Types and variations of the death penalty. Hanging

And they look like cute children in the photo!
But in reality they are cruel criminals-murderers!
Let's look further!

Mary Bell
Mary Bell is one of the most "famous" girls in British history. In 1968, at the age of 11, together with her 13-year-old friend Norma, two months apart, she strangled two boys, 4 and 3 years old. The press around the world called this girl a "tainted seed", "the spawn of the devil" and a "monster child". Mary and Norma lived next door to each other in one of the most deprived areas of Newcastle, in families where large families and poverty habitually coexisted and where the children spent most time playing unsupervised on the streets or in landfills. Norma's family had 11 children, Mary's parents had four. The father pretended to be her uncle so that the family would not lose benefits for a single mother. “Who wants to work? - he was sincerely surprised. “Personally, I don’t need money, as long as it’s enough for a pint of ale in the evening.” Mother Mary, a wayward beauty, suffered from childhood mental disorders, - for example, during for long years refused to eat with her family unless food was placed in the corner under her chair. Mary was born when her mother was only 17 years old, shortly after unsuccessful attempt poison yourself with pills. Four years later, the mother tried to poison her own daughter. Relatives accepted the most Active participation in the child's fate, but the survival instinct taught the girl the art of building a wall between herself and the outside world. This feature of Mary, along with her wild imagination, cruelty, and outstanding childish mind, was noted by everyone who knew her. The girl never allowed herself to be kissed or hugged, she tore into shreds the ribbons and dresses given by her aunts. At night she moaned in her sleep and jumped up a hundred times because she was afraid to wet herself. She loved to fantasize, talking about her uncle's horse farm and the beautiful black stallion she supposedly owned. She said that she wanted to become a nun because nuns were “good.” And I read the Bible all the time. She had about five of them. In one of the Bibles she pasted a list of all her deceased relatives, their addresses and dates of death...

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson

17 years ago, Jon Venables and his friend, the same scum as Venables, but only named Robert Thompson, were sentenced to life in prison, despite the fact that they were ten years old at the time of the murder. Their crime sent shockwaves throughout Britain. In 1993, Venables and Thompson stole a two-year-old boy from a Liverpool supermarket, the same James Bulger, where he was with his mother, and forcibly dragged him to railway, brutally beat him with sticks, doused him with paint and left him to die on the tracks, hoping that the baby would be run over by a train and his death would be mistaken for an accident.

Alice Bustamant
A 15-year-old girl killed her younger neighbor and hid the body. Alice Bustamant planned the murder, choosing the right time, and on October 21st she attacked a neighbor's girl, began to strangle her, slit her throat and stabbed her. A police sergeant who questioned the child killer after 9-year-old Elizabeth disappeared said Bustamante confessed to where she hid the slain fourth-grader's body and led officers to a wooded area where the body was located. She stated that she wanted to know how the killers felt.

George Junius Stinney Jr.
Although there was a lot of political and racial mistrust surrounding the case, most accepted that this Stinney guy was guilty of murdering two girls. It was 1944, Stinney was 14, he killed two girls, ages 11 and 8, and dumped their bodies in a ravine. He apparently wanted to rape the 11-year-old, but the younger one interfered with him, and he decided to get rid of her. Both girls resisted and he beat them with a baton. He was charged with first degree murder, found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out in the state of South Carolina.

Bari Lucatis
In 1996, Barry Loukatis put on his best cowboy suit and headed into the office where his class was about to have an algebra lesson. Most of his classmates found Barry's costume ridiculous, and himself even stranger than usual. They didn’t know what the suit was hiding, but there were two pistols, a rifle and 78 rounds of ammunition. He opened fire, his first victim being 14-year-old Manuel Vela. A few seconds later, several more people fell victims. He began to take hostages, but made one tactical mistake: he allowed the wounded to be taken away, and at the moment when he was distracted, the teacher snatched the rifle from him.

