Why not hanging for carrying out the death penalty?

Just ran into this description of execution by electric chair. Hard to imagine how it was ever acceptable...
Supreme Court Justice William Brennan once offered the following description of an execution by electric chair:

…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 fire….Witnesses hear a loud and sustained sound like bacon frying, and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh permeates the chamber. [2]

At postmortem, the body is hot enough to blister if touched, and the autopsy is delayed while the internal organs cool. There are third degree burns with blackening where the electrodes met the skin of the scalp and legs. According to Robert H. Kirschner, the deputy chief medical examiner of Cook County, “The brain appears cooked in most cases.” [5]
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And hanging, from the same source...
For execution by hanging, the prisoner may be weighed the day before the execution, and a rehearsal is done using a sandbag of the same weight as the prisoner. This is to determine the length of ‘drop’ necessary to ensure a quick death. If the rope is too long, the prisoner could be decapitated, and if it is too short, the strangulation could take as long as 45 minutes. The rope, which should be 3/4-inch to 1 1/4-inch in diameter, must be boiled and stretched to eliminate spring or coiling. The knot should be lubricated with wax or soap “to ensure a smooth sliding action,” according to the 1969 U.S. Army manual. [3][4]

Immediately before the execution, the prisoner’s hands and legs are secured, he or she is blindfolded, and the noose is placed around the neck, with the knot behind the left ear. The execution takes place when a trap-door is opened and the prisoner falls through. The prisoner’s weight should cause a rapid fracture-dislocation of the neck. However, instantaneous death rarely occurs. [5]
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The highlighted reference is to:

This Is Your Death
Executions by hanging, shooting, electrocution, poison gas, and lethal injection aren't going to ...
by Jacob Weisberg
The New Republic, July 1, 1991, pp. 23-27

Which is "Still Under Copyright and Not Publicly Available."
 
Why not carbon monoxide poisoning or Carbon Dioxide, my understanding is you just kind of fall asleep then die.
 
ahhell said:
Why not carbon monoxide poisoning or Carbon Dioxide, my understanding is you just kind of fall asleep then die.
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Absolutely not. It's the presence of CO2 that cause respiratory distress or 'gasping for breath'. CO poisoning also has noticeable side-effects along the way.

Nitrogen, Helium and others do what you describe.
 
Olmstead said:
Okay, this will work once. Afterwards, every prisoner on death row gets to experience some lovely psychological torture as part of their sentence.
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I suppose so, hadn't thought much about multiples. I still think doing it in their sleep would be better. They're all on death row, so they know what awaits them. They could at least have the option of a painless death if they themselves want to drop the drama.

adding to the above, I think once you're condemned to death, the issue of psychological torture has become more relative than absolute.
 
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I've read that the Japanese don't tell the victim, sorry, I mean the condemned when he'll be hanged. The guards just enter his cell one morning without preamble and hustle him out to the gallows.
 
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catsmate said:
No.
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GlennB said:
Absolutely not. It's the presence of CO2 that cause respiratory distress or 'gasping for breath'. CO poisoning also has noticeable side-effects along the way.

Nitrogen, Helium and others do what you describe.
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To be clear, I wasn't actually serious, the problem with the death penalty isn't how cruel the method is but the lack of accuracy in identifying actual perpetrators of crimes.
 
Emily's Cat said:
1) I think nitrogen displaces oxygen more efficiently than helium does.
2) Nitrogen will accomplish the alleviation of fear and anxiety *while* killing them.
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Sorry, I'd missed this post.

Is that true? That nitrogen's better for this than helium? If so, sure, that might be the way to go. (Like I'd said, I half-remember that documentary I'd watched mention Helium, in connection with that suicide place.)

About nitrogen alleviating fear and anxiety: laughing gas kind of does that, in fact does that roaringly, I know. But laughing gas clearly won't do, because it is an anesthetic, not poison! And nitrogen, would it actually make people go ha-ha before they die? Seems unlikely --- first, because nitrous oxide is different than nitrogen, and two, because someone inhaling nitrogen will die immediately, won't they, before having time to either laugh or cry? The making-them-smile-via-chemicals part will need to kick in well before the actual killing gas does, surely, maybe hours before.

