Between 18, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. This force resulted in some decapitations, such as the infamous case of Black Jack Ketchum in New Mexico Territory in 1901, owing to a significant weight gain while in custody not having been factored into the drop calculations. Prior to 1892, the drop was between four and 10 feet (about one to three metres), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver an energy of 1,260 foot-pounds force (1,710 J), which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. Careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose (so that the head was jerked back as the rope tightened) contributed to breaking the neck. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's height and weight were 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, but not so much that the person was decapitated. The long drop process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced to Britain in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advance on the standard drop. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight." Long drop Įxecution of an unidentified Nazi war criminal after World War II In the execution of Ribbentrop, historian Giles MacDonogh records that: "The hangman botched the execution and the rope throttled the former foreign minister for 20 minutes before he expired." A Life magazine report on the execution merely says: "The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. This method was used to execute condemned Nazis under United States jurisdiction after the Nuremberg Trials, including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. It was considered a humane improvement on the short drop because it was intended to be enough to break the person's neck, causing immediate unconsciousness and rapid brain death. Its use rapidly spread to English-speaking countries and those with judicial systems of English origin. The standard drop involves a drop of between 4 and 6 feet (1.2–1.8 m) and came into use from 1866, when the scientific details were published by Irish doctor Samuel Haughton. Capitol Wirz was given a standard drop, which did not break his neck The execution of Henry Wirz in 1865 near the U.S. Nazi war criminal Karl Hermann Frank, executed in 1946 in Prague, was among approximately 1,000 condemned people executed in this manner in Czechoslovakia. This method was later also adopted by the successor states, most notably by Czechoslovakia, where the "pole" method was used as the single type of execution from 1918 until the abolition of capital punishment in 1990. The executioner would place the heel of his hand beneath the prisoner's jaw to increase the force on the neck vertebrae at the end of the drop, then manually dislocate the condemned's neck by forcing the head to one side while the neck vertebrae were under traction. The executioner stands on a stepped platform approximately 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) high beside the condemned.The chest sling is released, and the prisoner is rapidly jerked downward by the assistant executioners via the foot rope.A narrow-diameter noose is looped around the prisoner's neck, then secured to a hook mounted at the top of the pole.The condemned is hoisted to the top of the pole by means of a sling running across the chest and under the armpits.A rope is attached around the condemned's feet and routed through a pulley at the base of the pole.The condemned is made to stand before a specialized vertical pole or pillar, approximately 3 metres (9.8 ft) in height.Mass execution of Serbs by Austro-Hungarian army in 1916Ī short-drop variant is the Austro-Hungarian "pole" method, called Würgegalgen (literally: strangling gallows), in which the following steps take place:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |