Execution by hanging of two girls snuff staging. Modern types of the death penalty (13 photos)

The information below is drawn from many sources, including pathology textbooks, the Journal of Forensic Medicine, accounts of hanging survivors, reports from the 17th and 19th centuries, photographs taken in a later era, and reports from an official in charge of overseeing execution of sentences and who, along with many impeccably executed executions, witnessed two cases of "marriage".

With the usual slow hanging, suffocation, as a rule, does not occur from pressure on the trachea, the windpipe. Rather, the pressure of the loop shifts the base of the tongue backwards - upwards and thereby 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 man is completely unable to breathe. This may again depend on the position of the loop. If the knot is in front, there may be slight pressure on the airways.

Another cause of death is the cessation of blood supply to the brain due to clamping of the carotid arteries. This alone would have been enough to cause death, a fact proven by several cases of people accidentally hanging themselves to death while the airway was left wide enough for breathing.

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

HANGING PROCESS

● Initial stage (15-45 seconds)

The noose rises abruptly, causing the mouth to close (a common mistake in staging hanging scenes in films - the mouth is often shown open). The tongue rarely protrudes from the mouth, because the lower jaw is pressed with considerable force. There are exceptions when the loop has been placed low and moves upward, pressing on the tongue before it presses the jaw - in these cases the tongue is strongly bitten.

Survivors testify to a feeling of pressure in the head and clenched jaws. The feeling of weakness makes it difficult to grasp 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 the passage of time.

Often, a newly hanged victim in a panic begins to kick or tries 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 man hangs almost motionless at first, perhaps because the body is numb with pain. If the hands are tied in front, they rise sharply to the middle of the chest, usually clenched into fists.

In most cases, the 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 strangled. In some cases, if the blood supply is partially preserved, the face turns red.

Sometimes there is bleeding from the mouth and nose. Most likely, this is actually a nosebleed in cases where blood pressure rises in the head.

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

● Loss of consciousness

Generally speaking, the hanged man retains consciousness 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 after 8-10 seconds due to the cessation of blood circulation, and maybe after about a minute. Few survivors of hanging report being conscious and convulsing so that they feel suffocated and can 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 (intentionally placed that way or slipped off when the victim fell), blood circulation and some breathing may be preserved, and then loss of consciousness and death may occur later.

Victims often lose bladder control. This, apparently, occurs in an unconscious state, or most often just before the loss of consciousness. Pathologists sometimes use this fact to determine if a victim is strangled in a standing position. 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 track indicates that the victim was lying 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 suffocation becomes unbearable. More scientific explanation is that convulsions begin when the brain's centers for detecting carbon monoxide in the blood are overloaded, and the brain begins to send erratic signals.

At this stage, powerful chest movements usually begin - the victim unsuccessfully tries to inhale air, and the speed of these movements increases rapidly. 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 is quickly replaced by convulsive movements of the whole body. They can take various forms, and one form can change into another.

One of the forms is a strong tremor, the muscles alternately quickly spasmodically contract and relax, as if vibrating.

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

Clonic spasm is also possible, when the muscles simply convulsively contract. 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 "dance of the gallows", when the legs quickly twitch in different directions, sometimes synchronously, sometimes separately (in a number of executions of the 17th century, the musicians really played a jig while the hanged twitched on the ropes)

These movements are sometimes compared to riding a bicycle, but they seem to be more abrupt. Another form (often the last stage, if there have been several) consists in 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 back (my acquaintance at the execution of sentences testifies that in some cases the heels of the hanged man almost reach the back of the head.

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

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

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

My friend, who saw the hanged, explained that the legs of the victim were tied so that the feces would not flow down the legs and scatter to the sides during convulsive movements.

The convulsions continue until death, or almost until death. Accounts of executions by hanging note that the duration of convulsions varies widely - in some cases as little as three minutes, in others as much as twenty.

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

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

Death without a fight is sometimes associated with "excitation of the vagus nerve" - ​​this is a nerve that runs in the neck and controls the contractions of the heart. This is difficult to understand, because if the loop stops the blood supply to the brain, then it makes a big difference whether the heart beats or not.

● Death

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

The 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 the convulsions return to an already seemingly calm victim. In the 18th century, a hanged man, who was already considered dead, hit a man who, on duty, took off his clothes from his body.

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

OTHER PHENOMENA

Sometimes two phenomena are reported that cannot be verified.

● Death sounds

First, in the old accounts of executions by hanging, there are reports that the victim at the time of death (that is, when convulsions stop, the only sign by which witnesses can judge) emits something like a groan (in Kipling's "Hanging of Danny Deaver" soldier , a witness to the execution, hears a groan over his head; they explain to him that this is the soul of the victim flying away). It seems incredible, since the airways are securely closed, but such reports exist.

● Ejaculation in men

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

There is a report by 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 guard unzipped the fly of the hanged man and announced that it was too late to take him out of the noose: ejaculation had already occurred.

Evil must be known. Terrible photographic evidence must be seen, because they warn: do not let this happen again.

"Photography has a peculiarity - documentary. This is not an interpretation performed by mankurts without memory, but how it really was. The Nazis we lost. Let the impressionable ones also look," wrote the well-known blogger AMPHRE. On his LiveJournal page, under the heading "The Nazis We Lost," he posted a photo and concrete examples evil crimes.

The remains of the captured Red Army soldier Viktor Antonovich Yatsenevich (1924 - 1943) tortured and burned by the Nazis in a coffin before the funeral.

After the attack of the Soviet troops, the Germans were driven out of the village of Semidvoriki and our fighters found the mutilated body of Yatsenevich, hung on a telephone cable in a dugout behind a beam. It was established that the German monsters subjected the captured Red Army signalman to brutal torture: they pricked his arms, legs, body, tore off his arm. They cut open the stomach, cut out the genitals and chopped off the legs.

All these atrocities were carried out by the Nazi bandits at the stake. Despite the torture, the fighter remained faithful to the military oath and fulfilled his duty to the Motherland, the Nazi bandits did not achieve any information. Viktor Antonovich was awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union posthumously.