Kipland Kinkel
On May 20, 1998, Kinkel was expelled from school for trying to buy stolen weapons from a classmate. He confessed to his crime and was released from the police. At home, his father told him that he would have been sent to boarding school if he had not cooperated with the police. At 3:30 p.m., Kip pulled out his rifle, hidden in his parents' room, loaded it, walked into the kitchen and shot his father. At 18:00 the mother returned. Kinkel told her he loved her and shot her - twice in the back of the head, three times in the face and once in the heart. He later claimed that he wanted to protect his parents from any embarrassment they might have because of his legal troubles. Kinkel put his mother's body in the garage and his father's body in the bathroom. All night he listened to the same song from the movie Romeo and Juliet. On May 21, 1998, Kinkel drove his mother's Ford to school. He put on a long waterproof coat to hide his weapon: hunting knife, a rifle and two pistols, as well as ammunition. He killed two students and wounded 24. As he reloaded his gun, several students managed to disarm him. In November 1999, Kinkel was sentenced to 111 years in prison without the possibility of parole. At his sentencing, Kinkel apologized to the court for the murders of his parents and school students.

Cindy Collier and Shirley Wolfe
In 1983, Cindy Collier and Shirley Wolfe began looking for victims for their entertainment. Usually it was vandalism or car theft, but one day the girls showed how sick they really were. One day they knocked on the door of an unfamiliar house, and an elderly woman opened it. Seeing two young girls of 14-15 years old, the old woman without hesitation let them into the house, hoping for interesting conversation over a cup of tea. And she got it, the girls chatted for a long time with the sweet old lady, entertaining her interesting stories. Shirley grabbed the old woman by the neck and held her, and Cindy went to the kitchen to get a knife to give it to Shirley. After receiving the knife, Shirley stabbed the old woman 28 times. The girls fled the crime scene, but were soon arrested.

Joshua Phyllis
Joshua Phillips was 14 when his neighbor went missing in 1998. After seven days his mother began to feel bad smell coming from under the bed. Under the bed she discovered the body of the missing girl, who had been beaten to death. When she asked her son, he said that he accidentally hit the girl in the eye with a bat, she started screaming, he panicked and began hitting her until she was silent. The jury didn't believe his story, and he was charged with first-degree murder.

Vili Bosket
By the age of 15, in 1978, Vili Bosquet's record already included more than 2,000 crimes in New York. He never knew his father, but he knew that the man had been convicted of murder and considered it a "courageous" crime. At that time, in the United States, according to the criminal code, there was no criminal liability for minors, so Bosquet boldly walked the streets with a knife or pistol in his pocket. Ironically, it was he who became the precedent for revising this provision. Under the new law, children as young as 13 can be tried as adults for excessive cruelty.

