Southern Executioner Id Hang Them Again

Hanged past the neck until dead!
The processes and physiology of judicial hanging.

Contents � please click on the blueish hyper links below to navigate round this page.

Introduction	How hanging causes death	Execution equipment
The processes of judicial hanging	Short drib/suspension	The gallows , noose & hood
Short drop	Pole hanging	Pinioning
Suspension hanging	Standard drib	Mod hangings described.
Standard driblet	Measured or "long drib"	Is hanging painful?
Long driblet	Mail mortem findings	Hanging versus Lethal Injection.
Table of drops	After the execution.	Conclusions

Please note! Equally this folio contains graphic images of real executions which some may discover disturbing they must exist accessed manually by clicking on the links.

Introduction.
Hanging is the oldest but most widely used method of execution in the world today. In 2018, at to the lowest degree 412 men and 7 women were hanged in ten countries, down from 737 men and 9 women in twelve countries during 2017.� These executions took place in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan , Botswana, Arab republic of egypt , Iran , Iraq , Nippon , Pakistan Singapore, Sudan and Syria .� Iran too carried out a number of public hangings of men.� See Overview of 2022 for more details.

Hanging remains the standard method of execution in many retentionist countries, notably Nihon, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, India, Islamic republic of pakistan, Bangladesh, several African countries, including Botswana, Republic of kenya and Zimbabwe, and some Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Syria and in almost Caribbean states.� Information technology is also a lawful method, every bit an option to lethal injection, in the American country of Washington which has carried out two hangings since the re-introduction of the capital punishment in 1976.
It was used extensively in Republic of iraq under Saddam Hussein and continues to exist the lawful method in that location under the new government which carried out 43 executions during 2022 according to official figures. Republic of iraq uses short drop hanging.

Hanging originated as a method of execution in Persia (now Iran ) most 2500 years ago for male criminals only, (women were strangled at the pale for the sake of decency!) It was the method of option in many countries as information technology produced a highly visible deterrent without the blood and gore of beheading. In early times, information technology was considered ideal considering it was the simplest method to carry out, did not give the condemned person a particularly cruel death (by the standards of the day), fabricated a good public spectacle as the prisoner was above the level of the viewers and because the equipment was easy to come by - a tree, a piece of rope and a ladder or cart, being available everywhere. Unlike beheading there was no requirement for a skilled executioner. Beheading was the other almost common form of execution, adopted as the sole means by some countries.

There is no ways of knowing how many people have hanged worldwide in the final 2,000 years but information technology is probably at to the lowest degree half a 1000000. From 1800 and 1964, over 5,000 people suffered death past hanging in Britain . In America it is estimated that some 9,300 people including up to 356 women were hanged from the early on 1600's upward to 1996. Hanging was the normal form of execution in many countries up to the cease of the 19th century when at that place was a general trend to abolition or to utilize supposedly more than humane methods than the type of hanging used at that fourth dimension (short drop). It was the standard method in U.k. and its colonies and was widely used in France prior to the French Revolution and also in Federal republic of germany and pre-communist Russian federation . It was the lawful method in all states of America upwardly to 1890 and continued in some until suspension of the death sentence in 1968. Hanging was too used past many other countries that accept since abolished capital punishment such as Australia , Austria , Canada , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Ireland , New Zealand , Poland and South Africa . Hitler reintroduced information technology to Nazi Federal republic of germany and very large numbers of prisoners were executed by this method in prisons, concentration camps and in the "field" by German soldiers between 1937 and 1945 (run into The execution of women by the Nazis during World State of war Two ).

The processes of judicial hanging.

There are four primary forms of hanging.

• Short drop hanging where the prisoner drops just a few inches, and their suspended body weight and concrete struggling causes the noose to tighten, normally resulting in death by strangulation or carotid or Vagal reflex.� Pole hanging is a variation on this method.
• Suspension hanging where the executee is lifted into the air using a crane or other mechanism. Death is acquired in the same fashion as with short drop hanging.
• Standard drop hanging where the prisoner drops a predetermined corporeality, typically 4-6 anxiety, which may or may not intermission their neck. This was the normal method adopted in America in the later 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Finally, measured or �long drib� hanging which became universal in Britain from 1874, where the distance the person falls when the trapdoors open is calculated according to their weight, summit and physique and is designed to break the neck. This method was adopted in British Colonies and by some other countries who wished to make executions more humane.
  Each of these processes are examined in detail below.

The "Short Drop" method.
Hanging using niggling or no drop is still used by some Middle Eastern countries, notably, Islamic republic of iran . Information technology is far more common in the 21st century than long drop hanging.
Short driblet hanging was finer universal up to effectually 1850 and was usually carried out in public. The prisoner could exist suspended by a multifariousness of ways, from the dorsum of a cart (or afterwards a motor vehicle), from a horse as was sometimes used in America, or by removing the platform on which they stood, as was used in Nazi hangings and likewise in present mean solar day Iranian ones carried out inside prisons, or past some form of trap door driblet mechanism equally was used in U.k. from 1760 and adopted past many other countries.
This 1809 pic of the triple hanging on the �New Drop� gallows outside the Debtor'southward Door of Newgate in London shows clearly how little drib was given at that time.

Suspension hanging .
This method is currently used in Iran for public hangings and was as well used for some executions when the Taliban controlled Afghanistan where executees were hanged from the barrels of tanks and from mobile crane jibs. In Iran , both mobile crane and recovery truck jibs are used. All of these have hydraulic mechanisms for raising them, so the jib serves as both the gallows and the means of getting the prisoner suspended.
In America , instead of the conventional gallows that dropped the prisoner through a trapdoor, some states used a method where weights connected to the rope jerked the person upwards when they were released by the hangman. This method was used in 1874, for the hanging of William Eastward. Udderzook in West Chester, Pennsylvania and also for Charles Thiede in Utah in 1896.
Connecticut used a similar arrangement for the execution of Gerald Chapman on April the 26th, 1926. A weight was connected to the rope which passed over a pulley. The warden operated a lever with his foot to allow the weight to fall, so pulling Chapman 12 feet into the air with such force that his cervix was broken.� In New York state Roxalana Druze was rather less fortunate when she was hanged for the murder of her husband in 1887.� Every bit a result New York adult electrocution as its method of execution although men continued to be hanged there until the cease of 1889.