From the memorandum of the UNKVD for the Rostov region No. 7/17 dated March 16, 1943: “The wild arbitrariness and atrocities of the invaders of the first days were replaced by the organized physical destruction of the entire Jewish population, communists, Soviet activists and Soviet patriots. In the city prison alone, on February 14, 1943 - the day of the liberation of Rostov - the Red Army units discovered 1,154 corpses of city citizens shot and tortured by the Nazis.

Of the total number of corpses, 370 were found in the pit, 303 - in different parts of the yard and 346 - among the ruins of the blown up building. Among the victims are 55 minors, 122 women.” In total, during the occupation, the Nazis destroyed 40 thousand inhabitants in Rostov-on-Don, another 53 thousand were driven to forced labor in Germany.

© waralbum.ru

Execution of Soviet underground workers in Minsk. In the photo - the moment of preparation for the hanging of Vladimir Shcherbatsevich. On the left is the hanged 17-year-old Maria Bruskina.

This is the first public execution in the occupied Soviet territories. On that day in Minsk, 12 Soviet underground workers were hanged on the arch of a yeast factory, helping wounded Red Army soldiers escape from captivity.

Soldiers of the SS division "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" at a celebration with Ukrainian girls. Apparently, this image was danced by Anastasia Antelava, making eyes at the Nazi performed by Alexander Petrov.

03. An emaciated child lying on the sidewalk in the Warsaw ghetto.

04. Wehrmacht motorcyclist in front of a burning Soviet village.

05. Residents of Rostov-on-Don in the courtyard of the city prison identify relatives killed by the German invaders. From the memorandum of the UNKVD for the Rostov region No. 7/17 of 03/16/1943: “The wild arbitrariness and atrocities of the invaders of the first days were replaced by the organized physical destruction of the entire Jewish population , Communists, Soviet activists and Soviet patriots. In the city prison alone, on February 14, 1943 - the day of the liberation of Rostov - the Red Army units discovered 1,154 corpses of city citizens shot and tortured by the Nazis. Of the total number of corpses, 370 were found in the pit, 303 - in different parts of the yard and 346 - among the ruins of the blown up building. Among the victims are 55 minors, 122 women.” In total, during the occupation, the Nazis destroyed 40 thousand inhabitants in Rostov-on-Don, another 53 thousand were driven away for forced labor in Germany.

06. SS officers on vacation in the resort town of Solahuette, 30 km from Auschwitz. In the photo from left to right: the commandant of the Auschwitz II concentration camp (part of Auschwitz) Josef Kramer (Josef Kramer, 1906–1945, standing with his back to the photographer), the doctor of the Auschwitz concentration camp Josef Mengele (Josef Mengele, 1911–1979), the commandant of Auschwitz Richard Baer (Richard Baer) , 1911-1963), Baer's adjutant Karl Hecker (Karl Hoecker, 1911-2000) and Walter Schmidetzki. This is one of 116 photographs taken from July 1944 to January 1945 from Obersturmführer Karl Hecker's album. The album shows the rest of the SS officers, the arrival of high-ranking leaders and generals, award ceremonies and feasts while thousands of concentration camp prisoners died every day.

07. The dead prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, lying near the barbed wire, 1945.

08. Four emaciated prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp after liberation, 1945.

09. Snow-covered bodies of prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, 1945.

10. Corpses of prisoners concentration camp Buchenwald, prepared for burning in a crematorium, in the back of a trailer.

11. Bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp, 1945.

12. Former prisoners demonstrate the process of destruction of corpses in the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp after his release. May 1945.

13. The bodies of prisoners who died in the train on the way to the Dachau concentration camp.

14. The execution of ten civilians in occupied Pskov for one killed Wehrmacht soldier.

15. The body of a blinded prisoner of the Mauthausen concentration camp.

16. Prisoners of the Yugoslav concentration camp Zrenyanin hanged by the Germans (Zrenjanin, the territory of modern Serbia), 1941.

17. German soldiers at the body of the hanged Yugoslav communist Sava Dilasov in the courtyard of the barracks in the town of Novi Sad, 1941.

18. Hanged Serb partisans on the street of the Yugoslav town of Bor (the territory of modern Serbia).

19. Execution. Decapitation of a Slovene partisan by Waffen-SS soldiers, 1944.

20. Eleven Soviet forced laborers hanged by the Gestapo in the Cologne-Ehrenfeld camp.

21. Execution of Soviet citizens.

22. A Soviet woman hanged by the Germans in the village of Teploe, Lugansk region. The woman was executed for possession of ammunition.

23. Residents of Kharkov at the bodies of three hanged on Shevchenko Street Soviet partisans, 1942.

24. Hanged by the Germans in the city of Bosanska Krupa, 17-year-old Yugoslav partisan Lepa Radic (12/19/1925-February 1943).

25. The bodies of three Soviet citizens (two men and a woman) hanged by the Germans on the street of the village of Komarovka, Mogilev Region, 1941.

26. Execution of Soviet partisans, 1941.

27. Hanged Soviet partisans, 1941.

28. Soviet civilians hanged for a stolen helmet from a tombstone of a German soldier.

29. German soldiers are photographed against the background of two hanged Soviet partisans.

30. Hanged Soviet citizens, suspected by the Germans in connection with the partisans.

31. Soviet citizens hanged by the Germans in the first days of the occupation of Kharkov on Sumskaya Street, 1941.

32. The bodies of Soviet citizens hanged by the Germans during the occupation of Volokolamsk, 1941.

33. Shooting of Soviet partisans, 1941.

34. Photograph of the execution of the last Jew of Vinnitsa, taken by an officer of the German Einsatzgruppe, which was engaged in the execution of persons subject to destruction (primarily Jews). The title of the photo was written on it reverse side. Vinnitsa was occupied by German troops on July 19, 1941. Some of the Jews living in the city managed to evacuate. The remaining Jewish population was imprisoned in the ghetto. On July 28, 1941, 146 Jews were shot in the city. In August, the shootings resumed. On September 22, 1941, most of the prisoners of the Vinnitsa ghetto were destroyed (about 28,000 people). Craftsmen, workers and technicians, whose work was necessary for the German occupation authorities, were left alive. The issue of employing Jewish specialists was discussed at a special meeting in Vinnitsa at the beginning of 1942. The participants of the meeting noted that there were five thousand Jews in the city, “all trades are in their hands ... they also work in all enterprises of vital importance.” The city police chief said that the presence of Jews in the city worries him very much, “because the building being built here [A. Hitler’s headquarters] is in danger due to the presence of Jews here.” On April 16, 1942, almost all Jews were shot (only 150 specialist Jews were left alive). The last 150 Jews were shot on August 25, 1942.