Jesse Pomeroy
The most famous - or rather notorious - of all the young children of murderers was Jesse Pomeroy (70s of the 19th century, USA, Boston), who occupies about the same place among the young children of murderers as Jack the Ripper among adults. Jesse Pomeroy became a legendary figure; if he had not been caught at the age of 14, he would undoubtedly have turned into the American equivalent of Peter Kurten. Jesse Pomeroy was a tall, gangly teenager with a cleft lip and an eyesore. He was a sadist and almost certainly homosexual. In 1871-1872, many parents in Boston were worried about an unknown young man who seemed to harbor a wild anger towards children younger than himself. On December 22, 1871, he tied a boy named Payne to a crossbar and beat him unconscious on Towder Horn Hill. A similar thing happened in February 1872: Tracy Hayden, a young child, was lured to the same place, stripped naked, beaten with a rope until he lost consciousness and stabbed swipe with a board in the face, breaking his nose and knocking out several teeth. In July, a boy named Johnny Blach was beaten there. The attacker then dragged him to a nearby cove and “washed” his wounds with salt water. In September, he tied Robert Gould to a telegraph pole near the Hatford-Erie railroad track, beat him and cut him with a knife. Three more cases soon followed one after another, each time the victims were children of seven or eight years old. He lured all the victims to a secluded place, stripped them naked, and then stabbed them with a knife or stabbed them with pins. Judging by the descriptions, Jesse Pomeroy's appearance was so unusual that it did not take long to arrest him on suspicion of brutal beatings. The victim's children identified him. Jesse Pomeroy was sentenced to Westboro Reformatory School. At that time he was 12 years old. After 18 months, in February 1874, he was released and allowed to return home. A month later, a ten-year-old girl, Mary Curran, disappeared. Four weeks later, on April 22, near Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, the mutilated body of a four-year-old girl, Horatia Mullen, was found: there were 41 knife wounds on it, and the head was almost completely cut off from the body. Jesse Pomeroy immediately came under suspicion. A knife covered in blood stains was found in his room, and the dirt on his shoes was similar to the soil from the place where the child was found. Jesse Pomeroy confessed to killing the children. Soon after this, his mother had to move out of the house - probably because of the scandal. The new tenant decided to expand the basement. Workers digging through the dirt floor found the decomposed body of a little girl. Merry Curran's parents identified their daughter by her clothes. Jesse Pomeroy confessed to this murder as well. On December 10, Jesse Pomeroy was sentenced to death by hanging, but execution was delayed due to the young age of the criminal - he was 14 years old. The punishment was commuted - which can be called to some extent inhumane - to life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Jesse Pomeroy later made several attempts to escape from prison. One of them suggests that he developed suicidal tendencies.

Due to irreversible damage to the cerebral cortex. Cardiac activity continues for some time after breathing has stopped. Since the second half of the 19th century, in many countries, the death penalty has used a type of hanging, in which the body of the convicted person is not simply deprived of support and hangs on a rope, but falls from a great height (several meters) through a hatch. In this case, death occurs not from asphyxia in a few minutes, but from rupture of the cervical vertebrae and spinal cord almost instantly. With such a hanging, it is necessary to calculate the length of the rope depending on the weight of the condemned person so that the head does not separate from the body (in the UK there was an “official table of falls” (Eng. Official Table of Drops) for rope length calculations). The separation of the head from the body took place, in particular, during the execution of Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti.

Story

Murder by hanging was first used by the ancient Celts, making human sacrifices to the air god Esus. Cervantes (17th century) mentions execution by hanging.

In Russia, hanging was practiced during the imperial period (for example, the execution of the Decembrists, “Stolypin ties”, etc.) and by warring parties during the civil war.

Later hanging was practiced in a short period of wartime and the first post-war years in relation to war criminals and persons collaborating with the Nazis (in particular, generals Vlasov, Krasnov, Shkuro, Colonel Girey-Sultan Klych, Ataman Semyonov, defendants in the Krasnodar trial, etc. were executed by hanging .) - see Decree “On punitive measures for German fascist villains...”. At the Nuremberg trials, 12 senior leaders of the Third Reich were sentenced to death by hanging.

In the occupied territories, execution by hanging was practiced by the German authorities against partisans and underground fighters. In Japan, the Soviet intelligence officer Richard Sorge was hanged.

In some countries of central Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland and some others) in the Middle Ages and Modern times, the place for hanging was called Galgenberg (Galgenhügel, Galgenbühl).

Sometimes the expression “Stolypin tie” is used as a synonym for the death penalty by hanging (statement by the deputy of the 2nd State Duma from the party of constitutional democrats F.I. Rodichev The reason for it was a report presented to the Duma by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Russian Empire Pyotr Stolypin).

Currently, hanging is used as the only or one of several types of death penalty provided for by law in a number of countries, including Japan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, both Koreas, and the USA.

Hanging in forensics

According to the method of application, loops with single, double and multiple turns are distinguished; in turn, multi-turn loops can have parallel, touching and intersecting turns. Often, materials that are at hand are used for strangulation, for example, parts of a toilet, or objects to which the deceased had access due to his profession: bandages, electrical wire, waist belts, scarves, stockings. The direction of tension can be determined by the direction of the fibers of the rope - in particular, if the tension occurred in the direction opposite to the gravity of the body, this leads to the conclusion that a murder took place. It is also necessary to pay attention to the node - it can indicate a person’s professional skills and sometimes serves as a determining factor in the investigation.