Standard drib hanging .
A standardised driblet, of between four and six feet, was used in many American hangings during the afterward part of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. This was not worked out against the weight of the individual, but was often equivalent to their height. Information technology was considered equally an advance on the brusque drop method previously used. A drib of this distance was often not sufficient to intermission the prisoner's neck, however, and many yet died by strangulation, although in a lot of cases they were knocked unconscious by the force of the drop and the impact of the heavy coiled knot against the side of the cervix. Occasionally, they were decapitated when the drop proved to be too long, as happened at the execution of Eva Dugan in Arizona in 1928. Standard drops were given to the 11 senior Nazis executed afterwards the Nuremberg trials and several were reported to have died slowly. The Lincoln conspirators were given a drop of five feet at their hanging in 1865 and at least ii of the four struggled for some time after they were suspended. A number of hangings of German war criminals carried out under American jurisdiction at Landsberg and Bruchsal in Germany were filmed.� Some of these films show the hangman attaching the rope to the beam so that the noose was laying on the trap doors.� This resulted a in drop roughly equivalent to the summit of the prisoner.� In the motion-picture show clips there is seldom obvious signs of struggling, e.g. wild vibrations of the rope.

The "Long drop" or measured driblet method.
In 1872, William Marwood introduced the concept of an accurately calculated drop for the execution of Frederick Horry at Lincoln prison, as a scientifically worked out way of giving the prisoner a humane death. This concept had been developed past doctors in Republic of ireland and was in use there by the mid 1850�s. Longer drops were in apply elsewhere past this time, east.g. in America, but the short drop was still used by many countries at this time e.g. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland & Russian federation .
The long drop method was designed to pause the prisoner�southward neck by allowing them to fall a pre-determined distance and so be brought upwardly with a abrupt jerk by the rope. At the stop of the drop, the body is still accelerating under the force of gravity but the head is constrained by the noose.� If the eyelet is positioned under the left angle of the jaw it rotates the head backwards, which combined with the downward momentum of the body, breaks the neck and ruptures the spinal cord causing instant deep unconsciousness and rapid death. The later use of the brass eyelet in the noose tended to break the neck with more than certainty.� It is only in the terminal half dozen inches or so of the drop that the physical damage to the neck and vertebrae occur equally the rope constricts the cervix and the forcefulness is applied to the vertebrae.� The duration of this part of the procedure is between 0.02 and 0.03 of a 2nd depending upon the length of drib given.� Generally the diameter of the noose is institute to have reduced some 5 to seven inches after the drop.
The accurately measured and worked out driblet removed most of the prisoner'southward physical suffering and made the whole process far less traumatic for the officials who at present had to witness information technology in the confines of the execution shed instead of in the open up air.
The drop given in the later part of the 19th century was commonly between 4 and 10 feet depending on the weight and strength of the prisoner. The weight used to calculate the correct drop is that of the prisoner's clothed body. In accordance with the recommendations of the Aberdare Committee, from 1886 to 1892, the length of drop was calculated to provide a concluding "striking" force of approximately 1,260 ft. lbs. force which combined with the positioning of the eyelet caused fracture / dislocation of the neck, usually at the 2d and 3rd or third and 4th cervical vertebrae. This is the classic "hangman's fracture". The length of the drop was worked out by the formula 1,260 foot pounds divided by the trunk weight of the prisoner in pounds = drop in anxiety. Between 1892 and 1913, a shorter length of drop was used, presumably to avoid the decapitation and near decapitations that had occurred with quondam table. The 1892 table produced a strength of 840 ft. lbs.� However at that place are a number of properly documented instances of substantially longer drops being given during this catamenia and information technology seems that this table was seldom adhered to.� After 1913, other factors were as well taken into account and the drop was calculated to requite a last "striking" force of around 1,000 ft. lbs. The Home Office issued a rule restricting all drops to between 5 anxiety and eight feet 6 inches as this had been establish to be an adequate range. In United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland , the driblet was worked out and set to the nearest half of an inch to ensure the desired outcome.� From effectually 1939 it became customary to add together a further 9 inches to the drop calculated from the 1913 table, to give a force of around 1100 ft. lbs..
The 1913 tabular array is withal used in Singapore and probably Malaysia and may have been adopted by other countries which use the British method, eastward.g. Commonwealth of australia, Canada, the Caribbean nations and Egypt .� Pakistan, India and Bangladesh use the measured long drib but information technology is not known whether they use the British drop tables. � Trace the evolution of the long drop in the 19th century hither and in the 20th century hither.

British drop tables.
The weight of the prisoner is the weight recorded when they were weighed, clothed, the mean solar day earlier execution.