35. The execution of the Soviet underground workers in Minsk. The picture shows the hanged 17-year-old Maria Borisovna Bruskina. This is the first public execution in the occupied Soviet territories. On that day in Minsk, 12 Soviet underground workers were hanged on the arch of a yeast factory, helping wounded Red Army soldiers escape from captivity.

36. The execution of the Soviet underground workers in Minsk. In the photo - the moment of preparation for the hanging of Vladimir Shcherbatsevich. On the left is the hanged 17-year-old Maria Bruskina.

37. Execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. On the girl’s chest is a poster with the inscription “Pyro” (Zoya was captured by the Germans while trying to set fire to the house where the German soldiers were quartered).

And so they just wanted to be loved, yeah.

Hanging

Palestinian terrorists hanged in a market square in Damascus. On the necks of the convicts hangs a sign "In the name of the Syrian people." D.R.

For centuries, people have hung their own kind. Along with beheading and bonfire, hanging was the most popular method of execution in almost all ancient civilizations. It is still used legally in more than eighty countries to this day.

It is impossible not to recognize the simplicity, cost savings and ease of execution inherent in hanging. It is for these reasons that every second suicide candidate uses a rope. It is very easy to make a tightening loop ... and you can use it anywhere!

Like shooting, hanging makes it possible to carry out mass executions.

Mass hanging in the Netherlands. Engraving by Hogenberg. National Library. Paris.

Just such an execution during the Thirty Years' War already in the 17th century was captured by Jacques Callot in his engraving: a huge oak tree, on which the corpses of sixty soldiers sway. Let us recall how, on the orders of Peter I, in the autumn of 1698, in just a few days, several hundred archers ended up on the gallows. Two and a half centuries later, in 1917, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander-in-chief of German troops in East Africa, hung hundreds of aborigines in two days on long gallows that stretched in strings to the horizon. During World War II, hundreds of German troops hanged Soviet partisans. Such examples can be given ad infinitum.

Hanging is carried out with the help of the gallows. Usually it consists of a vertical pole and a horizontal beam of smaller length and diameter, which is attached to the top of the pole - a rope is fixed on it. Sometimes for collective hanging they use a gallows of two vertical poles connected at the top by a beam on which ropes are attached.

These two models - with minor differences depending on the country and people - are practically full set structures used for hanging. True, other options are also known, for example, the Turkish one, which was used as early as the beginning of the 20th century: the Turkish-style gallows consists of three beams brought together to one point in the form of a pyramid.

Or the Chinese "hanging cage", but it serves more for strangulation than for hanging.

The principle of hanging is simple: the noose around the neck of the executed under the weight of his weight is tightened with a force sufficient to stop the work of a number of vital organs.

Compression of the carotid arteries disrupts circulation, causing brain death. Depending on the method used, cervical vertebrae are sometimes broken and the spinal cord is damaged.

The agony can last a long time...

There are three main hanging methods.

The first is as follows: a person is forced to rise to an elevation - a chair, table, cart, horse, ladder, put a noose around his neck from a rope tied to a gallows or a tree branch, and knock out a support from under his feet, sometimes pushing the victim forward.

This is the most ordinary, but the most common way. The victim dies slowly and painfully. Previously, it often happened that the executioner, in order to speed up the execution, hung with his whole body on the legs of the condemned.

Execution by hanging. Woodcut published by de Souvigny in Praxis Criminis Persequende. Private count

That is how in 1961, the former chairman of the Turkish Council, Menderes, was executed at hard labor in Imsala. He was forced to climb onto an ordinary table that stood under the gallows, which the executioner knocked out with a kick. More recently, in 1987, in Libya, six people sentenced to public hanging - the execution was broadcast on television - climbed onto stools that the executioner knocked over.

The second way: a noose is put on the neck of the condemned, the rope is attached to a roller or a movable support, and the condemned is lifted from the ground for it. He is being dragged up instead of being thrown down.

This is how they usually lynched in the USA. Public hangings were carried out in the same way in Iraq, Iran and Syria in the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, we are talking about suffocation, the agony in this case lasts up to half an hour or more.

Hanging of deserters. Engraving by Jacques Callot. Private count

Finally, in the third method of hanging, suffocation and anemia of the brain are accompanied by a fracture of the cervical vertebrae.

This method, developed by the British, has a reputation for being painless and guaranteeing instant death (what it actually is, we will describe later). This method is certainly more effective than the previous two, but it requires some adaptations: a scaffold of a certain height with a sliding floor - the body falls, the rope is pulled sharply, breaking, in theory, the convict's vertebrae.

This method will be brought to perfection in the second half of the 19th century. It is now used in the United States and some African and Asian states, which were inspired by the conclusions of a special study of the British Royal Commission, conducted in 1953. The Commission, having considered all types of executions on the basis of "humanity, reliability and decency", came to the conclusion that hanging, then in force in the UK, should be retained.

Throughout Europe, commoners were hanged for centuries, while nobles were usually beheaded. An old French proverb said: "The ax is for the nobles, the rope is for the commoners." If they wanted to humiliate a nobleman, his corpse was hung after being executed in the way that was due to his title and rank. So, on the Montfaucon gallows, five financial quartermasters and one minister were hung up: Gerard de la Gete, Pierre Remy, Jean de Montague, Olivier Ledem, Jacques de la Baume and Enguerrand de Marigny. Their headless bodies were hung by the armpits.

The corpses were removed from the gallows only after they began to decompose, in order to frighten the townsfolk as long as possible. The remains were dumped into the ossuary.

Hanging was already considered in antiquity shameful execution. The Old Testament says that Joshua ordered the killing of five Amorite kings who were besieging Gibeon, hanging their corpses on five gallows and leaving them there until sunset.