The main sign of hanging is a strangulation groove, which is an imprint of a noose on the neck and often repeats the structure of the material from which the noose was made. When hanging, as a rule, the strangulation groove is not closed, since the ends of the loop rise towards the knot when tensioned. By appearance the grooves are distinguished: pale, when the material of the loop was soft and the impact of the loop on the neck was short-lived; and brown ones, when the noose was tight, and man for a long time was in a loop.

Rescue of the Hanged

It is quite difficult to save a hanged man. This can only be done if the cervical vertebrae do not have serious damage, and if no more than 3-4 minutes have passed since the hanging (it is extremely rare to find cases of saving a hanged person half an hour after hanging).

First you need to quickly remove the hanged man from the noose. As a rule, it is extremely difficult, and sometimes almost impossible, to break a loop with bare hands, so the loop is usually cut. In everyday life (when attempting suicide), they take a sharp knife, slightly lift the hanged man by the collar or hair and quickly cut the noose, pointing the blade of the knife away from the hanged man’s head. The hanged man is then lifted up so that when he falls he does not hit his head on the floor.

Having taken the hanged man out of the noose and laid him on the floor, determine the presence of a pulse and breathing. If not too much time has passed since the hanging, then the hanged person will most likely retain breathing and cardiac activity. In this case, they simply press him to the floor and wait for the cramps to pass (this should happen on their own in a few minutes).

If a lot of time has passed since the hanging, and the victim has no breathing or heartbeat, begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but do not tilt the head of the hanged person, fearing damage to the cervical vertebrae.

It is imperative that every person who has survived a hanging must be taken to a hospital, since with hanging there is always a high risk of adverse complications.

Notes

see also

Links

• Text of standard instructions for organizing hanging, developed by the Department of Corrections of the US State of Delaware (English)

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See what “Hanging” is in other dictionaries:

Execution, self-hanging, tie, gallows, noose Dictionary of Russian synonyms. hanging gallows; loop (unfolded); tie (obsolete ironic) Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical guide. M.: Russian language. Z. E. Alexandrova. 2011… Synonym dictionary

HANGING, hangings, many. no, cf. (book). Action under Ch. hang (see hang in 2 meanings. The death penalty by hanging. Dictionary Ushakova. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

1) one of the qualified methods of death penalty. In Russia it was first legally provided for in the Council Code of 1649. It was considered a disgraceful punishment. P. was also used as a means of mass intimidation, since the bodies of those hanged... ... Legal Dictionary

See hang 1. Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

HANGING- HANGING, compression of the neck with a noose tightened by the weight of the body. This type of violent death, excluding the death penalty through P., in the vast majority of cases occurs as suicide and very rarely as an accident; sometimes P... ... Great Medical Encyclopedia

Hanging- (English death by handing) in forensic medicine, a type of mechanical asphyxia that occurs from compression of the neck with a noose tightened under the influence of the weight of one’s own body or part of it. Material and design features loops affect... ... Encyclopedia of Law

The information below is gleaned from many sources, including pathology textbooks, the Journal of Forensic Medicine, accounts of hanging survivors, reports from the 17th to 19th centuries, photographs taken in a later era, and reports from an official charged with monitoring execution of sentences and who, along with many flawlessly executed executions, witnessed two cases of “marriage”.

With ordinary slow hanging, suffocation, as a rule, does not occur from pressure on the trachea or windpipe. Rather, the pressure of the loop moves the base of the tongue back and up and thus causes the cessation of breathing.

Many pathologists believe that relatively little pressure is enough to completely cut off the air supply, which means that the hanged person is completely unable to breathe. This may again depend on the position of the loop. If the knot is in the front, there may be slight pressure on the airway.