1892 table			1913 table
Weight of prisoner	Driblet in feet & inches	Ft. lbs. energy adult	Weight of prisoner	Drop in feet & inches	Ft. lbs. energy developed
105 & nether	8� 0�	840	-	-
110	vii� x�	862	-	-
115	7� 3�	834	118 & under	8� half dozen�	1003
120	7� 0�	840	120	8� 4�	1000
125	vi� 9�	844	125	8� 0�	one thousand
130	vi� five�	834	130	seven� 8�	996
135	half dozen� 2�	833	135	seven� v�	1001
140	half-dozen� 0�	840	140	7� 2�	1003
145	5� 9�	834	145	6� xi�	1003
150	five� 7�	838	150	half-dozen� 8�	999
155	v� 5�	840	155	6� 5�	995
160	5� iii�	853	160	six� 3�	1000
165	5� 1�	839	165	6� 1�	1004
170	four� 11�	836	170	5� x�	992
175	4� 9�	831	175	five� eight�	991
180	four� 8�	839	180	5� vii�	1005
185	4� 7�	848	185	v� 5�	1002
190	4�5�	839	190	5� 3�	998
195	four� 4�	844	195	5� 2�	1008
200 & over	4� two�	833	200 & over	5� 0�	1000

The American War machine manual specifies broadly similar drops to the to a higher place.
The graph below shows how long information technology takes to drop a given distance.

How hanging causes expiry.
Short drop and elementary suspension hanging .
Short drop/suspension hanging accounts for a bulk of all executions worldwide as well as a large number of suicides.
Iran is the leading user of this method and uses a coiled noose with the knot placed at or towards the back of the neck.� Hanging with lilliputian or no drop typically causes death past a combination of the tightening noose occluding the carotid arteries and jugular veins causing cerebral hypoxia (ischemia), i.e. a severely reduced flow of oxygenated blood to and from the brain and asphyxia due to the weight of the person's body forcing the base of the tongue upwards confronting the dorsum of the mouth, blocking the airway and thus preventing animate. � Information technology may also constrict the trachea (air passage), however this requires some 33 pounds per foursquare inch of force per unit area to compress. Compression of the carotid arteries may also crusade rapid heart stoppage due to carotid/Vagal reflex, this requiring just eleven pounds per square inch of pressure, whereas compression of the jugular veins simply requires some 4.five pounds per square inch of force per unit area. The vertebrae protect the vertebral and spinal arteries which likewise supply claret to the encephalon. However, these arteries get outside the fourth vertebrae instead of inside it, which subjects them to blockage if the pressure on the neck is high enough (ordinarily about 40-50 pounds per foursquare inch of pressure).� Consciousness tin can be lost in every bit little as 8-10 seconds or persist for as much as a minute.� Flashes of light and �blackness� together with feelings of weakness and powerlessness have been reported by those who accept survived (suicidal) hanging.� It is thought that brain death will occur in around six minutes and the heart volition finish chirapsia within 10-fifteen minutes.
Where the jugular veins are occluded earlier the carotid arteries, the face volition typically become engorged and livid as the brain is filled with blood which cannot get back out. In that location will exist the archetype signs of petechiae - little blood marks on the face and in the eyes from burst blood capillaries due to excessive claret pressure in the head. The natural language may protrude due to the pressure level of the noose on the base of information technology. Where decease has occurred through carotid/Vagal reflex, the confront will typically be pale and blueish in colour and not show petechiae. In all cases there will normally be an inverted �V� marker where the knot of the noose was situated and the head will be forced over away from the knot.

When a person is hanged t hey may showroom signs of concrete struggling for some time after suspension, ane-three minutes existence normal. This is oftentimes followed by a quiescent phase before what tin can be described as the convulsive phase which it is thought occurs after consciousness has been lost.� There may be spasmodic and uncoordinated rippling movements of the limbs which occur for some fourth dimension and which are commonly attributed to nervous and muscular reflexes caused by the build up of carbon dioxide in the blood stream. Heaving of the chest is as well reported.� You tin read accounts of executions in the 18th/19th centuries where the person was said to exist �greatly convulsed�� The legs were drawn up and their chests heaved but this does not necessarily indicate consciousness in the 2d phase.� Equally information technology was often reported that the prisoner died "virtually without a struggle� and they would be seen to writhe in hurting for just a few seconds, if at all, before going limp. In that location be many reports and pictures of actual short drop hangings which seem to prove that the person died rapidly and fairly peacefully, while others indicate a slow and possibly agonising expiry past asphyxiation.

An analysis of 46 contempo public hangings in Iran that were legally and meticulously photographed at every stage by official news bureau cameramen showed obvious physical struggling in ten cases, the tongue protruding slightly in four cases, no obvious reddening of the face in whatsoever case, drooling from the mouth in two cases and what appears to be an erection and ejaculation one time and ejaculation just in the 2d case.� In only one case was there show of urination and there were no apparent instances of defecation.� All of the prisoners were hanged using coiled nooses with the knot placed at the back of the neck, thus putting maximum pressure on the base of the tongue and the carotid arteries and jugular veins.� In a recent triple public hanging in Iran which was videoed the ii male prisoners seemed to get limp as soon every bit they were hoisted into the air and showed no signs of concrete struggle.� The 3rd prisoner, a woman, struggled hard for approximately i minute before becoming yet. (See later for a description of this execution). In another video-taped execution that took place in 2012 a human being is seen to convulse for 1 minute and 43 seconds a few seconds later on being suspended.� As described above the legs were drawn up several times and there were movements of the arms and easily. A study carried out on filmed suicide and autoerotic hangings by the Working Group on Human Asphyxia concluded that consciousness is lost in 10 +/- 3 seconds, followed past convulsive movements that continue for 14 +/- 3 seconds, followed by Decerebrate posturing, such every bit the legs beingness drawn up or curving backwards, lasting for 18 +/- 2 seconds.� Loss of muscle tone where the body appears to be limp, is noted at i minute 31 seconds +/- 9 seconds.� These findings closely correspond with the observation of filmed hangings in Islamic republic of iran . Decerebrate posturing is caused by lesions of the brainstem due to the coils of the noose pressing on information technology.� Every bit the prisoner�s arms are invariably handcuffed behind their backs, Decerebrate posturing of the artillery is largely prevented.