At one time the gallows were low. To make the execution more humiliating, they were raised, and in the verdict they began to specify that they should be hung "high and short." The higher, the more humiliating the execution. The highest beam, facing north, began to be called "Jewish".

The humiliating nature of hanging has survived in the modern mind. A relatively recent example is Germany. The civil penal code of 1871 provided for beheading, and the military regulations for execution (however, the gallows were still used for the execution of "natives" in the protectorates), but Hitler in 1933 ordered the return of the gallows to the country in order to execute by hanging "particularly immoral criminals." Since then, the guillotine and ax punished those convicted of civil crimes, and everyone who was found "guilty of causing damage to the German people" was sent to the gallows.

"Hang them like cattle!" - said the Fuhrer. In July 1944, he ordered the officers involved in the plot against him to be hung on carcass hooks.

Offensive "head down" ...

Historian John W. Wheeler Bennett describes this collective execution as follows: “Erwin von Witzleben, in his sixties, entered first, dressed in a prisoner’s uniform and wooden shoes… He was put under one of the hooks, the handcuffs were removed from him, and he was stripped to the waist. They threw a noose of thin short rope around the neck. The executioners lifted the convict, put the other end of the rope on a hook and tied it tightly, after which they released him, and he collapsed down. While he writhed furiously, suffering unspeakably, he was stripped naked ... He fought to the point of exhaustion. Death came in five minutes.

The bodies remained hanging until complete decomposition. Engraving. Private count

The Soviet criminal code provided for execution by firing squad, while retaining hanging for "war criminals".

As for hanging upside down, it has always been used for the highest humiliation. That is how on April 28, 1945, the corpses of the executed Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci were hung in Piazza Loreto.

Many engravings of the 14th and 15th centuries show that two gallows rise on the Place Greve in Paris. The hanging ritual in the 16th and XVII centuries described in detail in a text by an unknown author, quoted by many nineteenth-century historians.

The execution of criminals usually took place on a large scale on a Sunday or a holiday. “The victim was taken to the execution, seated on a cart with his back to the horse. Nearby was a priest. Behind the executioner. Three ropes hung around the convict's neck: two as thick as a little finger, called "tortuzy", with a sliding loop at the end. The third, nicknamed "Jet", served to pull the victim off the stairs or, following the expression of that time, "send to eternity." When the cart arrived at the foot of the gallows, where the monks or penitents were already standing singing Salve Regina, the executioner was the first to back up the ladder leaning against the gallows, with the help of ropes dragging the convict to him, forced to climb after him. Climbing up, the executioner quickly tied both “tortuzas” to the gibbet beam and, holding the “Jet” wound around his hand, threw the victim off the steps with a knee blow, he swayed in the air, and he was strangled by a sliding noose.

One knot solves everything!

Then the executioner stood with his feet on the tied hands of the hanged man and, holding on to the gallows, made several strong pushes, finishing off the convict and making sure that the strangulation was successful. Recall that often the executioners did not bother using three ropes, limiting themselves to one.

In Paris and many other cities in France, there was a custom: if the condemned passed by the monastery, the nuns had to bring him a glass of wine and a piece of bread.

A huge crowd always gathered for the sad treat ceremony - for superstitious people it was a rare opportunity to touch the condemned. After the execution, the confessor and the officers of the judicial police went to the castle, where a table set at the expense of the city awaited them.

The hanging, which very quickly became a real folk performance, prompted the executioners not only to demonstrate their skills in front of a demanding audience, but also to “stage” the execution, especially in cases of collective hangings. So they sought to "aestheticize" the executions. In 1562, when Angers was taken by the Catholics, the Protestants were hanged symmetrically. Subsequently, there were cases of distribution of victims among the gallows, depending on weight and height. The executioners, who alternated between tall and short, fat and thin, deserved rave reviews.

On account of his hundreds of executions

Albert Pierrepoint took over from his father and uncle and served as His Majesty's official executioner until the abolition of the death penalty for criminal offenses in 1966. In November 1950, he was called to testify before the Royal Commission, which was studying the methods of execution used in the world, in order to give an opinion on whether hanging in the UK should be kept. Here are some excerpts from his testimony:

How long have you been working as an executioner?

P: About twenty years.

How many executions did you carry out?

P: Several hundred.

Did you have any difficulties?

P: Once in my entire career.

What exactly happened?

P: He was a boor. We were not lucky with him. It was not an Englishman. He made a real scandal.

Is this the only case?

P: There were maybe two or three more, like a faint at the last moment, but nothing worth mentioning.

Can you confirm that the majority of convicts calmly and dignifiedly stand on the hatch?

P .: From my own experience I can say that in 99% of cases this is exactly what happens. Not a bad number, right?

Do you always operate the sunroof yourself?

P: Yes. The executioner must do it himself. Its' his job.

Does your job seem too exhausting to you?

P: I'm used to it.

Do you ever worry?

P: No!

I guess people ask you questions about your profession?

P: Yes, but I refuse to talk about it. For me, this is sacred.

History reference

France: Until 1449, women were not hanged for reasons of decency, but were buried alive. In 1448, during a trial, a gypsy woman demanded that she be hanged. And they hung her, tying the skirts to her knees. England: A special "mercy regime" provision provided for the pardon of certain convicts due to physical features of their physique, such as an overly thick neck. Between 1940 and 1955, five convicts benefited from this article.

South Africa: This country holds the record for civilian death sentences by hanging: 1,861 between 1978 and 1988.

Bangladesh: Ban on hanging teenagers who were under 16 at the time of the crime.

Burma: Children over the age of seven can be sentenced to death unless they are said to be "lack of maturity".

Sudan: The oldest person hanged in the 20th century, in 1985, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was seventy-two years old.

Iran: Since 1979, thousands of convicts have been hanged under the law of Hodud (for crimes against the will of Allah).

USA: In 1900, 27 states voted in favor of the electric chair instead of hanging, which was considered more cruel and inhumane. Now it has been preserved only in four - in Washington, Montana, Delaware, Kansas. In the first three, the right to choose a lethal injection is given.

Libya: The hanging in April 1984 of ten students from the University of Tripoli, as well as the execution of nine other convicts in 1987, was televised.