Another cause of death is the cessation of blood supply to the brain due to compression of the carotid arteries. This alone would be enough to cause death, a fact proven by several cases of people accidentally hanging themselves to death while the airways remained sufficiently open to breathe.

There is still a little blood flowing into the brain - there are vertebral arteries, which, in the place where the loop is usually located, run inside the spine and are protected from compression - but this is not enough to maintain the vitality of the brain for a long time.

HANGING PROCESS

● Initial stage (15-45 seconds)

The noose rises sharply, causing the mouth to close (a common mistake when staging hanging scenes in films - they often show an open mouth). The tongue rarely falls out of the mouth, because the lower jaw is pressed with considerable force. There are exceptions when the loop was placed low and moves upward, pressing on the tongue before pressing the jaw - in these cases the tongue is severely bitten.

Survivors report a feeling of pressure in the head and clenched jaws. A feeling of weakness prevents you from grasping the rope. It is also said that the pain is mainly felt from the pressure of the rope, and not from suffocation. The feeling of suffocation, of course, increases with time.

Often, the victim who has just been hanged will start kicking in a panic or try to reach the ground with his fingertips. These convulsive movements of the legs are different from the real agony, which begins later.

In other cases, the hanged person hangs almost motionless at first, perhaps because the body is numb from pain. If the hands are tied in front, they rise sharply to the middle of the chest, usually clenched into fists.

In most cases, blood does not rush to the face. The noose cuts off the blood supply to the head, so that the face remains white and turns blue as it is suffocated. In some cases, if the blood supply is partially preserved, the face turns red.

Bleeding from the mouth and nose is sometimes observed. Most likely, this is actually a nosebleed in cases where blood pressure rises in the head.

Sometimes foam or bloody foam is released from the mouth - apparently in cases where the airways are not completely closed and some amount of air enters the lungs, despite the loop.

● Loss of consciousness

Generally speaking, a hanged man remains conscious only for a short time, although it may seem like an eternity. Judging by the stories of survivors and pathological studies, loss of consciousness can occur in 8-10 seconds due to the cessation of blood circulation, and maybe in about a minute. A few hanging survivors report that they were conscious and convulsed, so that they felt suffocated and could feel convulsive movements of the legs and body, but this seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

The position of the node is important here. If the loop does not compress both carotid arteries, the blood supply may continue. If the noose is in front (it was intentionally placed or slipped when the victim fell), blood circulation and partial breathing may be maintained, and then loss of consciousness and death may occur later.

Victims often lose control of their bladder. This apparently occurs in an unconscious state or most often just before loss of consciousness. Pathologists sometimes use this fact to determine whether the victim was strangled while standing. A long trail of urine on a skirt or trousers indicates that the victim passed out in an upright position and was then lowered to the floor by the killer. A shorter trail indicates that the victim was lying down at that moment. The use of such forensic evidence again suggests that bladder control is lost immediately prior to loss of consciousness.

● Convulsive phase (usually after 45 seconds)

This phase begins approximately 45 seconds after hanging. The real agony begins when what we associate with the pain of strangulation becomes unbearable. A more scientific explanation is that convulsions begin when the brain's carbon monoxide detection centers in the blood become overloaded and the brain begins to send erratic signals.

At this stage, powerful movements of the chest usually begin - the victim unsuccessfully tries to inhale air, and the speed of these movements quickly increases. Witnesses to the hanging of a female spy during the First World War say that her agony resembled a fit of hysterical laughter - her shoulders and chest shook so quickly. This stage quickly gives way to convulsive movements of the whole body. They can purchase various shapes, and one form can transform into another.

One of the forms is severe trembling, the muscles alternately quickly spasmodically contract and relax, as if vibrating.

In one "botched" hanging, the victim was out of sight after the hatch was opened, but witnesses heard the rope humming due to the spasmodic movements of the body. These movements must be very strong and occur with great frequency in order for the rope to make an audible sound.

