The term "dignified" execution is bullshit.

[PlanetBev]

You have a person, shaking with fear, possibly crying, being let to their death. If they don't shit and pee in their pants beforehand, they will surely do it afterward, in the diapers they are sometimes forced to wear.

I have been pretty much against the death penalty after Chimp made fun of Karla Faye Tucker, before he signed her death warrant, but this execution this morning in Iraq sealed it for me. What's so dignified about a head being ripped off a body?

As far as I'm concerned, America's love affair with the death penalty makes us a lousy example for the rest of the world. We have no business exporting Democracy if this is what Democracy looks like.

[Gabi Hayes]

1. did you hear that one of those guys' heads popped off like a grape?

bet the deathpornlovers had multiple O's over that bit of juicy news.

[Marrak]

2. All Death is total screw-up...

but to the "passive-aggressive" Iraqi (Shi?) told to clear the gallows of the Madhi army, given the Saddam debacle, looks like they "ooped" the calculations on another Sunni...

The Long Drop

This process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advancement to the standard drop. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's weight was used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken.

Prior to 1892, the drop was between four and ten feet (about one to three meters), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver a force of 1,260 lbf (5,600 newtons or 572 kgf), which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. However, this force resulted in some decapitations, such as the famous case of "Black Jack" Tom Ketchum in New Mexico in 1901 (see illustration). Between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid doing so. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account and the force delivered was reduced to about 1000 lbf (4,400 N or 450 kgf). (see also British Official Table of Drops)

[VTMechEngr]

4. Ketchum was a special case.

He had put on weight before his hanging but was not re-weighed. He also had an arm amputated such that his weight distribution was uneven.

[Bluebear]

3. You said it. k/r

[partylessinOhio]

5. Shades of Barbaric Bush.

:mad:

[Mandate My Ass]

6. You said it. The whole execution thing is a death carnival.

Parading the condemned around like we do here is the apex of indignity.

[Coventina]

7. State executions are, always were, and always will be, theatre.

Even if they are no longer "public", the whole spectacle (and it IS STILL A SPECTACLE) is to enhance the prestige of the State.

That is another reason why I am fundamentally against the DP.

[iverglas]

8. an old episode of In the Heat of the Night

One of those things that don't seem to have got much mention on the internet, but I found this:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/79406/message/1137986690/Last+two+parts
"Carroll O'Connor discussion forum"

He was asked about his favorite show, and he said it was the one he wrote about witnessing an execution. Gillespie went back to the office and they discussed the Constitutional meaning of "cruel and unusual punishment" to which Gillespie responded that the only way you could execute someone without it being cruel is to tell the criminal you are setting him free, and then once the criminal gets a big smile on his face, you shoot him in the back of the head. Mrs. Jimmy Carter wanted a copy of the tape he said, because she was against capital punishment.

All these years later I remember that show. O'Connor's sheriff character was asked, by the convicted man, whom the sheriff had treated fairly or some such, to be one of the witnesses at the execution, and he reluctantly agreed. The sheriff rose and approached the glass window between the observers and the participants, and locked gazes with the convicted man as it happened. After observing the procedure, he said (unfortunately I don't remember the words, and can't find them) that what was cruel and unusual about it was what the person was subjected to leading up to the execution, rather than the execution itself.

As far as I'm concerned, America's love affair with the death penalty makes us a lousy example for the rest of the world.

Fortunately, few of the rest of us out here in the world have considered the US to be an example, at least of anything to be emulated, for quite some time. ;)