Nigeria: Twelve public hangings took place in 1988: according to the official version, in this way the authorities wanted to "reduce the workload", which became one of the causes of unrest in prisons.

Japan: This country is known for having the longest waiting period between conviction and execution. Sadami Hirasawa, sentenced to hang in 1950, died of old age in 1987, although he could end up in a noose every day. Anonymity: The names of the executed Japanese are never disclosed by the administration and are not published in the press, so as not to dishonor the families.

The price of blood: The Islamic code stipulates that anyone convicted of murder can be executed only with the consent of the closest relative of the victim, who is free to collect compensation from the guilty person - the "price of blood" instead of execution.

Television: Cameroon, Zaire, Ethiopia, Iran, Kuwait, Mozambique, Sudan, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, Uganda. All of these countries carried out public hangings between 1970 and 1985, and at least half of the executions were filmed for television or broadcast live.

Body price: Swaziland is the only country in the world that provides for hanging for trading human body. In 1983, seven men and women were hanged for such a crime. In 1985, a man was sentenced to death for selling his nephew for ritual murder. In 1986, two people were hanged for killing a child during a ritual murder.

Pregnant women: in principle, pregnant women are not hanged in any country in the world. Some peoples change the measure of restraint, others await childbirth and immediately carry out the sentence or wait from two months to two years.

Hanging in Croatia. According to tradition, the condemned were hung in sewn bags. Private count

Criminal verdicts often specified: "Must hang until death occurs."

This wording was not accidental.

Sometimes the executioner failed to hang the convict the first time. Then he took him off, pricked his heels, bringing him to consciousness, and hung him up again. Such "blunders" happened much more often than you might think, examples of this were noted even in the middle of the 19th century.

Previously, the hanging technique depended on the performer and the city where the execution took place.

Thus, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, until the revolution, the Parisian executioner placed a sliding noose under the jaw and occipital bone of the convict, which in most cases led to a neck fracture.

The executioner stood on the victim's bound hands, and on this makeshift stirrup he jumped with all his might. This method of execution was called "brittle withers".

Other executioners, such as those in Lyon and Marseille, preferred to place the slipknot over the back of the head. There was a second deaf knot on the rope, which did not allow her to slip under the chin. With this method of hanging, the executioner stood not on his hands, but on the head of the convict, pushing it forward so that the deaf knot fell on the larynx or trachea, which often led to their rupture.

Today, in accordance with the "English method", the rope is placed under the left side of the lower jaw. The advantage of this method is the high probability of spinal fracture.

In the US, the loop knot is placed behind the right ear. This method of hanging leads to a strong stretching of the neck, and sometimes to tearing off the head.

Execution in Cairo in 1907. Engraving by Clement Auguste Andrieu. 19th century Private count

Recall that hanging by the neck was not the only widespread method. Previously, hanging by the limbs was used quite often, but, as a rule, as an additional torture. By the hands they hung over the fire, by the legs - giving the victim to be eaten by dogs, such an execution lasted for hours and was terrible.

Hanging by the armpits was fatal in itself and guaranteed prolonged agony. The pressure of the belt or rope was so strong that it stopped the blood circulation and led to paralysis of the pectoral muscles and suffocation. Many convicts, suspended in this way for two or three hours, were removed from the gallows already dead, and if alive, then after this terrible torture they didn't live long. Adult defendants were sentenced to such a "slow hanging", forcing them to confess to a crime or complicity. Children and teenagers were often hanged for capital crimes as well. For example, in 1722, the younger brother of the robber Kartush, who was not even fifteen years old, was executed in this way.

Some countries have sought to extend the execution procedure. So, in the 19th century in Turkey, the hands of the hanged were not tied so that they could grab the rope above their heads and hold on until their strength left them and after a long agony death came.

According to European custom, the bodies of the hanged were not removed until they began to decompose. Hence the gallows, nicknamed "gangster", which should not be confused with ordinary gallows. On them hung not only the bodies of the hanged, but also the corpses of convicts who were killed in other ways.

"Gangster gallows" personified royal justice and served as a reminder of the prerogatives of the nobility, and at the same time were used to intimidate criminals. For greater edification, they were placed along crowded roads, mainly on a hillock.

Their design varied depending on the title of the lord who held court: a nobleman without a title - two beams, a castle owner - three, a baron - four, a count - six, a duke - eight, a king - as much as he considered necessary.

The royal "bandit gallows" of Paris, introduced by Philip the Handsome, were the most famous in France: they usually "flaunted" fifty to sixty hanged. They towered in the north of the capital approximately where Buttes-Chaumont is now located - at that time this place was called the "Hills of Montfaucon". Soon the gallows itself began to be called that.

Hanging children

When children were executed in European countries, they most often resorted to killing by hanging. One of the main reasons was class: the children of nobles rarely appeared before the court.

France. If it was about children under 13-14 years old, they were hung by the armpits, death by suffocation usually occurred in two to three hours.

England. The country where the largest number of children were sent to the gallows, they were hung by the neck, like adults. Hanging of children lasted until 1833, the last such sentence was passed on a nine-year-old boy accused of stealing ink.

When many countries in Europe had already abolished the death penalty, the English penal code stated that children could be hanged from the age of seven if there was "obvious evidence of sabotage".

In 1800, a child of ten was hanged in London for fraud. He forged the ledger of a haberdashery store. Andrew Brenning was executed the following year. He stole the spoon. In 1808, a child of seven was hanged at Chelmsford on charges of arson. In the same year, a 13-year-old boy was hanged in Maidstone on the same charge. This happened throughout the first half of XIX century.

The writer Samuel Rogers writes in Table Talk that he saw a group of girls in colorful dresses being taken to Tyburn to be hanged. Greville, who followed the process of several very young boys sentenced to hanging who burst into tears after the announcement of the verdict, writes: “It became clear that they were absolutely not ready for this. I've never seen boys cry like that."

It can be assumed that teenagers are no longer legally executed, although in 1987 the Iraqi authorities shot fourteen Kurdish teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 after parodying court-martial hearings.

Montfaucon looked like a huge block of stone: 12.20 meters long and 9.15 meters wide. The rubble base served as a platform, on which they climbed a stone staircase, the entrance was blocked by a massive door.