�Pole hanging�.
Republic of austria , Czechoslovakia and Republic of hungary used an unusual variant of short drib hanging.� There was no gallows as such, only rather a stout vertical wooden pole (or post) of about 2-three meters height with a metal hook or eye commodities at the top to which a rope noose was attached.� In that location was either a ladder or steps up to a minor platform at the back of the pole for the executioner to stand up on.� The pinioned prisoner was placed with their back to the pole and then lifted up either manually by the hangman�s assistants, on a elementary board platform or by a cloth sling running under their armpits so that the executioner could put the noose round their neck.� At the signal they were now jerked downward past the assistants thus tightening the noose.� This jerk combined with the thinness of the cord typically caused a carotid reflex and led to rapid unconsciousness.� Late 19th century Austrian hangman, Josef Lang, considered this method to be far more humane than American mode standard drop hanging and claimed that no criminal suffered for more than a minute with his method.� It is unclear when pole hanging ceased although it was definitely in utilize until later the end of World War Ii and was used on various war criminals.� A video of the hanging of Karl Hermann Frank which took place on the 22nd of May 1946 in Prague �due south Pankr�c prison is currently available on YouTube.� He was lifted up to the pinnacle of the pole by a sling and and so dropped about a meter, the hangman covering Frank�s face with his hand. This film clearly demonstrates how pole hanging worked and does not give the impression that Frank struggled after suspension.� There are also photos of the execution of Serbs by the Austrians during the war.� Milada Horakova (female) who was convicted of treason past the communist regime in Czechoslovakia suffered this decease when she was hanged on 27th of June 1950.� Information technology has been rumoured that her executioner was ordered to �permit the bitch suffocate�.
After the end of World War 2, Albert Pierrepoint hanged eight men at Graz-Karlau in Austria for civilian crimes (murder, rape & plundering). They were executed nether British (occupation) jurisdiction but information technology would seem that pole hanging returned for the final few executions carried out under Austrian jurisdiction.� The last took place on the 24th of March 1950 when Johann Trnka was hanged for murder.� Czechoslovakia used pole hanging up to 1954 later on which all executions took place within Prague�southward Pankr�c prison house or in Bratislava from 1968 to 1989. � The Pankr�c execution sleeping room had a metal hook for the noose and a trap door over an 80 x fourscore 10 80 cm pit.� This nonetheless allowed only a short drib and decease was officially recorded as �suffocation from strangulation�.� It is non known whether Republic of hungary continued to utilize pole hanging or a more conventional gallows. Czechoslovakia�s last execution was in 1989 and Hungary�south in 1988.

Standard drop hanging .
Where the standard driblet proves inadequate to break the neck or crusade unconsciousness, the prisoner seems to suffer a more cruel death than where little or no driblet is used. The strength generated past a driblet of 5 or 6 feet is very considerable and does great harm to the pare, muscles and ligaments of the neck but does not necessarily induce asphyxia whatsoever sooner. This description of a hanging at San Quentin prison house in California is from Clinton Duffy who was the warden there from 1942 to 1954 and relates to the execution of Major Raymond Lisemba on May ninth, 1942. "The man striking lesser and I observed that he was fighting by pulling on the straps, wheezing, whistling, trying to get air, that blood was oozing through the blackness cap. I observed also that he urinated, defecated, and debris cruel on the floor, and the stench was terrible". "I too saw witnesses pass out and have to be carried from the witness room. Some of them threw upwardly."� Information technology took ten minutes for the condemned man to die. When he was taken downwards and the cap removed, "big hunks of flesh were torn off" the side of his face where the noose had been, "his eyes were popped," and his natural language was "bloated and hanging from his mouth. His confront had turned purple."
Fortunately not all standard drop hangings were so gruesome and many prisoners did not show any signs of concrete suffering as they were rendered unconscious by the force of the drib, even though their spinal cord was not severed.
Meet the clarification of the hanging of Westley Alan Dodd in Washington state in 1993. http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/hanging.html scroll to lesser of page.

The measured or long drop.
Here is an official government photograph of a long drop hanging in State of kuwait .� The hyperflexion of the neck caused past the British style eyelet noose is self evident.
Information technology takes between a half and iii quarters of a second for a person to reach the end of the rope later on the trap opens, depending upon the length of drop given. The force produced by the prisoner'due south body weight multiplied by the length of fall and the strength of gravity (some 1,100 ft lbs being normal in the U.G. afterwards 1939), coupled with the position of the noose is designed to violently jerk the person�s head backwards and sideways. In medical terms this is known equally hyperflexion of the cervix, which causes fracture-dislocation of the upper neck vertebrae, ideally betwixt the C2 & C3 vertebrae, crushing or severing the spinal cord leading to immediate unconsciousness.� This leads to a number of factors, all of which can crusade expiry.� The Phrenic nerve which controls the diaphragm emerges between the C3 and C4 vertebrae and thus if the fracture occurs above C4 the person's breathing ceases immediately, leading to asphyxia.� The rope constricts the carotid arteries and the jugular veins, with the same results described in �Brusk drib hanging� above.� Typically the neck is constricted by as much equally five inches from its original circumference.� In some of the photos of Kuwaiti hangings the leather or rubber washer is visible on the rope and one can get a proficient idea of the corporeality of constriction of the neck, as it was against the eyelet before the hanging and is designed not to move.� Fractures of the hyoid bone and larynx typically occur which on their ain tin prove fatal every bit breathing is severely restricted or prevented.� The normal cause of death is given as comatose asphyxia.� Some slight movements of the limbs and body may occasionally occur but are almost certainly due to muscular reflexes.

