[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 17



GLOBAL:

The Not-So-Fine Art of Hanging


Botched executions in Iraq are causing lots of grief, suggesting that
after all these years, there may not be a reliable formula for hanging a
man. With all the hand-wringing in Iraq over execution etiquette  most if
it revolving around inexact send-offs that have sent heads popping here
and there, or left an apparent gash on the neck of Saddam Hussein's corpse
perhaps someone is forgetting the harmonious mathematics that human beings
have developed for the hanging arts over the centuries.

John Burns mentions in his piece this morning that by the standards set in
the United States Armys "Procedure for Military Executions," developed in
1947, the Iraqis had given their latest condemned, Saddam Hussein's
half-brother Brazan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and a close aide, Awad Hamad
al-Bandar, an over-sized drop.

The height matters, and it very much determines how the condemned dies (by
asphyxiation? by a stoppage of the heart, owing to pressure on the carotid
arteries? a snapping of the neck? a combination of all of these?). A good
deal of experimentation has been done to determine the proper
drop-to-weight ratio, but its worth noting that most of the newer methods
of execution  electric chair, lethal injection  were adopted precisely
because hangings were so often botched (not that the other methods are
without problems).

Richard Clark's meticulous Web site, "The Process of Judicial Hangings,"
examines the topic from Britains point of view (although this, as noted,
is not altogether different from what the American military has adopted):

The drop given in the 19th century was usually 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 body. Up to 1892, the
length of drop was calculated to provide a final "striking" force of
approximately 1,260 lbs. force which combined with the positioning of the
eyelet caused fracture and dislocation of the neck, usually at the 2nd and
3rd or 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. This is the classic "hangmans
fracture." The length of the drop was worked out by the formula 1,260 foot
pounds divided by the body weight of the prisoner in pounds = drop in
feet.

Between 1892 and 1913, a shorter length of drop was used, probably to
avoid the decapitation and near-decapitations that had occurred with the
old table. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account and the
drop was calculated to give a final "striking" force of around 1,000 lbs.
The Home Office issued a rule restricting all drops to between 5 and 8
feet as this had been found to be an adequate range. The American Military
manual also specifies a similar range for prisoners of between 120 and 200
lbs. body weight. In Britain, the drop was worked out and set to the
nearest quarter of an inch  to ensure the desired outcome.

The 1913 formula that Mr. Clark posts at his site, which was used until
the last hanging took place in Britain in 1964 (the country effectively
abolished the death penalty in 1998), is nearly identical to that laid out
in Delaware's "Execution by Hanging Manual," which has been reproduced in
various forms around the Internet.

That manual prescribes the following height-drop ratio for a proper
hanging:

(Perhaps most interesting about the Delaware manual is the fact that it
was authored by Fred A. Leuchter Jr., who was the subject of the 1999 film
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." The documentary
tells the story of the execution device expert and designer who was hired
by revisionist historians to help prove that the gas chambers at Auschwitz
never existed  a turn that would ultimately ruin his career. And you
thought your life was a roller coaster?)

The manual can be viewed in full here  although it should be noted that
Delaware, 1 of 3 states that still used hanging as a method of execution,
converted to lethal injection in 1986. Prisoners already on death row were
permitted to choose one or the other thereafter, and the state's last
inmate to be executed by hanging was Billy Bailey, on Jan. 25, 1996. No
more inmates are eligible.

Washington still permits hanging, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center (and for those interested, there are some interesting
rules laid out for the firing squad, which is still an option for the
condemned in Idaho  the last such execution taking place in 1996).

Delaware hanged its last prisoner in in 1996. Washington still has hanging
on the books. Idaho still allows prisoners to choose death by firing
squad. In any case, there are also very clear specifications for the rope
used in hangings. It has to be treated just so, ensuring there's no give.
Here's the overview provided by an ambitious capital punishment survey
compiled by Steven D. Stewart, the prosecutor in Clark County, Indiana:

The rope, which is of manila hemp of at least 3/4? and not more than 1
1/4? in diameter and approximately 30 feet in length, is soaked and then
stretched while drying to eliminate any spring, stiffness, or tendency to
coil. The hangmans knot, which is tied pursuant to military regulations,
is treated with wax, soap, or clear oil, to ensure that the rope slides
smoothly through the knot. The end of the rope which does not contain the
noose is tied to a grommet in the ceiling and then is tied off to a metal
T-shaped bracket, which takes the force delivered by the offender's drop.

Mr. Stewart's site also notes that "a physical examination and measuring
process is conducted to assure almost instant death and a minimum of
bruising." This seems to be where Iraq's executioners are coming up short.

