Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (35 page)

While rope of the approved quality could be obtained, and stretched overnight by suspending from it a sandbag of the same weight as the condemned person, all influencing factors had to be taken into consideration, a wrong permutation resulting in a tragic disaster.

I am indebted to Dr Harold Hillman, Reader in Physiology and Director of Applied Neurobiology at the University of Surrey, Guildford, for the following anatomical details:

‘When the prisoner falls through the hatch, the weight of the prisoner’s body below the neck causes traction and tearing of the cervical muscles, skin and blood vessels. The upper cervical vertebrae are dislocated, and the spinal column is separated from the brain; this is the lesion which causes death.

The volume of blood in the skull and face quickly increases, but soon the blood supply to the brain falls drastically. The respiratory and then the heart rate slow until they stop, and death supervenes. Initially during hanging the prisoner attempts to move, presumably reacting to the pain of neck traction and dislocation of his spine. Later on there is a second series of drastic reflex movements as a result of spinal reflexes originating at the site of severance of the brain from the spinal cord. These usually occur when the prisoner is unconscious, and are not evidence that he or she can still feel.

It is often thought that hanging immediately arrests respiration and heartbeat, but this is not so. They both
start
to slow immediately, but whereas breathing stops in seconds, the heart may beat for up to 20 minutes after the drop. Blood loss plays little part in death due to hanging.

It is impossible to know for how long a condemned person feels pain, and the standard practice of hooding the person prevents observation of the face, though it is known that the eyes close and the tongue protrudes. It is always assumed that fracture-dislocation (of the vertebrae) causes instantaneous loss of sensation. Certainly sensory pathways from below the neck must be ruptured rapidly, but the sensory signals from the skin above the noose and from the trigeminal nerve probably continues to reach the brain until hypoxia blocks them.’

The concern that Marwood showed for his victims, in marked contrast to that displayed by his callous predecessors such as Calcraft, Jack Ketch and the like, was never better exemplified than when he had to execute Charles Peace, a murderer so notorious that the newspapers of the day devoted columns to descriptions of the execution, which took place at Armley Prison, Leeds, on 25 February 1879.

In his own words the hangman described how, on entering the condemned cell, Peace greeted him, saying: ‘I do hope you will not punish me; I hope you will do your work quickly.’ Marwood reassured him, replying: ‘You shall not suffer pain from my hand.’ The executioner then proceeded to secure the prisoner with straps which he himself had devised, passing a main strap around the waist, to the sides of which were attached two shorter straps to pinion the arms tightly to the body, leaving the hands free. Peace, although standing quiescently, objected, exclaiming that the straps were too tight. Marwood calmed him, explaining that it was necessary and would reduce Peace’s suffering.

The 80-yard walk across the icy yard was accomplished without mishap, and the hangman and his charge mounted the steps on to the black-draped scaffold, where Peace was positioned beneath the cross-beam. Marwood pinioned the felon’s legs and placed the noose about his neck. ‘The rope is very tight,’ Peace protested. ‘Never mind, it is all for the best,’ Marwood said gently. ‘Hold up your chin, I won’t hurt you.’

Drawing the white cap down over the man’s face, Marwood stepped back. Even as the felon started to speak again, Marwood withdrew the trap bolt. Instantly, Peace dropped like a stone, to fall a distance of just over 9 feet until his body came to a slowly swaying halt at the end of the rope. In accordance with the regulations, an hour was allowed to elapse before the corpse was cut down, and was then buried in an unmarked grave in the prison grounds.

Although Marwood served for only nine years before dying on 4 September 1883 from inflammation of the lungs complicated by jaundice, an occupational hazard for one of his calling, his dedication and expertise had revolutionised the craft. Further improvements were made by his successor, James Berry, who took over in March 1884.

An erudite and intelligent man, Berry was the first English hangman to write about his work in any detail, his book
My Experiences as an Executioner
, published in 1892, being the definitive reference book on the subject. Realising Marwood’s contribution to the profession, and the need for accurate calculation of the length of drop, he devised a scale showing drop required against weight of victim, though extra allowance had to be made for the condemned person’s build and similar factors.

Despite all these precautions, however, errors occurred, perhaps the most tragic being that of the case of Robert Goodale, a fruit farmer who had killed his wife with an iron bar and thrown her body down a well. Found guilty, he was sentenced to be executed by Berry at Norwich Castle on 30 November 1885.

Being a man of 15 stone, Goodale’s drop, as estimated by the scale, should have been one of 7 feet 6 inches, but in view of the man’s fleshy build and poorly developed neck muscles, Berry reduced this to 5 feet 9 inches. But even this considerable reduction was not enough, as the horrific execution proved.

From the very start the omens weren’t good, Goodale struggling so violently that Berry, unable to pinion him with the straps, had to resort to wire and cords with which to bind him. In a state bordering on collapse, the man had then to be half-dragged to the scaffold and supported on the drop by the warders, one of whom fainted and had to be carried away.