In virtually countries cessation of heartbeat is the definition of expiry that is used in judicial hanging.� The typically occurs inside viii-xv minutes after the driblet. This time is very variable, however, with credible official reports of from ane-25 minutes for abeyance of heartbeat to take occurred.� This time is frequently unsaid as length of suffering in newspaper reports of executions, merely this is incorrect.� In 1887 Dr. Llewellyn A. Morgan, the medical officer of London�s Newgate prison house, used a sphygmograph (click hither for diagram) to record the pulses of iii men hanged there that year, 41 year old Joseph King, 31 year erstwhile Thomas Currell and 22 yr old Isreal Lipski.� This machine was attached to the prisoner�s wrist every bit chop-chop every bit possible after the drop and recorded their pulse on carbon paper.� The recordings testify a rise in pulse rate initially and then a diminishing and weakening of information technology over fourth dimension (Click hither for impress out).� In all three cases the men�due south necks were cleaved.� 19 yr old Herbert Mills who was the concluding man to exist hanged at Lincoln in 1951 is reported to accept had centre action go on for twenty minutes after the driblet fell.� Over again there had been fracture dislocation of the cervix vertebrae.� Information technology is idea that encephalon death volition occur in effectually six minutes through lack of oxygen, irrespective of when the centre stops.

Experiments were carried out by F.E. Buckland, the assistant director of pathology, British Army of the Rhine, on Nazi war criminals executed by the British at Hameln prison in Deutschland after Globe War II and these constitute, that although the prisoners were rendered unconscious by the drop the center could continue to crush for up to 25 minutes after execution.� This created a trouble because it meant that information technology would have far longer to acquit out the batches of executions if each prisoner had to be left on the rope for an hour.� It was thus proposed that the medical officer present would inject 10cc of chloroform into the prisoner xxx seconds later on the drib had been given.� It was found that if the chloroform was injected directly into the centre it immediately stopped beating and if injected intravenously into the arm the heart would finish in seconds.� This procedure was first used at the execution of ten men and three women on the 13th of December 1945.
On the eighth of March 1946 Albert Pierrepoint hanged eight men at Hameln and information technology was decided not to inject chloroform. The prison doctor listened to their hearts with a stethoscope in the normal mode and recorded his results. These showed that it took between x and fifteen minutes for aural heart beats to end. On the 15th of May 1946 a further ten executions were carried out and this time the condemned were wired upward to an electrocardiograph, which recorded the electrical activity of the heart. It showed that impulses were produced for a further ten minutes; taking the full time to 25 minutes.� A human being heart has a sinoatrial node which is located in the upper wall of the right atrium. This is also referred to equally the heart�s pacemaker and its contractions generate nervus impulses that travel throughout the heart wall causing both atria to contract.� There are other auto-rhythmic nodes that also effect eye charge per unit.

The Post-mortem report.
In some parts of Britain, e.k. the 3 London �hanging� prisons, a mail-mortem was typically carried out during the 20th century on the executed person'southward trunk to establish the exact cause of decease and we are fortunate to have the written report of Ruth Ellis' autopsy as carried out past Professor Keith Simpson, who was one of the about eminent pathologists of his day. I accept reproduced it every bit closely every bit possible to the original 1950's typewriter style. Post mortems are/were as well carried out in other countries.

Mail service MORTEM EXAMINATION Proper name Ellis, Ruth Apparent Historic period 28 years. At H. K. Prison, Holloway Appointment July 13 1955.
EXTERNAL Exam How long dead	Well nourished Prove of proper intendance and attending. Height 5ft.2ins. Weight 103 lbs. DEEP IMPRESSIONS Around NECK from noose with a suspension indicate virtually 1 inch in front of the angle of the 50. lower jaw. Vital changes locally and in the tissues beneath as a event of sudden constriction. No ecchymoses in the confront, or indeed, elsewhere. No marks of restraint. one hour.
INTERNAL Examination Skull ... ... ... Basic Meninges Oral cavity, tongue, Oesophagus ... ... Larynx, Trachea, Lungs Pericardium, Eye and blood vessels ... ... Stomach and contents ... Peritoneum Intestines, etc. ... Liver, and Gall bladder Spleen. Kidneys and Ureters Bladder etc. ... ... ... Generative organs	Fracture - dislocation of the spine at C2 with a 2 inch gap and transverse separation of the spinal cord at the aforementioned level. Fracture of both wings of the Hyoid and R. wing of the Thyroid cartilage, larynx likewise fractured. Air passages articulate and lungs quite free from disease or other change. No engorgement. No asphyxial changes. No organic changes. No petechiae or other evidence of organic change. Small food residual, and odour of brandy. No illness. Normal. Terminal congestion only. Normal. Slight final congestion only. Lower abdominal performance scar for ectopic pregnancy operation in 50. tube, now healed. No pregnancy.
Other remarks ...	Deceased was a healthy bailiwick at the time of death. Mark of break normally situated and injuries from judicial hanging - to the spinal cavalcade - such every bit must have caused instant death.
CAUSE OF Death ...	Injuries to the central nervous arrangement consequent upon judicial hanging.

Signed Keith Simpson
M. D. Lond.
146, Harley St. W. ane and Guy'south Hospital (Pathologist)
Registrar in Forensic Medicine London Academy

Annotation : ecchymoses is the medical term for subcutaneous bleeding (i.e. nether the skin)

After the execution.

After death by any form of hanging, the body will typically testify the marks of suspension, e.yard. bruising and rope marks on the neck. In some cases there will have been effusions of urine and faeces as the sphincter muscles become deprived of oxygen and thus relax. The opening of the sphincters tin also exist caused past an adrenaline rush which is common in circumstances of extreme fear.
Total trunk expiry results commonly within less than 30 minutes as the cells becomes starved of oxygen.� This was one of the reasons why prisoners were left hanging for an hour in Britain .� It is noteworthy that irrespective of the method of hanging information technology seems to have about the same time for total torso death to occur.