************

The Nuremberg Hangings  Not So Smooth Either


Former high-ranking Nazis sat on trial at Nuremberg. 10 of them would
ultimately be hanged  and it wasnt pretty. Before we set aside the topic
of Iraq's botched hangings, which continue to cause a fair bit of
consternation there, a reader reminds us to flash back to 1946, and the
conclusion of the trials at Nuremberg, in which 11 high-ranking Nazi
officers were ultimately condemned to death by hanging. One of them,
Hermann Gring, managed to finish himself in his cell with a cyanide
capsule just hours before the execution was to take place, but the others
took their trip to the gallows.

Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitlers foreign minister, was the first to go.
>From an Oct. 28, 1946 dispatch in Time magazine headlined "Night Without
Dawn" (the ellipses are in the original):

At 1:11 a.m. he entered the gymnasium, and all officers, official
witnesses and correspondents rose to attention. Ribbentrop's manacles were
removed and he mounted the steps (there were 13) to the gallows. With the
noose around his neck, he said: "My last wish  is an understanding between
East and West. " All present removed their hats. The executioner tightened
the noose. A chaplain standing beside him prayed. The assistant
executioner pulled the lever, the trap dropped open with a rumbling noise,
and Ribbentrop's hooded figure disappeared. The rope was suddenly taut,
and swung back & forth, creaking audibly.

The executioner was U.S. Master Sergeant John C. Woods, 43, of San
Antonio, a short, chunky man who in his 15 years as U.S. Army executioner
has hanged 347 people. Said he afterwards: "I hanged those 10 Nazis  and I
am proud of it.  I wasn't nervous.  A fellow can't afford to have nerves
in this business.  I want to put in a good word for those G.I.s who helped
me  they all did swell.  I am trying to get [them] a promotion.  The way I
look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it. I got into it kind of by
accident, years ago in the States" 10 more executions would follow that
evening, but for all of Sergeant Woods' experience (and for all of the
collected wisdom the military had at its disposal on proper hanging
techniques), the Nuremberg executions were, it seems, a ghoulishly untidy
affair.

Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., a professor of law at the University of Georgia Law
School, noted that many of the executed Nazis fell from the gallows with
insufficient force to snap their necks, resulting in a macabre,
suffocating death struggle that in some cases lasted many, many minutes:

The 10 hangings, which officially brought the Nuremberg Trial proceedings
to a close, continue to exert a morbid appeal.

The executions, in a brightly lighted prison gymnasium where three looming
black wooden gallows had been erected, were witnessed by a handful of
Allied military officers and eight journalists, one of whom, Kingsbury
Smith of International News Service, wrote a famous newspaper article,
"The Execution of Nazi War Criminals, 16 October 1946," based on his
eyewitness observations.

Although Smith discreetly omitted mentioning it, the experienced Army
hangman, Master Sgt. John C. Woods, botched the executions. A number of
the hanged Nazis died, not quickly from a broken neck as intended, but
agonizingly from slow strangulation. Ribbentrop and Sauckel each took 14
minutes to choke to death, while Keitel, whose death was the most painful,
struggled for 24 minutes at the end of the rope before expiring.

Adds just a wee bit of context to President Bush's increasingly strong
chiding of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for the mishandling
of the executions of Saddam Hussein and his aides in recent days and
weeks. As we pointed out in our post yesterday, there's been a fair amount
of science applied to the art of hanging, but it seems an easy thing to go
awry. Mr. Bush said yesterday that the fledgling government in Iraq "has
still got some maturation to do."

On the other hand, Mr. Wilkes does add this note on the Nuremberg
executions, taken from Robert E. Conot, who wrote the book "Justice at
Nuremberg": "It was a grim, pitiless scene. But for those who had sat
through the horrors and tortures of the trial, who had learned of men
dangled from butcher hooks, of women mutilated and children jammed into
gas chambers, of mankind subjected to degradation, destruction, and
terror, the scene conjured a vision of stark, almost biblical justice."

*********************

Night without Dawn----Monday, Oct. 28, 1946


Through the cold, wet darkness, the people hurried homeward silently,
drawing threadbare coats tightly around hunched shoulders. Policemen paced
beneath feeble street lights, stamping their feet. A sharp wind whispered
through shattered walls and broken towers, bringing shivers to everyone in
Nrnberg. This was a night which had been longed for by millions in death
cells, in all of Europe's fearful prisons and pens. But now, in the
piercing wind, victors and vanquished alike felt the chilling doubts that
invariably attend man's deliberate killing in the name of justice.

9 p.m. The 11 men for whom this night held no dawn ate a last supper of
potato salad, sausage, cold cuts, black bread and tea. At 9 p.m., the
prison lights were dimmed. At 10:45, U.S. Army Security officer Colonel
Burton C. Andrus walked across the prison courtyard to set the night's
lethal machinery in motion. The whole prison was permeated by the thought
of impending death. (The Courthouse movie announced the next day's
attraction: Deadline for Murder.)

