the modern ones are invented by people trying to make it more humane. The guillotine, for example, is a marvel of efficiency and a hell of a lot more humane than hanging or decapitation by axe - it never misses and it's over in seconds. It's also pretty error-proof. And cheap! People just don't like it because of that nasty French Revolution, and plus it's gross. So they try, say, lethal injection, which is much nicer for the witnesses, but there are doubts about how humane it is. It's always a trade off.

Or there's the way that William Marwood revolutionized the age-old practice of hanging:

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

[Zsofia]

Or there's the way that William Marwood revolutionized the age-old practice of hanging:

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

Yeah, but if you're not careful about the long drop sometimes the head pops off. Same problem as the guillotine.

[Guinastasia]

ETA: never mind-I just read the link on Marwood.

I remember when "Jesus of Nazareth" was on when I was a kid, and seeing one of the Apostles beheaded scared the, well, bejesus out of me. Of course, had I known then what I know now, I'd have realized that the guy (I think it was James) lucked out.

It's too bad we can't bring back some modern version of the guilotine, if we have to have capital punishment. It's probably the quickest and most effective means. (You could probably arrange to have it done in a chamber that you could then hose down, I guess?

[hendo]

One guy who made something of a name for himself for attempting to make the death penalty more efficient and reliable was Fred Leuchter. He's a fascinating and rather troubling character, and you can see his story in the fantastic film Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. It's definitely in my Top 10 Documentaries list.

[ivan astikov]

Thomas Edison's 'execution' of an elephant to prove a point in that movie, tells me all I need to know about the mentality of people designing capital punishment equipment.

[Harmonious Discord]

I never could figure why they think a hanging was worse for the person if their head popped off. That would provide instant blood pressure loss and unconsciousness. I think that was touted as inhuman by the officials after there wasn't any kicking to entertain the crowds that came to see a hanging.

[AllWalker]

Anyone can come up with an execution method. In The Probability Broach, L. Neil Smith proposes a society where murderers are left in a cold, dark room until they starve to death. But that wouldn't catch on in the real world. The trick is to make it quick, clean and painless.

[puppygod]

Quick, clean and painless?

Personally, I'm slightly on the anti-death penalty side, but if we have to kill somebody, why not go with vacuum chamber? Or rather low-oxygen chamber? Have a room with very efficient ventilation system that displaces whole volume of air every several second, and then switch from 78% nitrogen to 99% nitrogen. Almost instant blackout with next breath.

[AllWalker]

A vacuum chamber would not be clean. No no no. Plus, it's a good idea to avoid creating vacuums wherever possible, mostly because they are expensive.

A nitrogen filled room would be quick, clean and painless, but it wouldn't look painless. Better for the onlookers than hanging, but they could still thrash about with their final deaths. But then, execution is used, so I don't know.

Lethal injection is "nice" because the prisoner just... goes to sleep. No fuss, doesn't look horrific thanks to the sedative.

[alphaboi]

...Wouldn't anesthetizing the subject make that pretty much moot?

Don't the Saudis dope up condemned prisoners so they act all calm & docile before the crowds?