Male person prisoners sometimes have penile erections (priapism) afterward hanging due to the pooling of blood in the legs and lower trunk once the centre stops. The original photograph of the execution of the Lincoln conspirators in America in 1865 appears to show i of the men, Lewis Powell, had an erection after he was hanged.
Men may likewise ejaculate on the rope. Dr. Charles Croker King was a surgeon in Ireland in the mid 19th century and was able to examine the body of John Hurley who was hanged on the 27th of August 1853 at Galway, immediately after the execution.� Hurley�south cervix was not cleaved by the drop.� Male monarch noted that Hurley�s penis was erect and that there was a whitish liquid that had come from it.� He took a slide of this and examined it under a microscope, finding spermatozoa. This together with the other post mortem findings was reported in his treatise �On Death by Hanging� published in 1854.� King was professor of anatomy and physiology at Queen�s College Galway. Ejaculation may exist caused by the stimulation of the penis during the witting struggling stage, combined with the pressure on the Vagal nervus which is responsible for sexual arousal, together with the reduced level of oxygen reaching the brain.
In the handwritten autopsy notes of a hanging by the famous pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, he states that there was no "seminal effusion" which implies that he had found this on occasion.

Execution equipment.

The gallows.
All style of patterns of gallows have been used worldwide over the years. Simple gallows, having an upright with a projecting beam cross braced to it were commonly used in many countries, even upward till the end of the Earth War 2.
All the same for a variety of reasons, gallows� designs became more elaborate. From 1783, the gallows at Newgate in London had a trapdoor and as the concept of giving the prisoner some drop became more widely used, this style spread. The earliest use of the "New Drop", as it was called in Britain was on May 5th, 1760 for the execution of the Earl of Ferrers. This was in the form of a small-scale box like structure rising nigh 12 inches from the main platform which would drop level with the floor when the hangman pulled abroad the supporting props.� See commodity for drawing of this.
The American gallows, shown in this motion picture, is what many of y'all would probably imagine a gallows to look like and is from 1894. This manner was used extensively in America and almost other countries up until the early function of the 20th century. The nowadays solar day gallows in Washington'southward Walla Walla prison looks most unlike this traditional pattern, consisting simply of ii massive iron eye bolts through which the rope passes, each set up over a single leafage trap operated by an electromagnetic release mechanism. (See flick ). America typically used a single leaf trap whereas Uk and countries which adopted British style hanging typically use(d) a two leaf trap.
Modern gallows in Commonwealth of australia, Great britain, Singapore, Malaysia and one-time British colonies typically have no steps and utilise double trapdoors, unremarkably operated by a lever on the platform. Due south Africa used a metal axle that could accomodate up to seven prisoners simultaneously at Pretoria Cardinal Prison prior to abolition. In early on 20th century British execution rooms in that location were no uprights, the ends of beam being set into the walls, while later a concealed beam running to a higher place the ceiling was used, as was the case at Pentonville and Wandsworth prisons in London upward to abolition.
Lebanon used this quite circuitous style of gallows for public hangings - the picture is of the public execution of ii men, carried out on the 25th of May 1998.
Visit the Gallows Galleries for pictures of gallows from Britain and around the earth.

The Noose .
Several types of noose are in utilize worldwide. At its simplest, a noose is only a slip knot fashioned on a length of rope or stiff cord. Nazi executioners used this pattern during World War Two, typically made from 6-10 mm thick string.
The traditional hangman's noose ( picture show ) has from 5 to xiii coils which slide down the rope delivering a heavy blow to the side of the neck. This blueprint was used in America and countries such as Iran and Iraq . The modern American coiled noose is prepared in accord with a procedure laid down in a U.Southward. army manual, from 30 feet of three/4"-1" diameter manila hemp rope, boiled to take out stretch and any tendency to coil. Information technology is formed into half dozen coils and then waxed, soaped or greased to assure that the knot slides easily. Generally the knot is placed under the prisoner�south left ear (the subaural position) every bit was seen in the photographs of Saddam Hussein.
U.k. and nigh Democracy and ex-Democracy countries apply(d) a elementary noose consisting of a loop worked into 1 end of the rope with the other end passed through it, as shown hither . In the 20th century the eyelet was typically placed below the angle of the jaw, (the submental position)
The noose was improved in the 1870's by William Marwood.� He used a brass eyelet within of the loop to allow the rope to run more than freely and to avoid the demand for lubrication with lather. The eyelet was initially held in place by a leather washer and later by a rubber one.� This type of noose has been shown to cause a quicker death. It is usually fabricated from a 13 foot length of 3/4" diameter hemp rope. Later, the part of the rope that would come into contact with neck was bound with leather, equally seen here . This blazon of noose is used in present twenty-four hour period Egypt, Kuwait, Singapore and Malaysia and in erstwhile British colonies. Modernistic materials such as Nylon accept been tried only tended to be as well elastic for long drop hangings.� Iran uses nylon rope for its short drop/suspension hangings.

The hood.
In most countries, at least throughout the 20th century, information technology has been customary to hood the prisoner earlier execution. Normally, a black cotton wool or denim hood is used every bit shown hither, but in some countries, notably Britain and its former colonies, a white linen or cotton hood was the norm as seen hither . In Southward Africa and Australia a white hood was as well used which was applied in the prisoner's prison cell, prior to them being led into the gallows sleeping room. Dissimilar the British version, information technology had a flap over the optics which was simply pulled down only earlier the drop. Typically, the prisoner is hooded only at the last moment earlier the noose is put round their neck and adjusted. Although they are able to see the gallows, the trap, the executioner and witnesses and the noose dangling earlier them, most countries institute it to be amend than hooding them earlier and trying to lead them to the gallows, equally they were more frightened past not knowing what was happening. It is thought that Iraq, Malaysia and Singapore hood the prisoner before leading them to the execution bedroom.
Some places, such as Iran , exercise not use a hood, although a blindfold may exist used in some cases. There are iii good reasons for hooding the prisoner. Firstly, in long drop hangings information technology is very important that the condemned person does not motion at the concluding moment, just as the lever is being pulled - which could hands alter the position of the noose and thus cause them a slower death.
The second reason is to minimise rope fire and marking of the skin of the neck which is why the hood is generally put over the caput before the noose. This also prevents the hood existence blown off by the updraft created past the body falling.� Hooding saves the officials, who have to witness the execution, from seeing the condemned person's face as they are most to die and later on suspension.