Just then Hermann Gring was crunching a phial of potassium cyanide (no one
knew where it came from). When guards and a chaplain rushed into his cell,
he was dying. Meanwhile, near Nrnberg's old imperial Castle, a band of
German children hung Gring in effigy. Then they burned the makeshift
scaffold and silently marched around the fire, watching it scatter weird
shadows among the rubble.

In the small gymnasium of the jail (its floor dusty, its walls dirty
grey), three black gallows had been erected with more attention to
numerology than to efficiency. The platforms were eight feet apart, stood
eight feet above the ground, measured eight feet square. From each
platform rose two heavy beams, supporting a heavy crosspiece with a hook
for the rope in the middle. An inconspicuous lever served to open the
traps. The space beneath the traps was hidden by curtains. 1:11 a.m. Two
white-helmeted guards led Joachim von Ribbentrop from his cell down the
corridor and across the courtyard. He walked as in a trance, his eyes half
closed. The wind ruffled his sparse grey hair. Overhead, the same wind
whipped clouds into bizarre patterns.

At 1:11 a.m. he entered the gymnasium, and all officers, official
witnesses and correspondents rose to attention. Ribbentrop's manacles were
removed and he mounted the steps (there were 13) to the gallows. With the
noose around his neck, he said: "My last wish ... is an understanding
between East and West. . . ." All present removed their hats. The
executioner tightened the noose. A chaplain standing beside him prayed.
The assistant executioner pulled the lever, the trap dropped open with a
rumbling noise, and Ribbentrop's hooded figure disappeared. The rope was
suddenly taut, and swung back & forth, creaking audibly.

The executioner was U.S. Master Sergeant John C. Woods, 43, of San
Antonio, a short, chunky man who in his 15 years as U.S. Army executioner
has hanged 347 people. Said he afterwards: "I hanged those ten Nazis . . .
and I am proud of it. ... I wasn't nervous. . . . A fellow can't afford to
have nerves in this business. . . . I want to put in a good word for those
G.I.s who helped me . . . they all did swell. . . . I am trying to get
[them] a promotion. . . . The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has
to do it. I got into it kind of by accident, years ago in the States "

2:14 a.m. During Nrnberg's preliminary deliberations, the British had
opposed hangings: their long experience in political executions (Essex,
Sir Thomas More, Charles I, Robert Emmet, Nathan Hale) had taught them
that posterity remembers the victim's dramatic last appearance better than
the execution cause. The condemned at Nrnberg did not fail to make the
most of their chance. While the late Joachim von Ribbentrop was still
swinging from the first gallows, Field Marshal General Wilhelm Keitel, in
well-pressed uniform and gleaming boots, mounted the second scaffold
briskly, as though it were a reviewing stand, and said: ". . . More than 2
million German soldiers went to their deaths for the Fatherland. I follow
now my sons."

Then Ernst Kaltenbrunner: "... I have loved my German people and my
Fatherland with a warm heart. . . . Germany, good luck. . . ." Then
Philosopher Alfred Rosenberg, who had nothing to say. Then Hans Frank: "I
am thankful for the kind treatment during my imprisonment and I ask God to
accept me with mercy." Then Wilhelm Frick: "Long live eternal Germany!"
Then Julius Streicher, who looked wild-eyed and yelled "Heil Hitler." When
asked for his name, he roared: "You know it well." From the gallows he
jeered: "Purim Festival 1946"-and: "The Bolsheviks will hang you one day."
As the black hood was placed over his head, his raucous voice could be
heard saying: "Adele, my dear wife." At 2:14, the trap swallowed him.
Reported Sergeant Woods: ". . . He kicked a little while, but not long."

Later, it was charged that the executions had been cruelly bungled. Cecil
Catling, correspondent for London's Star (a veteran crime reporter and an
expert on hangings), declared that there was not enough room for the men
to drop, which would mean that their necks had not been properly broken
and that they must have died of slow strangulation. In addition Catling
claimed that they were not properly tied, so that some hit the platform
with their heads as they went down and their noses were torn off. The U.S.
Army denied his story.

2:57 a.m. Woods and his assistants seemed to be getting impatient as they
moved from one scaffold to the other, using a new rope for each man. At
2:26 it was Fritz Sauckel's turn. When summoned for his last walk, he had
refused to dress, so he went to the gallows coatless. He cried: "I am
dying innocent. . . . I pay my respects to U.S. soldiers and officers, but
not to U.S. justice." (Conflicting versions claimed that he did not
mention "U.S. justice but "U.S. Jews.") Then Colonel General Alfred Jodl.
Then, finally, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who limped as he mounted the steps.
He said, "I hope this execution is the last act in the tragedy of World
War II. . . ." It was 2:57 when he was pronounced dead. Said Woods: "10
men in 103 minutes. That's fast work." He added that he was ready for a
"stiff drink afterwards."

