Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (17 page)
After being questioned about his motives, Zangara was examined by two psychiatrists, their report stating that:
‘The examination of this individual reveals a perverse character wilfully wrong, remorseless and expressing contempt for the opinions of others. While his intelligence is not necessarily inferior, his distorted judgment and temperament is incapable of adjustment to the average social standards. He is inherently suspicious and antisocial. Such ill-balanced erratic types are classified as a psychopathic personality. From this class are recruited the criminals and cranks whose pet schemes and morbid emotions run in conflict with the established order of society.’
Zangara stood trial on two occasions, once prior to Mayor Cermak’s death, being sentenced to 80 years in gaol for assault and attempted assassination, the other three days after the mayor’s death, on the charge of murder.
Despite the query over his mental state, he was sentenced to death. On the morning of 20 March 1933 he swaggered arrogantly into the death chamber, refusing the spiritual solace offered to him by the chaplain. When the guards tried to lead him to the chair, he waved them away, declaring that he didn’t need any help, because he wasn’t scared of it. Sitting in the chair, he then protested at the absence of photographers. ‘Lousy capitalists!’ he exclaimed. ‘No picture! No one here to take my picture! All capitalists lousy bunch of crooks.’
The warden pulled the black hood over his face, stifling Zangara’s muffled instructions to the guards. ‘Go ahead – push the button!’ he ordered. And so they did.
Before burying his body in the prison grounds, an autopsy was carried out, the doctors confirming that Zangara was not in fact suffering from any potentially fatal disease – only chronic indigestion.
Dr Harold Hillman of the University of Surrey has given one of the best descriptions of the clinical effects of execution by electrocution:
‘The metal skull-cap-shaped electrode is attached to the scalp and forehead over a sponge moistened with saline. The sponge must not be too wet, or the saline short-circuits the electric current, nor too dry, as it would then have a very high resistance. Additional curved electrodes are moistened with conductive jelly and bound to the prisoner’s legs after he or she has been strapped into the chair.
After the witnesses, which include doctors, have withdrawn to the observation room, the warder pulls a handle to connect the power supply. The “jolt” of 6–12 amps at 2,000–3,000 volts lasts a few seconds. The current surges and is then turned off, at which the body is seen to relax. The doctors wait a few seconds for the body to cool down, and then auscultate the heart. If it is still beating, another “jolt” is applied.
The prisoner’s hands grip the chair and there is violent movement of the limbs which may result in dislocation or fractures. The tissues swell; micturition and defaecation occur; steam or smoke rises and there is a smell of burning.
At post-mortem, third-degree burns with blackening between the electrodes and the skin of the scalp and legs are seen. The swollen tissues may have burst. The brain under the electrode is hot and congested; it may be denatured and is often charred. The other viscera are hot and reddish, and histology of the brain shows minute circular lesions which are probably bubbles.
Death from electrocution could be due to asphyxia caused by paralysis of respiration and to ventricular fibrillation. If so, several seconds could elapse during which the condemned person could be conscious. Death is unlikely to be due to
immediate
denaturisation of the respiratory muscles or heart, which are close to the electrode, or of the respiratory centre, which is further away, since respiration and the heart may restart after the first “jolt”.
The surface of the brain has been found to be at a temperature of up to sixty degrees, ten to twelve minutes after electrocution, and the charring of the brain makes it likely that the condemned person dies of heat denaturisation of the respiratory centre in the medulla. This heat results from the conduction of the current through the highly resistant skin; the current travels along the scalp, partly through the diploic vessels and through the orbits, nasal cavities, external auditory meatuses and the foramen magnum – which are all low-resistance pathways – to the vital centres in the medulla.’
The assessment of pain during execution in the electric chair is not quantifiable, but Dr Hillman considers that the resultant heat could cause severe intensity of pain, as could the skin burns and the sensation of being suffocated. However, some signs of suffering are not detectable, the condemned person being unable to move, or the indications cannot be seen, for example because they are concealed by the hood. Indeed, some signs may not be of pain but a result of fear, electrical stimulation or dying.
Dr Hillman concludes by remarking that the widespread use of the electric chair, like its use for the disposal of unwanted pets, was based on the belief that it caused instantaneous and painless death. In recent years closer observation and attention have indicated clearly that this is not the case. In fact, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the condemned person does not suffer severe and prolonged pain, since he is so firmly fastened to the chair that movement is impossible. Indeed, a prisoner being electrocuted is paralysed by the large amount of energy in the shock and is also asphyxiated, but almost certainly is fully conscious and sentient. He may feel himself being burned to death while he is conscious of his inability to breathe.
Presumably it was the failure to move which led to the general belief that the prisoner was not suffering pain. However, it has been known for several decades that lack of movement does not mean the absence of pain.