Pinioning.
In modern times it is normal to pinion the prisoner's hands either in front of them or more usually backside their back with either handcuffs or a leather strap. Some countries employ additional straps for the arms or even elaborate leather harnesses for the arms and wrists, as in Kuwait . In long drop/standard drop hangings, the prisoner's legs are normally pinioned with a string or strap effectually the ankles to prevent them getting their anxiety onto the sides of the trap when the doors fall. In Great britain, as women's skirts got shorter in the 20th century, an extra strap was placed round the lower thighs to foreclose the skirt billowing up as they dropped and exposing their underwear. Thigh straps were also used for men in some countries, notably in the USA .
For short drop and break hangings, the legs were and may nonetheless be left gratuitous. Islamic republic of iran typically shackles the condemned�s legs.
Charles Campbell, who was hanged in Washington in May 1994, was strapped to a special plummet board (visible in the photo of the Walla Walla gallows, in a higher place) every bit he was non able to back up himself at the end. Other prisoners have been hanged strapped to chairs, both they and the chair falling through the trap.

Modern hangings described.

Many countries comport out hanging executions in complete secrecy, e.m. Botswana, Malaysia, Nippon and Singapore so details are hard to come by.� In that location are however, modernistic hangings which accept been reported in detail or even filmed.� Compare these to a 1950's British hanging described in my History of Judicial Hanging in Britain .

A Kuwait hanging in 2004.
Three men who had been convicted of a particularly roughshod �honour� murder of a piffling girl called Amna Al-Khaledi were hanged at the Nayef Palace in Kuwait City on Monday the 31st of May 2004.� The prisoners were Marzook Saad Suleiman Al-Saeed, aged 25, Saeed Saad Suleiman Al-Saeed, aged 28, and 24-yr-sometime Kuwaiti Hamad Mubarak Turki Al-Dihani. They were brought to the Nayef Palace at 8.45 on the Monday morning and were allowed time to prepare and pray before they were hanged.� At about ix.45 they were led to the grey painted metal and wood gallows wearing regulation brown boiler suits and with their wrists and arms strapped backside them with leather straps. Here they were made to climb the steps up onto the platform some x feet above and were placed upon individual double trap doors.� Each prisoner was allocated a ii man execution team, wearing blackness uniforms and ski masks.� Once on the trap a leather strap was placed around each man�southward ankles and a British manner, leather covered eyelet noose placed over his head, held in place past a heavy rubber washer and followed by a blackness hood.� They were given measured drops (of nigh seven feet) and subsequently examined by doctors with stethoscopes to determine the time of death.� Marzook Saad Suleiman Al-Saeed was pronounced dead afterward 8 minutes, Hamad Al-Dehani took vi minutes to dice, and Saeed Saad Suleiman Al-Saeed expired in v minutes and 20 seconds.� The time of expiry being stated as when the prison doctors could no longer observe an aural heartbeat.� From the photographs and the length of drop it is likely that their necks were broken.� There was no study of whatever of the men struggling after the driblet barbarous and all seemed to become limp immediately.� The aftermath of the execution was witnessed by over 1000 people, including Amna�s relatives who were let into the chemical compound to view the dangling bodies.� The scene was photographed past press photographers for publication in the following day�due south papers.� Click here for a photo.� It is interesting to notation that the time taken for these men to dice is about the same every bit recorded in typical lethal injection executions in the USA.

Saddam Hussein hanged in Republic of iraq in 2006.
Probably the most high profile execution in modernistic times took place on at 6:x a.m. on December the 30th 2006 when the onetime Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein was hanged in a two-story edifice in the Shia Khadamiya District in Northern Baghdad. Saddam was dressed in a white shirt and dark overcoat for his execution. He was led upward the long flight of steps to the gallows platform where he was positioned over the chequer plate metal trap doors. The rope was looped through a metal eye on the ceiling and the free rope hung down to its attachment indicate.� A blackness scarf and a 7 coil American mode noose were placed round his cervix.� He refused the traditional hood and after being taunted by his guards, the trapdoors were released and he dropped a little more than his own tiptop through the trap and was brought to a halt past the noose which had its knot positioned under his left ear.� From the cell telephone video and still photographs it would seem that his neck was broken and that he died without any struggle.� He was taken downward after hanging for but ten minutes.� Click here for a photograph.� Saddam had been bedevilled of the murder of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail in the 1980s .

An Iranian hanging in 2007.
On the 15th of July 2007 a 29 twelvemonth old Iranian woman, whose proper noun was only given as Houriyeh, was hanged in public together with her two male person accomplices. �She had murdered her husband by strangling him in his sleep and paid the two men, Farhad and Reza, to murder 3 of her in-laws.� They strangled her husband�s parents and stabbed his brother to death.� Houriyeh wore a head-to-toe black chador for her execution which seems to be the standard apparel for condemned women in Iran . The iii prisoners were bought to the execution ground, their legs shackled and their hands cuffed backside them.� The American mode coiled nooses were attached to a spreader bar suspended from the jib of a crane.� At the signal all three were simultaneously lifted off the ground and became fully suspended. The two men appeared to become unconscious near instantly only a few seconds subsequently being lifted into the air Houriyeh began to struggle hard, standing for only over a minute earlier becoming all the same.� Some 5,000 people, including judiciary and police officials, witnessed the execution and it was secretly videoed on a mobile phone.� The video seems to deport out 19th century newspaper reports of brusk drib hangings in Britain and the The states, where women ofttimes seemed to die harder than men. Click here for a photo.