On this platform, sixteen square stone pillars ten meters high rose from three sides. At the very top and in the middle, the supports were connected by wooden beams, from which iron chains for corpses hung.

Long strong ladders, standing at the supports, allowed the executioners to hang the living, as well as the corpses of the hanged, wheeled and decapitated in other parts of the city.

Hanging of two murderers in Tunisia in 1905. Engraving. Private count

Hanging in Tunisia in 1909. Photographic postcard. Private count

In the center there was a huge pit, where the executioners dumped the rotting remains when it was necessary to make room on the beams.

This terrible dump of corpses was a source of food for thousands of crows that lived on Montfaucon.

It is easy to imagine how ominous Montfaucon looked, especially when, due to a lack of space, they decided to expand it by adding two other “bandit gallows” nearby in 1416 and 1457 - the gallows of the church of Saint Laurent and the gallows of Montigny.

Hanging on Montfaucon will cease in the reign of Louis XIII, and the building itself will be completely destroyed in 1761. But hanging will disappear in France only in late XVIII century, in England in the second half of the XIX, and until then it will be very popular.

As we have already said, the gallows - ordinary and gangster - were used not only for executions, but also for putting the executed on public display. In every city and almost every village, not only in Europe, but also in the newly colonized lands, they were stationary.

It would seem that in such conditions people had to live in constant fear. Nothing like this. They have learned to ignore the decomposed bodies swinging on the gallows. In an effort to frighten the people, he was taught to be indifferent. In France, several centuries before the revolution that gave rise to the "guillotine for all", hanging became "entertainment", "fun".

Some came to drink and eat under the gallows, others looked for the mandrake root there or visited for a piece of the "lucky" rope.

A terrible stench, rotten or withered bodies swaying in the wind did not prevent taverns and innkeepers from trading in the immediate vicinity of the gallows. People led happy lives.

Hanged men and superstitions

It has always been believed that the one who touches the hanged man will acquire supernatural powers, either evil or good. According to folk beliefs, nails, teeth, the body of a hanged man and the rope used for execution could relieve pain and treat certain diseases, help women in childbirth, bewitch, bring good luck in the game and lottery.

The famous painting by Goya depicts a Spaniard pulling a tooth from a corpse right on the gallows.

After public executions at night near the gallows, one could often see people looking for the mandrake, a magical plant supposedly growing from the sperm of a hanged man.

In his Natural History, Buffon writes that French women and residents of other European countries who wanted to get rid of infertility had to pass under the body of a hanged criminal.

In England, at the dawn of the 19th century, mothers brought sick children to the scaffold to be touched by the hand of the executed, believing that she had a healing gift.

After the execution, pieces were broken off from the gallows in order to make a remedy for toothache from them.

The superstitions associated with the hanged also extended to the executioners: they were credited with healing abilities, which were supposedly inherited, like their craft. In fact, their dark activities gave them some anatomical knowledge, and the executioners often became skilled chiropractors.

But mainly the executioners were credited with the ability to prepare miraculous creams and ointments based on “human fat” and “hanged bones”, which were sold for their weight in gold.

Jacques Delarue, in his work on executioners, writes that superstitions associated with those sentenced to death still persisted in the middle of the 19th century: as early as 1865, one could meet sick and disabled people who gathered around the scaffold in the hope of picking up a few drops of blood, which they heal.

Recall that during the last public execution in France in 1939, out of superstition, many "spectators" dipped their handkerchiefs in blood spatter on the pavement.

Pulling out the teeth of a hanged man. Goya engraving.

François Villon and his friends were one of those. Consider his verses:

And they went to Montfaucon,

Where the crowd has already gathered,

He was noisy full of girls,

And the body trade began.

The story told by Brantome shows that people were so used to hanging that they did not feel disgust at all. A certain young woman, whose husband had been hanged, went to the gallows guarded by soldiers. One of the guards decided to hit on her, and succeeded so much that “twice he enjoyed laying her on the coffin of her own husband, who served as a bed for them”

Three hundred reasons to be hanged!

Another example of the lack of edification of public hangings dates from 1820. According to the English report, out of the two hundred and fifty condemned, one hundred and seventy had already been present at one or more hangings. A similar document, dated 1886, shows that of the one hundred and sixty-seven prisoners sentenced to be hanged in Bristol Jail, only three never attended the execution. It got to the point that hanging was used not only for an attempt on property, but also for the slightest offense. Commoners were hanged for any offense.

In 1535, under pain of hanging, it was ordered to shave the beard, as this distinguished the nobles and the military from people of other classes. Ordinary petty theft also led to the gallows. Pulled a turnip or caught a carp - and a rope is waiting for you. As early as 1762, a maid named Antoinette Toutan was hanged in the Place de Grève for stealing an embroidered napkin.

Judge Lynch's gallows

Judge Lynch, from whose name the word "lynching" comes, is most likely a fictional character. According to one hypothesis, in the 17th century there lived a certain judge named Lee Lynch, who, using the absolute power given to him by his fellow citizens, allegedly cleansed the country of intruders through drastic measures. According to another version, Lynch was a farmer from Virginia or the founder of the city of Lynchleburg in this state.

At the dawn of American colonization in a huge country where numerous adventurers rushed, not so numerous representatives of justice were not able to apply existing laws, therefore, in all states, in particular in California, Colorado, Oregon and Nevada, committees of vigilant citizens began to form, which hung criminals caught at the scene of the crime, without any trial or investigation. Despite the gradual establishment of a legal system, lynchings were recorded every year until the middle of the 20th century. Most often, the victims were blacks in segregationist states. It is believed that at least 4,900 people, mostly blacks, were lynched between 1900 and 1944. After hanging, many were doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Before the revolution, the French penal code listed two hundred and fifteen offenses punishable by hanging. The criminal code of England, in the full sense of the word, the country of the gallows, was even more severe. They were sentenced to hanging without taking into account extenuating circumstances for any offense, regardless of the severity. In 1823, in a document that would later be called the "Bloody Code", there were more than three hundred and fifty crimes punishable by capital punishment.