Just as, in the old days, when hangmen sold pieces of the ropes as souvenirs, so some electric chairs were similarly disposed of. One, once used with deadly effect in Alcatraz and San Quentin Prisons, was purchased by the artist Andy Warhol who, appropriately enough, watched horror films while seated in it, although he did not take realism as far as switching it on. The lethal machine was eventually auctioned in Bristol in 1997 for £4,800 (batteries not included, as they say!).
Early electric chair
FIRING SQUAD
‘A six-inch-square post was embedded deep in the snow-covered ground, and into the back of it, at shoulder height, was driven a long nail, its purpose being to stop the straps and the body they supported from slipping down the post after the execution.’
If bullets could kill the country’s enemies, governments reasoned, why not use them to kill society’s enemies? The means were there, for every country had an army and every army had rifles and ammunition. And so the method of death by firing squad was adopted, initially as a means of instilling discipline by example – in other words as a deterrent – in the armed forces, particularly in time of war, but also by some authorities which preferred it to such equipment-intensive methods as hanging or the electric chair. That the practice is now widespread is evidenced by the fact that in 1989, 86 countries employed this method, introducing their own variations.
Nowadays, policemen or even civilians are employed as well as soldiers. The choice of weapons varies, ranging from pistols to rifles, even submachine guns, and instead of having a number of executioners in the firing squad, only one person is considered necessary. The firing can take place from behind the victim instead of the traditional one facing the condemned prisoner; nor is the victim’s chest always the target, some authorities ordering that the head should be the aiming point.
The executioner-victim distance varies. Firing a pistol only inches away from the head destroys the vital medulla, the central parts of the brain. (In the same way, cattle are ‘humanely’ slaughtered with a bolt gun.) By contrast, rifle bullets fired at the chest rupture the heart and lungs, causing death by haemorrhage, each bullet producing a cavity which has a volume several hundred times larger than itself (probably due to the heat dissipated when the impact of the bullet boils the water and volatile fats of the tissues it strikes). The rupture of skin and fracture of bones would give the victim the sensation of being punched or stung. Whether pain was felt subsequently would depend on the accuracy of the firing squad, a bad aim allowing consciousness to continue and, with it, an awareness of increasing pain.
Whether death by the bullet is an effective way of execution is open to debate. The general view has always been that as accurate shooting causes instantaneous death, this method must be better than any other. But in the United Kingdom this view was rejected by the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment in 1953 on the grounds that it did not possess even the first requisite of an efficient method, the
certainty
of causing immediate death. In other words, even with a squad of eight or more, there was always a risk, however slight, that every bullet could miss a vital organ.
This conclusion has been borne out by the fact that despite executions by firing squad having been used in this country for nearly 300 years, it has still been necessary on occasion, after the squad had fired and where it was thought the victim might still be alive, for the coup de grâce, a pistolshot to the head, to be delivered.
This was certainly the case when, in 1743, 101 soldiers of Lord Sempill’s regiment, afterwards known as the Black Watch, came from Scotland to be reviewed by the King. On arriving, the soldiers heard rumours that this review was a ruse to bring them south in order to have them shipped for duty in the West Indies. Deserting, they marched north in an orderly and militarily correct manner, but were intercepted and escorted under guard to the Tower of London.
A court martial was convened, which sentenced the three alleged ringleaders to death by firing squad. We are fortunate in having an eyewitness account by General Adam Williamson, lieutenant of the Tower at that time, who was not merely a spectator but was the actual officer detailed to organise the executions. He described in his diary what happened:
‘The two corporals McFerson and Forquaher Shaw were ordered to be Shott within the Tower, by the soldiers of the 3rd Regiment of Guards [which, ironically, later became the Scots Guards] then on duty. The condemned men had six days’ notice to prepare themselves for death, which the poor fellows did very seriously and with great devotion.
I ordered that on the day of execution the Batallion should be under arms at Six in the morning on the Parade, without beat of Drum, and that the rest of the Prisoners be brought out to witness the executions. When all was ready the Condemned were brought down and Pinion’d and led to the spot of execution, which was before the blank wall of the south-east end of St Peter’s Chapel.
There they all kneeld downe and the Minister prayd about nine minutes with them, and the other highlanders I ordered to kneel and Joyne with them in prayer, which they did seemingly with great devotion and prostration. Then the three who were to Suffer kneeld downe, and were ordered to draw their caps over their eyes. All this while, they saw not the men appointed by Lott [i.e. drawn by lot] to shoot them, which made Samuel McFerson the bravest of them all when, the Parson had done Praying by them, say, “What, are we not to be shott, where are the men who are to shoot us?” To this was answered, “If youll kneel downe and draw your Caps over your faces, youll soon be dispatched.”