A clonic spasm is also possible, when the muscles simply contract convulsively. In this case, the legs can be tucked under the chin and remain in this position for some time.

A more spectacular form is the well-known “gallows dance”, when the legs quickly twitch in different sides, sometimes synchronously, sometimes separately (in a number of executions in the 17th century, musicians actually played a jig while the hanged men twitched on the ropes)

These movements are sometimes compared to riding a bicycle, but they seem more violent. Another form (often the last stage, if there were several of them) consists of prolonged tension, to an absolutely incredible degree, of all the muscles of the body.

Since the muscles on the back of the body are much stronger than the front, the victim bends backwards (my acquaintance, an observer of executions, testifies that in some cases the heels of the hanged person almost reach the back of the head.

There is also a photograph of a man strangled while lying down; the body is not bent so much, but curved almost in a semicircle.

If the hands are tied in front, during convulsions they usually rise to the middle of the chest and fall only when the convulsions stop.

Often, but not always, hanged people lose control of their bladder. Apparently, this occurs during the period of these convulsive movements, after loss of consciousness, perhaps as a result of contraction of the abdominal muscles, despite the fact that control of the bladder has already been lost.

A friend of mine who saw people hanged explained that the victim’s legs were tied so that feces would not flow down the legs or fly apart during convulsive movements.

The convulsions continue until death or almost death. Reports of hanging executions note that the duration of convulsions varies widely—in some cases as little as three minutes, in others as long as twenty.

A professional English executioner who watched American volunteers hang Nazi war criminals lamented that they did it ineptly, so that some of those hanged agonized for 14 minutes (he probably kept track of the clock).

The reasons for this wide range are unknown. Most likely, we are talking about the duration of convulsions, and not about the time of death. Sometimes a hanged man dies without any convulsions at all, or the entire agony is reduced to a few movements, so perhaps a short agony does not mean a quick death.

Dying without a fight is sometimes associated with “stimulation of the vagus nerve,” a nerve in the neck that controls the contractions of the heart. This is difficult to understand because if the loop stops the blood supply to the brain, does it make much difference whether the heart beats or not?

● Death

Irreversible changes in the brain begin after about 3-5 minutes, and if they continue, convulsions continue. Over the next five minutes or so, these irreversible changes intensify.

Convulsions slow down and gradually stop. Usually the last convulsive movement is the heaving of the chest after the rest of the body is motionless. Sometimes convulsions return to an already seemingly calmed victim. In the 18th century, a hanged man, who was considered already dead, struck a man who, on duty, was removing clothes from his body.

The heart continues to beat for some time after all functions have stopped, until the acidity of the blood due to increased carbon dioxide causes it to stop.

OTHER PHENOMENA

Sometimes two phenomena are reported that cannot be verified.

● Death sounds

Firstly, in old reports of hanging executions there are reports that the victim at the moment of death (that is, when the convulsions stop, the only sign by which witnesses can judge) emits something like a groan (in Kipling’s “The Hanging of Danny Deever” the soldier , a witness to the execution, hears a groan overhead; it is explained to him that it is the victim’s soul flying away). This seems unlikely, since the airways are securely closed, but such reports exist.

● Ejaculation in men

This phenomenon is observed often, in almost all cases. Ejaculation, like the frequently observed erection, can be caused by the same reactions nervous system which cause convulsive movements. This happens at the end of the hanging.

There is a report from an American military policeman and a German warden who discovered a German prisoner who had hanged himself. The American watched in surprise as the German warden unzipped the hanged man's fly and announced that it was too late to take him out of the noose: ejaculation had already occurred.

Such a death was considered humiliating

The most popular types executions in the Middle Ages were beheading and hanging. Moreover, they were applied to people of different classes. Beheading was used as a punishment for noble people, and the gallows was the lot of the rootless poor. So why did the aristocracy beheaded and the common people hanged?

Beheading is for kings and nobles

This type of death penalty has been used everywhere for many millennia. IN medieval Europe such punishment was considered “noble” or “honorable.” Mostly aristocrats were beheaded. When a representative of a noble family laid his head on the block, he showed humility.

