Why isn't the guillotine used for executions?

jimbob said:
Just an aside - I'd disagree that DC is less dangerous than AC. If you grab a live DC rail, it can cause your muscles to lock keeping the current flowing through you. An AC rail will tend to throw you away when the cycle reverses. Also it is current that kills, not voltage - otherwise a static shock would almost always be lethal.
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Absolutely agree. Of course, when the electrical source has enough power (which is not the case with static), the current will be linearly proportional with the voltage (Ohm's law), all other things being equal.

Edison, who already had built and invested in DC power generation systems, tried to smear Westinghouse's AC systems as "more dangerous", i.a., by electrocuting a retired circus elephant with AC.
 
jimbob said:
Just an aside - I'd disagree that DC is less dangerous than AC. If you grab a live DC rail, it can cause your muscles to lock keeping the current flowing through you. An AC rail will tend to throw you away when the cycle reverses. Also it is current that kills, not voltage - otherwise a static shock would almost always be lethal.
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.
Like the shock I get at the jewelry counter at Sears, every time I touch the display cases on entering the store. One lap around the store, touch, shock.
 
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I understand that electricity will make your muscles contract. If it goes though your fingers they will make a fist. If you are then holding the wire then you had better hope there are some safety features.

Top tip. If you want to touch something and am not sure if it is alive then use the back of your hand. That way if it is alive then your arm will contract and move away from danger. It is not important if it is AC or DC. If as a result you have a burn then it is on the back of your hand and not the front stopping you from holding anything.
 
Crossbow said:
As for the pain involved with beheading, that goes back to the days of the French Revolution where the famous scientist Lovousille (sorry for mangling his name) blinked his eyes several times after he was beheaded in the late 1780's.
Therefore, he was able to show that one remains mentally alert for at least several seconds after the blade drops; consequently, there may be some considerable pain involved as well.
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Oh good grief...............
Firstly his name was Antoine Lavoisier, it's not difficult to find. Especially as it's been mentioned several times in this very thread. Where the myth that you repeat is also addressed.
 
catsmate1 said:
Oh good grief...............
Firstly his name was Antoine Lavoisier, it's not difficult to find. Especially as it's been mentioned several times in this very thread. Where the myth that you repeat is also addressed.
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To be fair, while that incident didn't happen to Lavoisier, it also didn't happen to Lovousille.
 
I've always thought that it'd be better to just have the condemned play with a Bop-It! rigged with explosives that detonate once they lose.
 
rjh01 said:
I understand that electricity will make your muscles contract. If it goes though your fingers they will make a fist. If you are then holding the wire then you had better hope there are some safety features.

Top tip. If you want to touch something and am not sure if it is alive then use the back of your hand. That way if it is alive then your arm will contract and move away from danger. It is not important if it is AC or DC. If as a result you have a burn then it is on the back of your hand and not the front stopping you from holding anything.
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Topper tip, use a voltmeter.
 
Mudcat said:
I'm sorry but I never seen a clear argument why that is necessarily so by the anti-death penalty crowd. Sure, there's always the remote chance that an innocent person might get the needle or the chair but it's not like it's a sentence that is handed out lightly.



But what I want to really know is how is executing hardened, irredeemable killers and rapists any different from putting down a rabid dog? Do we really want to be keeping these wastes of space alive when their victims are dead or scared for life?
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In my opinion, it says more about us, than it does the condemned.

There's much to be said for mercy. Lock em up and toss away the key.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Obviously, lethal injection is cruel and unusual. So:
Let's bring back the firing squad!
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Could work if they fired at the back of the person's head. And the person was wearing a bullet proof vest. That way if any bullets missed the head then they would probably not hit the person at all. Even better the body would not be injured so it could be harvested for organs. The people who would get the organs would be waiting nearby. One service the dead people could provide. This is what they did in China.
 
bobtaftfan said:
Oh, boo-hoo for the poor little ole rapist-murderer Clayton Lockett whose lethal injection caused him some pain! Sheesh, do you have any idea what that guy did and why he got the death penalty?