With that the poor fellows did so, and then the eighteen men round the corner of the Chapple advanced, and four to a man, were by the wave of a handkerchief, without any word of Command, a merciful measure to spare the condemned needless alarm, directed to “Make Ready – Present – Fire”, which they did, all at once, and the three Men fell at the Same moment dead, but as Shaw and Samuel McFerson had some little tremors and convulsions, I ordered two men of the Reserve [i.e. of the six who did not fire] to shoot them through the head.
As they wore their shrouds under their uniforms, they were immediately put in Coffins and buried in one Grave made for them just before the south-west end of the Chapple. There was not much blood spilt, but what was, I orderd immediately to be coverd with earth and their grave to be Leveld so that no remains of their execution might be perceivd.’
For those interested, a large, dark grey, unmarked flagstone now marks the tragic spot.
The Tower wasn’t the only place in London where executions by firing squads took place. Roque’s
Survey
of 1746 shows, on the map of Hyde Park, not far from Tyburn’s gallows, a site annotated, ‘Where soldiers are shot’. Fifty years earlier, military law declared ‘that the most honourable death for a delinquent soldier was beheading, the next to that was shooting; if he was a horseman, with pistols, if a foot-soldier, with muskets’.
Wide and varied were the military crimes carrying the penalty of death, even as comparatively recently as 1841. Demolishing a house, ravishing women, carnally abusing children, sodomy committed with either mankind or animals, burning ships with intent to murder, exhibiting false signs, piracy with violence, shooting to death an NCO, presenting and snapping a loaded pistol, striking a superior officer with the fist (death or 1,000 lashes!), deserting and joining a rebel chieftain – the list was endless, the reprieves few.
Nor were lowly soldiers the only ones to look down the barrels of muskets. No less a personage than an admiral of the fleet was put to death in that fashion, he being Admiral John Byng, son of Viscount Torrington, who in 1757 was sent with his squadron of ships to relieve Minorca, then blockaded by the French. In the battle, part of the fleet attacked, but Byng’s ships got into some disorder and retreated to Gibraltar, leaving Minorca and the rest of the fleet to their fate.
Byng was brought to England under arrest and in disgrace. Acquitted of cowardice, he was found guilty of neglect of duty and condemned to death, though with a recommendation to mercy. The King, however, doubtless aware of the ignominy inflicted on the navy and the nation, refused a pardon, and on 14 March 1757 Admiral Byng was shot by naval firing squad on the deck of the warship HMS
Monarque
at Portsmouth.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a verdict of guilty passed on British soldiers for desertion or some similar crime didn’t necessarily mean a sentence of death. Where large numbers of men had left the battle-lines in the face of the enemy, rather than execute them all and thereby reduce the regiment’s strength, the delinquents were decimated, i.e. every tenth offender was shot. In some cases, where only a few men deserved capital punishment, they were ordered to throw dice on the drumhead, the requisite number of men throwing the lowest numbers then being shot.
In 1693 three soldiers of Prince Hesse’s regiment were condemned to death by a court martial for deserting their colours. They threw dice on the drum for their lives, and the one throwing the lowest number was then shot. Similarly, in 1704 at Gibraltar, it was reported by the chaplain of HMS
Renelagh
that ‘great disorders were created by the boats’ crews that came ashore; one marine was executed after he had thrown dice with a Dutchman, who threw a ten and the Englishman only a nine’.
And there was also the instance where an English soldier was taken prisoner, with others, on the Spanish side in Flanders. They were all given dice with which to throw for their lives, and the Englishman won. Later, he saw a Spaniard also condemned to death who, when it was his turn to throw, shivered and shook so much that the Englishman offered, for twelve pence, to throw on the Spaniard’s behalf. He won again – and the Spaniard fainted!
To those who enjoy the spectacle of military ceremonies, the brooding sense of sheer horror which pervades the scene of an execution by firing squad would prove repellent in the extreme. To capture the atmosphere one only has to imagine oneself at Brighton on 14 June 1795, an account of the event which was enacted there appearing in the
Annual Register
for that year:
‘The Oxfordshire Regiment marched on Friday night last at 11 o’clock in order to attend the execution of the two men who were condemned by a general court martial for riotous and disorderly conduct. The hour of four after midnight was the time appointed to assemble. On the march there, the regiment was halted and 12 of the men who had taken part in the riot were called out. The Commanding Officer ordered them to fix their flints [in their muskets] and to prepare to execute sentence. This was done to demonstrate to the men that state of obedience in which the officers were determined to hold them, and by this means the men would feel more pointedly the folly of their former conduct, when those persons whom they had made their leaders were now to suffer death at their hands.