Beheading with a sword, ax or ax was considered the least painful death. A quick death made it possible to avoid public agony, which was important for representatives of noble families. The crowd, hungry for spectacle, should not have seen the low dying manifestations.

It was also believed that aristocrats, being brave and selfless warriors, were prepared specifically for death from knives.

Much in this matter depended on the skills of the executioner. Therefore, often the convict himself or his relatives paid a lot of money so that he could do his job in one blow.

Decapitation leads to instant death, which means it saves you from frantic torment. The sentence was carried out quickly. The condemned man laid his head on a log, which was supposed to be no more than six inches thick. This greatly simplified the execution.

The aristocratic connotation of this type of punishment was also reflected in books dedicated to the Middle Ages, thereby perpetuating its selectivity. In the book “The History of a Master” (author Kirill Sinelnikov) there is a quote: “... a noble execution - cutting off the head. This is not a hanging, an execution of the mob. Beheading is for kings and nobles.”

Hanging

While nobles were sentenced to beheadings, commoner criminals ended up on the gallows.

Hanging is the most common execution in the world. This type of punishment has been considered shameful since ancient times. And there are several explanations for this. Firstly, it was believed that when hanging, the soul cannot leave the body, as if remaining hostage to it. Such dead people were called “hostages.”

Secondly, dying on the gallows was painful and painful. Death does not occur instantly; a person experiences physical suffering and remains conscious for several seconds, fully aware of the approaching end. All his torment and manifestations of agony are observed by hundreds of onlookers. In 90% of cases, at the moment of suffocation, all the muscles of the body relax, which leads to complete emptying of the intestines and bladder.

For many peoples, hanging was considered an unclean death. No one wanted his body dangling in plain sight after the execution. Violation by public display is a mandatory part of this type of punishment. Many believed that such a death was the worst thing that could happen, and it was reserved only for traitors. People remembered Judas, who hanged himself on an aspen tree.

A person sentenced to the gallows had to have three ropes: the first two, pinkie-thick (tortuza), were equipped with a loop and were intended for direct strangulation. The third was called a “token” or “throw” - it served to throw the condemned to the gallows. The execution was completed by the executioner, holding onto the crossbars of the gallows and kneeling the condemned man in the stomach.

Exceptions to the rules

Despite the clear distinction between belonging to one class or another, there were exceptions to the established rules. For example, if a noble nobleman raped a girl whom he was entrusted with guardianship, then he was deprived of his nobility and all the privileges associated with the title. If during detention he resisted, then the gallows awaited him.

Among the military, deserters and traitors were sentenced to hanging. For officers, such a death was so humiliating that they often committed suicide without waiting for the execution of the sentence imposed by the court.

The exception was cases of high treason, in which the nobleman was deprived of all privileges and could be executed as a commoner.

Hello dears!
I read another book here and decided - shouldn’t we talk about such an important topic as “the ultimate measure?” social protection”, as entertainers with communist beliefs once called it? The topic is complex, difficult, but interesting. I propose to skip the moral aspects (possible/impossible, who are the judges, etc., etc.) and talk exclusively about the mechanism of the state depriving the life of its citizens as the highest possible punishment.
On this moment more than 80 countries of the world have either completely abolished the death penalty or joined the moratorium (including the Russian Federation). But the phenomenon itself remained as it was. And most likely, this will always be the case. For....
If we recall a little history, then according to the same Code of 1649, all death penalties were divided into ordinary (simple) and qualified. If you look even further, into the 15th century, then the number of these punishments could be found at about 2 dozen, some of them very, very cruel...
But be that as it may, the world moves forward, and, paradoxically, it becomes kinder and more tolerant. It is clear that perhaps this is not so visible now, but, I repeat, when compared with previous centuries, the difference is obvious.
This can be seen, including to the highest degree punishments. There are fewer death penalties and they are more humane, or something...
Therefore, I propose to talk about some of them. Let's start with those that currently exist, and if there is interest, we will remember those that existed earlier.
So....