Lockett & Load
http://www.anncoulter.com/

I couldn't care less if such a vicious killer suffered some pain while he was dying. Memo: don't rape and murder people.
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I was waiting for this to come. So what is your favoured form of execution? Would you have any problem with someone being hung drawn and quartered?
 
rjh01 said:
Could work if they fired at the back of the person's head. And the person was wearing a bullet proof vest. That way if any bullets missed the head then they would probably not hit the person at all. Even better the body would not be injured so it could be harvested for organs. The people who would get the organs would be waiting nearby. One service the dead people could provide. This is what they did in China.
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What they did, and still do, in China is use people as involuntary organ donors for such heinous crimes as practicing Falun Gong or being an Uighur.

You may want to find a different role model for executions.
 
Crossbow said:
Actually, execution by lethal injection is fairly new in the USA. I think that it first started showing up about 30 years ago.

Before then it was death by hanging or posion gas that was usually used.
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Right, so when it was introduced was it not 'unusual'?
 
Without repeating what has already been covered in this thread and others:

1. I am against the death penalty. My reasoning differs from many it seems (For the record no I shed no tears for the Masons, Bundys, and Dahmers of the world and refuse to be guilt tripped over that.) but I am opposed to it.
2. Concerning the hypothetical "What execution method would you choose for yourself?" I would actually want a... well not violent death per se but I would want to feel my death. I wouldn't want to just drift off the sleep. I paid for my ticket I'd wanna ride the ride. I'd probably go firing squad. I'd want it quick but powerful if that makes any sense.
3. Putting aside the capital punishment debate and operating under the idea that if we do have it what method would be most civilized... I'd think the concept of lethal injection probably is the best way to go. I'd say for most cases a massive flush of sterile saline to open the veins, followed by a massive dose of general anesthetic, then following by massive doses of a one-two-three punch of a paralytic, heart stopper (say potassium chloride), a powerful poison would do it.
4. Calling a punishment "cruel and unusual" simply because it is new seems rather pointless. By that definition all punishments start out as cruel. This would make the concept of rehabilitation a thousand times more "unusual" then the death penalty.
 
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JoeBentley said:
TL;DR version, because we're more concerned about bad the executions look instead of how bad they actually are.
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On that note, isn't that showing some civility towards the accused? If the method of execution looks scarier, not only to us, but also to them, then it would seem like that is a human rights issue that has been addressed by not using the guillotine.
 
ddt said:
Italy - the country where the plant was relocated - would not give an export licence to the US unless the manufacturer could absolutely, dead certain, 100% guarantee that none of the sodium pentothal would end up in prisons for use in executions. They couldn't, and therefore they didn't get the export licence. There are other plants in other European countries that produce sodium pentothal and face the same.

Because of the (possible) use for the death penalty, American thus also suffer that they can't get sodiun pentothal for medical uses.
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On thing I find curious about this is the United States has a strong entrepreneurial culture. There's an opportunity here for an existing manufacturer to step up to the plate and start making it on U.S. soil. I suspect sales wouldn't be sufficient for a startup to set up a lab to manufacture it and make a profit, but surely there must be a large enough company in the States that could set aside a day or two in one of its labs to make sufficient quantities for the US market. So why aren't they?
 
One thing I see being overlooked here is that spilled blood and tissue is biohazardous these days, especially with the rates of hepatitis and HIV infection in prisons.

Any method of execution that caused bleedout or splatter (and that includes the explosive ideas) would require specially trained workers in full hazmat gear to sterilize the entire scene afterwards.

Staff involved in the execution would need full protective gear as well, All that would cost a lot more money to the prison. Of course, they could let the requirements slide... until the first staff member contracted a disease and sued the pants off them.
 
lobosrul said:
At last a rifle was fired into the back of his head, and the blood poured out of the nose and mouth like water from a briskly handled pump. This was the most horrible sight of all. I have seen death in all its forms, but never anything to equal this man's end.
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Budd Dwyer?
 
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