In 1837, there were two hundred and twenty in the codex. Only in 1839 the number of crimes punishable by death was reduced to fifteen, and in 1861 to four. Thus, in England in the 19th century, as in the gloomy Middle Ages, they were hanged for stealing a vegetable or for a tree cut down in a strange forest ...

The death sentence was imposed for the theft of more than twelve pence. In some countries, almost the same thing is happening now. In Malaysia, for example, anyone found in possession of fifteen grams of heroin or more than two hundred grams of Indian hemp is hanged. From 1985 to 1993, more than a hundred people were hanged for such offenses.

Until complete decomposition

In the 18th century, hanging days were declared non-working, and at the dawn of the 19th century, the gallows still towered throughout England. There were so many of them that they often served as milestones.

The practice of leaving bodies on the gallows until they were completely decomposed persisted in England until 1832, the last to suffer this fate is considered to be a certain James Cook.

Arthur Koestler, in Reflections on Hanging, recalls that in the 19th century, execution was an elaborate ceremony and was considered by the gentry to be a first-class spectacle. People came from all over England to attend the "beautiful" hanging.

In 1807, more than forty thousand people gathered for the execution of Holloway and Haggerty. About a hundred people died in the stampede. In the 19th century, some European countries had already abolished the death penalty, and in England seven-, eight- and nine-year-old children were hanged. The public hanging of children lasted until 1833. The last death sentence of this kind was handed down on a nine-year-old boy who stole ink. But he was not executed: public opinion demanded and achieved a mitigation of punishment.

In the 19th century, there were often cases when those who were hanged in a hurry did not die immediately. The number of convicts who "blabbed" on the gallows for more than half an hour and survived is truly impressive. In the same 19th century, an incident occurred with a certain Green: he came to life already in a coffin.

Long drop execution in London. Engraving. 19th century Private count

During an autopsy, which has become a mandatory procedure since 1880, the hanged often returned to life right on the pathologist's table.

Arthur Koestler told us the most incredible story. The available evidence sweeps aside the slightest doubt about its veracity, moreover, a famous practitioner was the source of information. In Germany, a hanged man woke up in an anatomical room, got up and ran away with the help of a medical examiner.

In 1927, two English convicts were removed from the gallows after fifteen minutes, but they began to pant, which meant the return of the condemned to life, and they were hastily brought back for another half an hour.

Hanging was a "subtle art", and England tried to achieve in it the highest degree perfection. In the first half of the 20th century, commissions were repeatedly established in the country to solve problems related to the death penalty. The latest research was carried out by the English Royal Commission (1949–1953), which, having studied all types of execution, concluded that the fastest and most reliable way of instant death can be considered a “long drop”, which involves a fracture of the cervical vertebrae as a result of a sharp fall.

The British claim that thanks to the "long drop" hanging has become much more humane. The photo. Private count D.R.

The so-called "long drop" was invented in the 19th century by the Irish, although many English executioners demanded that authorship be recognized for them. This method combined all the scientific rules of hanging, which allowed the British to claim, until the abolition of the death penalty for criminal offenses in December 1964, that they "successfully converted the originally barbaric execution by hanging into a humane method." Such an "English" hanging, which is currently the most common method in the world, takes place according to a strictly prescribed ritual. The convict's hands are tied behind his back, then they are placed on the hatch exactly at the junction line of two hinged doors, fixed horizontally with two iron rods at the level of the scaffold floor. When the lever is lowered or the locking cord is cut, the sashes swing open. The convict standing on the hatch is tied at the ankles, and his head is covered with a white, black or beige - depending on the country - hood. The loop is put on the neck so that the knot is under the left side of the lower jaw. The rope is coiled over the gallows, and when the executioner opens the hatch, it unwinds after the falling body. The system for attaching the hemp rope to the gallows allows you to shorten or lengthen it as needed.

Hanging of two convicts in Ethiopia in 1935. Photo "Keyston".

rope meaning

The material and quality of the rope, which are of great importance when hanging, were carefully determined by the executioner, this was his responsibility.

George Moledon, nicknamed the "Prince of Executioners", worked in this position for twenty years (from 1874 to 1894). He used ropes made to his order. He took hemp from Kentucky, wove it in St. Louis, and wove it in Fort Smith. Then the executioner soaked it with a mixture based on vegetable oil, so that the knot would slide better and the rope itself would not stretch. George Moledon set a kind of record that no one even came close to: one of his ropes was used for twenty-seven hangings.

Another important element is the node. It is believed that for a good glide, the knot is made in thirteen turns. In fact, there are never more than eight or nine of them, which is about a ten-centimeter roller.

When the loop is put on the neck, it must be tightened, in no case blocking the blood circulation.

The coils of the noose are located under the left jawbone, exactly under the ear. Having correctly positioned the noose, the executioner must release a certain length of the rope, which varies depending on the weight of the convict, age, build and his physiological characteristics. So, in 1905 in Chicago, the murderer Robert Gardiner avoided hanging due to the ossification of the vertebrae and tissues, which excluded this type of execution. When hanging, one rule applies: the heavier the convict, the shorter the rope should be.

There are many weight-to-rope tables designed to eliminate unpleasant surprises: if the rope is too short, the condemned will suffer from suffocation, and if it is too long, his head will be torn off.

Since the sentenced man was unconscious, he was tied to a chair and hung in a sitting position. England. 1932 Photography. Private count D.R.

Execution in Kentucky of the killer Raines Dicey. The sentence is carried out by a female executioner. 1936 Photo "Keyston".

This detail determines the "quality" of the execution. The length of the rope from the sliding loop to the attachment point is determined depending on the height and weight of the convict. In most countries, these parameters are reflected in the correspondence tables that are available to the executioners. Before each hanging, a thorough check is carried out with a bag of sand, the weight of which is equal to the weight of the condemned.

The risks are very real. If the rope is not long enough and the vertebrae do not break, the convict will have to die slowly from suffocation, but if it is too long, then the head will come off due to too long a fall. According to the rules, an eighty-kilogram person must fall from a height of 2.40 meters, the length of the rope must be reduced by 5 centimeters for every three additional kilograms.

However, the "correspondence tables" can be adjusted taking into account the characteristics of the convicts: age, fullness, physical data, especially muscle strength.