Classics of the genre.

Let's start with the most common execution in the world - hanging.
For some reason, this type of execution is considered the most shameful. Apparently, this is connected with the legend that after his betrayal, Judas hanged himself on an aspen tree. If a military man is executed on the gallows, he considers it a great insult. The same Hermann Goering decided not to wait for the rope and was able to kill himself.
The modern technology of this punishment is as follows: " the condemned man is hanged with a rope around his neck; death occurs as a result of the pressure of the rope on the body under the influence of gravity. Loss of consciousness and death occur as a result of damage to the spinal cord or (if this is not enough to cause death) due to asphyxia from compression of the trachea".

G. Goering on Nuremberg trials.

And despite its apparent simplicity, it’s not all that simple.
It is clear that a more humane death, indicating the qualifications of the executioner, was death from damage to the spinal cord and vertebrae. After a noose is placed around the convict's neck, a hatch opens under his feet. In this case, the length of the rope (and, accordingly, the distance of the fall) is selected taking into account the height and weight of the convict - in order to achieve a rupture of the spinal cord. Otherwise, either a long and painful agony from suffocation, or the head will be completely torn off.
Well, the worst option is when the rope does not support the weight of the body and breaks. It turns out people are executed twice... The most famous example Such an incident was the execution of the Decembrists in 1826. Let us give the floor to an eyewitness of those events: “ When everything was ready, with the spring in the scaffold squeezing, the platform on which they stood on the benches fell, and at the same instant three fell - Ryleev, Pestel and Kakhovsky fell down. Ryleev’s cap fell off, and a bloody eyebrow and blood behind his right ear were visible, probably from a bruise. He sat crouched because he had fallen inside the scaffold. I approached him, he said: “What a misfortune!” The Governor-General, seeing that three had fallen, sent adjutant Bashutsky to take other ropes and hang them, which was immediately done. I was so busy with Ryleev that I didn’t pay attention to the others who fell from the gallows and didn’t hear if they said anything. When the board was raised again, Pestel’s rope was so long that he reached the platform with his toes, which was supposed to prolong his torment, and it was noticeable for some time that he was still alive».

Decembrists before execution

Therefore, I repeat, there can be no trifles here. The material of the rope and its correct fastening and, of course, the length are also important. There are special length tolerance tables depending on height and weight, and the loop itself is made using a special knot called a hanging or Lynch knot. An ideal knot is one that is wound 13 turns. The shape of the gallows is T-shaped or in the form of the Russian letter G, came from Ancient Rome. Why this is so, now I find it difficult to say - I will still investigate. But tradition is tradition... However, each country had its own characteristics. In Europe, for example, robbers were hanged from trees along roads. And in Russia, for some reason, it was a custom to build gallows on rafts for rebels and rebels and to send such rafts with those carried downstream.

Vintage version

Rope (which in Russia used to be often called a “Stolypin tie”) is used by most executors today, although earlier in Asia there could have been variations such as piano strings or barbed wire.
The executioner must provide all the nuances before the execution. And it depends only on him whether the victim will suffer or die relatively easily.
American Army Sergeant John Wood, who acted as an executioner for convicted criminals Nuremberg Tribunal, knew his business well and they all died quickly. But the Japanese who hanged Richard Sorge were amateurs. Even after he was taken down from the gallows, his heart beat for 8 minutes.

Nuremberg executioner John Wood

Among the most famous people executed in this way relatively recently, we can recall the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (father of Benazir Bhutto), Saddam Hussein and his younger brother Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, who was beheaded with a rope.

BEHIND. Bhutto

Currently, 18 countries use the death penalty by hanging ( North Korea, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia, Nigeria, North Sudan, South Sudan and Botswana)
And also 2 American states - Washington and New Hampshire. Let me remind you that in the United States the death penalty is legalized in 32 states.
To be continued...