The sagging body of Hermann Gring was carried into the gymnasium on a
stretcher. His skin showed a poisoned, greenish tinge. His toes were
curled. After the official witnesses had taken a good look, he was carried
behind a black curtain where the other ten corpses were waiting.
Photographers took pictures of the bodies both dressed and naked. The
photographs, labeled top secret, were taken to the Allied Control Council
in Berlin. A few hours later, the corpses were removed in 2 vans, cremated
and the ashes "secretly dispersed" at an undisclosed place.

Thus Death, as it must to all men, came to the 11 by whose instrumentality
so many thousands had died (more horribly and without a chance for
historic histrionics).*

The wind had blown through the night and swept away the clouds. The
morning which the 11 did not see dawned clear and brilliant over Nrnberg,
but it held neither cheer nor reassurance for the victors. They had
permitted new doubts of Nrnberg's justice to arise even out of this last,
relatively simple business of hanging 10 men by the neck. And they had
given Germany a sense of victory when they permitted Hermann Goring to die
not as they willed but as he willed.

*A Jewish early spring festival commemorating the story of Haman, a sth
Century B.C. Jew-baiter and Prime Minister of Persia's King Xerxes
(Ahasuerus). The King finally had him hanged for his virulent
anti-Semitism upon the intervention of Queen Esther, a beautiful Jewess.
*In Ipswich, England, Tommy Hailstone, 12, was found by his sister last
week, hanging by a cord in a storeroom. Said his father: "I believe Tommy
had been reading in the papers about the Xiirnberg hangings and was
staging a hanging himself."

(source for all: New York Times)






INDONESIA:

Challenge made to death penalty legality


2 ringleaders of the Bali 9 heroin ring have launched a new legal bid to
escape the firing squad, arguing that Indonesia's constitution enshrines
their right to life.

Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran today lodged their appeal
with Indonesia's Constitutional Court, with their lawyers saying the
South-East Asian country's constitution affords life as a basic human
right.

The pair, who were sentenced to execution by firing squad in Denpasar's
District Court in February last year, are challenging the constitutional
validity of the law under which they were sentenced.

Prominent Jakarta-based human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis said the
lawyers were "challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty under
the law".

"The reason for filing ... is because the death penalty is against the
constitution," he said.

"There's no legal basis, there's no constitutional basis for the death
penalty in the Indonesian legal system."

Mr Todung said he "was very optimistic", of a positive outcome.

Sukumaran  the ringleader of the failed bid to smuggle heroin from Bali to
Australia in April 2005  and Chan, his deputy, are fighting a court ruling
that they must face the firing squad for their crimes.

The challenge follows two failed appeals against their sentences, in the
Indonesian High Court and Supreme Court.

In their most recent appeal, the Supreme Court last year upheld their
death sentence saying none of their legal objections  including that the
sentence was against the Indonesian constitution and excessive  could be
justified.

The Constitutional Court does not have the power to overturn their death
sentences.

Instead, any ruling in their favour will be used to add legal weight to
their planned last-ditch appeal against their executions to the Supreme
Court, known as a judicial review, later this year.

3 Islamic militants convicted over the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings have
used a similar legal strategy in their current Supreme Court judicial
review.

The Constitutional Court in 2004 ruled the trials for some of the Bali
bombers were unconstitutional because the anti-terror laws used were put
in place after the 2002 terrorist attacks, and thus retroactive.

However, it is unclear how much weight the Supreme Court will give the
ruling when considering the Bali bombers' current appeal.

Chan and Sukumaran, both from Sydney, were among 9 young Australians
arrested in Bali by Indonesian authorities on drugs charges in April 2005,
following a tip-off from the Australian Federal Police.

Chan, 23, was removed from a commercial flight as it was about to depart
Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport.

Police found 3 mobile phones but no drugs in his possession.

Sukumaran, 25, was caught with 3 others at the Melasti Hotel, at Kuta
Beach, with 5 mobile phones and 350g of heroin.

He denied any involvement in the heroin operation at the airport.

Separate Supreme Court appeals by the 2 men were thrown out in September,
when the court also upgraded the punishment of 4 other Bali 9 members from
life sentences to death.

Those 4  Matthew Norman, Si Yi Chen, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen and Scott Rush
are also planning higher legal challenges to their death sentences.

Mr Todung said he expected a preliminary hearing would take place next
week.

Head of administration at the Constitutional Court, Kasianur Sidauruk,
said it was the first time foreigners had challenged Indonesian law in the
courts.

(source: News.com.au)