But in any case, if as you say nitrogen is more efficacious than helium for doing the actual killing, then sure, that would be the way to go, as far as I'm concerned.
 
If it's personal choice - for me anything that destroys the brain instantly, quite like the huge weight and squash.
 
I mean if we're taking orders, I'd like to die via a harem of drop dead gorgeous supermodels rendering me deceased by excessive bliss.

Just remind me what crime I have to commit.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
I mean if we're taking orders, I'd like to die via a harem of drop dead gorgeous supermodels rendering me deceased by excessive bliss.

Just remind me what crime I have to commit.
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Just thinking about it. We have ways.

Shudder to think how high the suicide rate would skyrocket if that could be shown be true or even at least close to it.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
I mean if we're taking orders, I'd like to die via a harem of drop dead gorgeous supermodels rendering me deceased by excessive bliss.

Just remind me what crime I have to commit.
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I somehow misread the highlighted as dropping dead gorgeous supermodels on you, and had a very confused moment of admiration, repulsion, and arousal.
 
Chanakya said:
Sorry, I'd missed this post.

Is that true? That nitrogen's better for this than helium? If so, sure, that might be the way to go. (Like I'd said, I half-remember that documentary I'd watched mention Helium, in connection with that suicide place.)

About nitrogen alleviating fear and anxiety: laughing gas kind of does that, in fact does that roaringly, I know. But laughing gas clearly won't do, because it is an anesthetic, not poison! And nitrogen, would it actually make people go ha-ha before they die? Seems unlikely --- first, because nitrous oxide is different than nitrogen, and two, because someone inhaling nitrogen will die immediately, won't they, before having time to either laugh or cry? The making-them-smile-via-chemicals part will need to kick in well before the actual killing gas does, surely, maybe hours before.

But in any case, if as you say nitrogen is more efficacious than helium for doing the actual killing, then sure, that would be the way to go, as far as I'm concerned.
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The air around you is 78% nitrogen. It doesn't kill you, nor does it make you "go ha-ha."

To clarify the issue here, nitrogen does NOT kill you. The proper term for this method of execution is NOT "nitrogen suffocation," it is "inert gas asphyxiation." It is the lack of oxygen that kills the condemned.

Inert gas asphyxiation

When humans breathe in an asphyxiant gas, such as pure nitrogen, helium, neon, argon, methane, or any other physiologically inert gas, they exhale carbon dioxide without re-supplying oxygen. Physiologically inert gases (those that have no toxic effect, but merely dilute oxygen) are generally free of odor and taste. Accordingly, the human subject detects little abnormal sensation as the oxygen level falls. This leads to asphyxiation (death from lack of oxygen) without the painful and traumatic feeling of suffocation (the hypercapnic alarm response, which in humans arises mostly from carbon dioxide levels rising), or the side effects of poisoning. In scuba diving rebreather accidents, there is often little sensation, however, a slow decrease in oxygen breathing gas content has effects which are quite variable.[7] By contrast, suddenly breathing pure inert gas causes oxygen levels in the blood to fall precipitously, and may lead to unconsciousness in only a few breaths, with no symptoms at all.[3]
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Maybe if we re-introduce the old term "rapture of the deep," we can persuade some of the holier than thou avengers to try it out for themselves.

"Drop dead gorgeous" is a quality difficult to achieve. There's some rumor that Medusa got there, but witnesses tended not to report back.
 
I'm really stuck on that image, disturbing though it is. I mean a bunch of dead supermodels being dropped on the condemned from I guess a high building would seem to detract from their gorgeousness.
 
Thermal said:
I'm really stuck on that image, disturbing though it is. I mean a bunch of dead supermodels being dropped on the condemned from I guess a high building would seem to detract from their gorgeousness.
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They're too bony, you may as well drop a bunch of knives on the condemned. They'd be slashed to ribbons rather than crushed.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
You know what? You people are taking all the fun out of dying.
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Hey, I'm not the one with fantasies about bony yet well dressed corpses being flung off a high building till they kill me. Mine usually involve them alive and having had a sandwich recently and being more gravitationally stable.
 
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