Does the prisoner experience pain where the drop is sufficient to break their neck?
Obviously no ane tin be sure but it is by and large held that if the person does feel pain, information technology is only during the instant that their neck is broken which can exist measured in fractions of a 2nd (see below).
Those who witnessed 20th century British hangings never described whatever obvious suffering on the office of the prisoner and the two post-mortem reports that are available do non seem to indicate anything but a quick death. There were no evidence of conscious suffering in the independently witnessed hangings of Westley Allan Dodd and Charles Campbell in Washington and Billy Bailey in Delaware .� Although death was not instantaneous (it never is) unconsciousness was.

According to Harold Hillman, a British physiologist who has studied executions, "the dangling person probably feels cervical pain, and suffers from an astute headache, equally a outcome of the rope endmost off the veins of the neck. It had been generally assumed that fracture-dislocation of the cervix causes instantaneous loss of awareness. Sensory pathways from below the cervix are ruptured, just the sensory signals from the skin above the noose and from the trigeminal nervus may continue to attain the brain until hypoxia blocks them."� This would seem to be likely where the neck is not broken, e.chiliad. in a standard drop The states style hanging and may be accompanied by some physical struggling.

It has been calculated in evidence placed before the Aberdare Committee that information technology takes 0.02 of a second (1/50th of a second) at the end of the drop for the rope to constrict and and so pause the neck.� Other research into how the brain functions has revealed that a total loss of any awareness will accept place within 0.3 of a 2d after the spinal cord has been completely severed. The process of unconsciousness is triggered by a reaction within the axons (nervus fibres) of the severed nerves. Normal nervus signals crave an antagonistic procedure within the axons which tin can but happen if the nerve circuit is unbroken. If, however, all the big spinal nerves are disconnected from the encephalon stalk, as they are in measured drop hanging or beheading, an extremely rapid reaction takes place in both ends of the severed nerves, leading to all nervus impulses becoming stochastic (random) instead of structured.

Consciousness is instantly lost when the process becomes stochastic, no matter how high the activity of the brain may have been prior to information technology . Furthermore, a self destroying procedure will begin in the axons, spreading from the signal of damage, and destroying the fretfulness all the mode to the main synapses within the brain. This procedure will be completed within only five seconds.� On this footing where the spinal cord is severed, half a 2nd is the maximum possible time that whatever pain could be felt.� This is born out by observation and the total lack of any obvious signs of suffering in properly carried out measured drib hangings.

What hurting is felt in short drop/suspension hanging?

It should exist clearly understood that suicide by hanging is likely to be VERY PAINFUL
every bit there will hardly ever be sufficient drib to break the neck.

S hort drop or intermission hanging is, at to the lowest degree initially, probable to exist very painful every bit the person struggles to exhale against the compression of the noose and confronting the weight of their ain body, being supported entirely by the neck and jaw. Houriyeh above exhibited very obvious sings of suffering.� While 1 to 3 minutes before unconsciousness sets in may not sound a long fourth dimension it must experience like an eternity to the suspended and struggling prisoner.

Information technology is sometimes possible to revive a person after short driblet/break hanging and thus we can accept an thought of what they felt. People who have survived hanging have described the pain diminishing later a while and seeing vivid lights every bit they drift into unconsciousness.
An Iranian man identified simply as Niazali, was hanged in February 1996 but survived after the victim's relatives pardoned him. He told the Iranian daily paper "Kayhan" what information technology had felt similar.� "That first second lasted like a thousand years. I felt my arms and legs jerking out of control. Upwardly on the gallows in the nighttime, I was trying to make full my lungs with air, but they were crumpled upward similar plastic bags." Niazali�s hanging reportedly lasted 20 minutes.

Hanging versus Lethal Injection.
Many people who support upper-case letter punishment feel that lethal injection is a better, more modern and humane form of execution than hanging. Is this view based upon the facts or is information technology purely a perception based on the fact that we have experienced (non-lethal) injections ourselves? It is noticeable that the a bulk of the American respondents to my surveys cite lethal injection as the method they would choose for themselves, although a considerable minority of British respondents of both sexes chose hanging.
Execution past lethal injection takes much longer than any other method, anything up to 45 minutes for the complete process during which the prisoner is fully conscious except for the last 7-ten of those minutes (remember that in Britain a 20th century hanging took, typically xv-20 seconds to carry out).� This elapsing must bailiwick the prisoner to far more mental torture because they know they are being put to death.� Lethal injection is clearly much less dramatic than hanging and, therefore, probably easier for the staff and witnesses to cope with. It is suitable for both sexes and all ages of prisoners where a suitable vein can be located. All the same, there is often a problem where the prisoner has been an intravenous drug user or simply has small veins which tend to contract even farther when they are frightened.
One wonders if lethal injection is perceived as existence equally much of a deterrent equally hanging in the minds of criminals or whether they would feel it was a "soft option"?
This is an important betoken because if the state is going to accept the life of a person at all, then surely it should seek to produce the maximum deterrence from and then doing without resorting to cruelty.
For a detailed look at lethal injection, click here.

Conclusions.
Carried out carefully and humanely, using an accurately measured drop and modern noose, hanging is arguably the least cruel way to execute a criminal. In 20th century U.k. , the whole process was over extremely speedily and every effort was fabricated to minimise the person�s mental and physical suffering. Nonetheless, as can exist seen from the examples cited above, information technology tin also be a very cruel death, if either botched or carried out in such a mode as to intentionally crusade suffering. It is probable that the countries that execute criminals using picayune or no drop in public practice and then in the hope of achieving maximum deterrence and feel that the criminal should be made to endure for what they accept done.

Back to Contents folio The history of hanging in United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland

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Source: http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/hanging2.html

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