As soon as the noose and cap were in position, Berry gave the sign. The warders released the man, Berry pulled the lever, the drop opened and the victim plummeted downwards. Then all present stared uncomprehendingly as the rope rebounded, jerking upwards through the open hatch. As Berry later wrote in his book, he immediately assumed that the rope had snapped or the noose had slipped, but nothing so mundane had occurred. On going to the edge of the pit and looking down, there, for all to see, was the head, enveloped in its white bag, lying some distance away from the blood-soaked body; the noose had cut through Goodale’s neck as cleanly as wire cutting cheese.

At the subsequent inquiry Berry was absolved from all blame, it being accepted that the length of drop given would have been correct, given a man of normal build and physique.

In view of this tragedy Berry overhauled his method of calculation. Taking as a starting-point that an ‘average’ man of any weight needs to fall a distance such that the striking force at the termination of his descent is 24 hundredweight (2,688 pounds) he devised a table which, knowing the weight of the man and making allowance for physical factors, would allow him to read off the appropriate drop length. Applying this to the Goodale case, the tragedy could have been avoided had he been given a drop of about 2 feet 1 inch.

Another tragic error occurred on 20 August 1891 at Kirkdale Gaol, Liverpool, due to a difference of opinion between Berry and the Prison Medical Officer. Berry had assessed the drop required to be 4 feet 6 inches, but Dr Barr considered that it should be 6 feet 9 inches. During a somewhat heated discussion the doctor agreed to reduce his estimate by a few inches, urging the acceptance of a drop about 5 feet 9 inches. Under protest Berry conceded defeat, exclaiming: ‘All right, I’ll do it as you like, but if it pulls his head off I’ll never hang another.’

Nor were Berry’s fears groundless, for within seconds of the prisoner’s body dropping through the hatch, the ghastly sounds of blood dripping on to the brick floor of the pit came to their ears. The memory of the Goodale débâcle uppermost in their minds, the officials rushed down into the pit. There, they found that although the head had not been severed, the principal blood vessels of the neck had been ruptured, the head remaining attached to the body only by an attenuated muscle.

The reason for that death was certainly no mystery; the reason for John Lee’s survival on the scaffold certainly was. That gentleman was scheduled to be executed for murder at Exeter Gaol on 23 February 1885. As was his custom, Berry had previously inspected the scaffold, testing the drop mechanism at least twice in his usual meticulous manner, and drawing the governor’s attention to the flimsiness of the drop boards, they being only an inch thick instead of the 3 inches required for a fast drop. Otherwise everything appeared to be in order.

At the appointed time Lee stood under the cross-beam and calmly submitted to being noosed and hooded. Berry stepped back and pulled the lever. The bolts were heard to slide back, but nothing else happened: the hatch remained level with the surrounding boards. In sheer disbelief, Berry stretched out one foot and stamped on the drop, as did some of the warders. This had no effect whatsoever, and all the while Lee stood motionless, waiting.

At a sign from the governor, the rope was removed from around Lee’s neck and, the hood being taken off, the man was led back to his cell. Berry descended into the pit to inspect the linkwork of the mechanism, then operated the drop again, to find that it worked perfectly. Lee was brought back to the scaffold, and the macabre ritual of noosing and hooding was repeated. Again, prayers were said, and again Berry pulled the lever, this time with so much force that he bent it, but to no avail: the drop didn’t and apparently wouldn’t open. As if trapped in some horrendous nightmare, again Berry and the warders untied Lee, and once more he was returned to the condemned cell.

It has been reported in some journals that, after saws, planes and axes had been used to widen the gap between the two doors of the drop, Lee was brought back a third time for yet another abortive endeavour. But Berry avers that after the second attempt the governor gave orders that the execution should not proceed until he had conferred with the Home Secretary. Whichever version is correct, the fact remains that no reason could be found for the malfunction, though theories current at the time ranged from that of divine intervention, warped boards which jammed when the chaplain stepped off them, to one whereby wedges were surreptitiously inserted by fellow convicts.

Despite his devastating experience, Lee, once back in the cell, was so far from being reduced to a nervous wreck that he not only ate his own breakfast but that of the hangman, Berry having other things on his mind. So Lee enjoyed a repast consisting of chicken and potatoes, followed by muffins and cakes, washed down with tea.

The felon’s sentence was mitigated to one of life imprisonment, ‘halfhanged Lee’ being released in December 1907. He disappeared into obscurity, rumours having it that he emigrated to America, where he later died from natural causes.

James Berry retired from his post early in 1892 at the age of 40. He had carried out more than 134 executions of men and women. After that, the image of the official executioner in England generally faded from public attention. Offences carrying the death sentence became fewer in number; hangings were carried out behind prison walls, witnessed only by officials; the advances in education and penology brought intelligent, better-qualified men to the profession of hangman, men of the calibre of Henry, Thomas and Albert Pierrepoint, and Syd Dernley, who died in 1994 and who participated in more than 20 executions during his career at the scaffold.

Conscientiously and methodically, they refined the innovations started by Marwood and Berry. Nooses were lined with soft leather, improvements made to the drop mechanism itself. Meticulous attention was paid to the factors involved when calculating the length of the drop; procedures were modified so that a mere 20 seconds elapsed between leaving the condemned cell and the hatch falling. The act ceased to be one of vengeance in public but one of necessary extermination in private, performed as humanely as possible.