death penalty news July 19, 2004
CANADA: Good noose, bad noose - Hanging an exact science Editor's note: The following story contains descriptions of executions through history and may be offensive to some readers. --- Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin shared the dubious distinction of being the last men hanged in Canada. Lucas and Turpin didn't know each other until they met on death row in Toronto's Don Jail where, shortly before midnight, Dec.. 11, 1962, they were stood back-to-back on the scaffold, black hoods placed over their heads and their hands and legs tied before they plunged into eternity. The pair were numbers 704 and 705 since Confederation to keep a date with the hangman. Joseph Michaud was the first person in Manitoba to hang. A gunner with the Dominion Artillery, Michaud, 23, killed James Brown, who was attempting to break up a fight. On Aug. 31, 1874, Michaud kept his date with Robert Hodson, appointed as hangman by police Chief Jack Ingram. According to the Nor'Wester newspaper, as Michaud ascended the gallows of the William Avenue Jail -- located near today's Old Market Square park -- the bells of St. Boniface began to toll 8 a.m.. "The rope was quickly adjusted to the neck of the unfortunate man, and the cap drawn over the face. Then came a horrible pause of a few moments until, at a signal from the Sheriff, a few blows on the bolt by the hangman, Michaud launched into eternity. Death seems to have been instantaneous for there was no struggling, there being only a sort of smothered gasp as he descended the drop," reported the paper. Hodson officiated at Canada's largest single mass hanging when eight Cree warriors were executed Nov. 27, 1885, in Battleford, Sask. There is a misconception about hanging -- most people believe the condemned dies immediately because of a cervical dislocation -- the person's neck is broken, and the spinal cord is separated from the brain stem. That is incorrect. According to the Delaware Hanging Protocol, the "how-to" manual on execution by hanging, the method of death is strangulation, which is not immediate. What can (and should) happen in a proper hanging is that the cervical dislocation creates immediate unconsciousness, and death follows in minutes due to a lack of oxygen to the brain caused by the rope blocking the windpipe. Delaware and Washington, incidentally, are the only two U.S. states where hanging is still used. Execution by hanging is a complex process, and many things can go wrong, making the event a gruesome occurrence. For example, care must be taken to ensure the rope is not too long. If that happens, the "executee" (the official term in the Delaware Protocol), will drop through the trap door and not have the merciful cervical dislocation. Instead, the head will be torn from the body by the force of the drop. Jack Henderson, who hanged Louis Riel Nov. 16, 1885, in Regina also entered the history books as the executioner who beheaded a condemned man by miscalculating the drop. OOPS, HE DID IT AGAIN But Henderson was not alone in making mistakes. Miscalculation plagued even the most professional hangmen, such as Arthur Ellis, who performed more than 600 hangings in England, Canada and the Middle East. On Aug. 25, 1926, the rope used to hang Dan Prockiw, who tipped the scales at 240 pounds, was too long and the drop tore off his head. Ellis was forced to retire at age 71 when a second decapitation occurred, this time in Montreal. When Ellis went to weigh Thomasina Sarao, he was refused entry to the women's jail. Instead he was handed a note containing the condemned woman's weight. Unfortunately, Sara was 32 pounds heavier and her head became separated in the fall through the trap door. The hanging was the last one open to the general public. One of the most gruesome decapitations occurred in British Columbia in January 1946. When Vancouver lawyer Thomas Hurley went to claim the body of American Byron Bruce Potter, he noticed the head had been stitched back onto the body. The stitches had been covered by adhesive tape. The method of execution therefore becomes something akin to drawing and quartering, which is banned as being cruel or unusual punishment. If the rope is too short, the drop height will be insufficient to create the needed force (1,260 foot-pounds) to separate the executee's spinal column and brain. In that case, the executee just hangs there and slowly suffocates. Unconsciousness takes two to four minutes. The gasping and retching can be heard by witnesses. Again, this method is considered cruel and unusual. Eleven women were hanged in Canada. Hilda Blake was the first and only woman hanged in Manitoba. On Dec. 27, 1899, Blake walked to the outside gallows in Brandon for killing her boss's wife. The first known woman in Canada to die by hanging was Phoebe Campbell. Campbell was executed June 20, 1872, in London, Ont., after she was found guilty of chopping her husband to death. Marguerite Pitre was the last woman hanged. She dropped to her death Jan. 9, 1953, for her part in an explosion that downed a Quebec Airways DC-3 and claimed 23 lives. Pitre and her married boyfriend planted the bomb to get rid of his wife and claim a $10,000 insurance policy. The last person to meet the hangman in Manitoba was Henry Malanik. Malanik dropped through the trapdoor at Headingley Gaol at 2:13 a.m., June 16, 1952, for killing police officer Det. Edwin J. (Ted) Sims. Eleven men were on death row July 14, 1976, when capital punishment was abolished by a 130-124 vote in Parliament. One of the men was from Manitoba. Later granted a new trial, he was acquitted. (source: The Winnipeg Sun)