In 1880, newspapers reported on the "resurrection" of a certain Hungarian Takács, who hung for ten minutes and came back to life in half an hour. He died from his injuries only three days later. According to the doctors, this "anomaly" was due to the extremely strong structure of the throat, the protruding lymph glands and the fact that he was removed "ahead of schedule".

In preparation for the execution of Robert Goodale, the executioner Berry, who had more than two hundred hangings behind him, calculated that, given the weight of the condemned, the required fall height should be 2.3 meters. After examining him, he found that his neck muscles were very weak, and reduced the length of the rope to 1.72 meters, that is, by 48 centimeters. However, these measures were not enough, Goodale's neck was even weaker than it looked, and the victim's head was torn off with a rope.

Similar nightmarish cases were observed in France, Canada, the USA and Austria. Warden Clinton Duffy, director of St. Quentin Prison, California, who witnessed or supervised more than 150 hanging and gas chamber executions, described one such execution where the rope was too long.

“The face of the convict shattered to shreds. A head half detached from the body, eyes popping out of their sockets, bursting blood vessels, a swollen tongue. He also noticed a terrible smell of urine and excrement. Duffy also told about another hanging, when the rope turned out to be too short: “The convict was slowly suffocating for about a quarter of an hour, breathing heavily, wheezing like a dying pig. He was convulsing, his body spinning like a top. I had to hang on his legs so that the rope would not break from powerful shocks. The sentenced man turned purple, his tongue was swollen.

Public hanging in Iran. The photo. Archives "TF1".

To avoid such failures, Pierrepoint, the last executioner of the British kingdom, usually carefully examined the condemned man through the peephole of the camera several hours before the execution.

Pierrepoint claimed that no more than ten or twelve seconds elapsed from the moment he took the condemned from the cell to the lowering of the hatch lever. If in other prisons where he worked, the cell was farther from the gallows, then, as he said, everything about everything took about twenty-five seconds.

But is speed of execution indisputable proof of efficiency?

hanging in the world

Here is a list of seventy-seven countries that used hanging as a legal form of execution under civil or military law in the 1990s: Albania*, Anguila, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bangladesh* Barbados, Bermuda, Burma, Botswana, Brunei, Burundi, UK, Hungary* Virgin Islands, Gambia, Granada, Guyana, Hong Kong, Dominica, Egypt* Zaire*, Zimbabwe, India*, Iraq*, Iran*, Ireland, Israel, Jordan*, Cayman Islands, Cameroon, Qatar *, Kenya, Kuwait*, Lesotho, Liberia*, Lebanon*, Libya*, Mauritius, Malawi, Malaysia, Montserrat, Namibia, Nepal*, Nigeria*, New Guinea, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland* Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Singapore, Syria*, Slovakia*, Sudan*, Swaziland, Syria*, CIS*, USA* Sierra Leone* Tanzania, Tonga , Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia*, Turkey, Uganda*, Fiji, Central African Republic, Czech Republic*, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea*, South Africa, South Korea*, Jamaica, Japan.

An asterisk indicates countries where hanging is not the only method of execution and, depending on the nature of the crime and the court that passed the sentence, the convicted are also shot or beheaded.

Hanged. Drawing by Victor Hugo.

According to Benley Purchase, the North London coroner, findings from fifty-eight executions proved that the real cause of death by hanging was a separation of the cervical vertebrae, accompanied by a tear or crushing of the spinal cord. All damage of this kind leads to instant loss of consciousness and death of the brain. The heart can still beat for fifteen to thirty minutes, but, according to the pathologist, "we are talking about purely reflex movements."

In the United States, one forensic expert who opened the chest of an executed man who had hung for half an hour had to stop his heart with his hand, as they do with the “wall clock pendulum”.

The heart was still beating!

Taking into account all these cases, in 1942 the British issued a directive stating that the doctor would declare death after the body hung in the noose for at least an hour. In Austria, until 1968, when the death penalty was abolished in the country, this time period was three hours.

In 1951, an archivist of the Royal Society of Surgery stated that out of thirty-six cases of autopsy of the corpses of hanged men, in ten cases the heart beat seven hours after the execution, and in the other two - five hours later.

In Argentina, President Carlos Menem announced in 1991 his intention to reintroduce the death penalty into the country's penal code.

In Peru, President Alberto Fujimori spoke in 1992 in favor of restoring the death penalty, abolished in 1979, for crimes committed in peacetime.

In Brazil, in 1991, a proposal was submitted to Congress to amend the constitution to reintroduce the death penalty for certain crimes.

In Papua New Guinea, the presidential administration reinstated in August 1991 the death penalty for bloody crimes and premeditated murder, which had been completely abolished in 1974.

In December 1993, the Philippines reintroduced the death penalty for murder, rape, infanticide, hostage-taking, and large-scale corruption crimes. Once in this country they used an electric chair, but this time they chose a gas chamber.

A famous criminologist once declared: "He who has not learned the art of hanging will do his work contrary to common sense and subject unfortunate sinners to torment both long and useless." Recall the terrible execution of Mrs. Thomson in 1923, after which the executioner attempted suicide.

But if even the “best” English executioners in the world faced such gloomy vicissitudes, what can we say about the executions that took place in other parts of the world.

In 1946, the executions of Nazi criminals in Germany and Austria, as well as the executions of those sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal, were accompanied by terrible incidents. Even applying modern method"long drop", the performers more than once had to pull the hanged by the legs, finishing them off.

In 1981, during a public hanging in Kuwait, a convict died of asphyxia for almost ten minutes. The executioner miscalculated the length of the rope, and the height of the fall was not enough to break the cervical vertebra.

In Africa, they often prefer hanging "in English" - with a scaffold and a hatch. However, this method requires some skill. The description of the public hanging of four former ministers in Kinshasa in June 1966, presented by the weekly Paris Match, is more like a story of torture. The convicts were stripped to their underwear, hoods were put on their heads, their hands were tied behind their backs. “The rope is stretched, the chest of the convict is at the level of the floor of the scaffold. Legs and hips are visible from below. Short convulsion. Its end". Evariste Kinba died quickly. Emmanuel Bamba was a man of extremely strong build, his cervical vertebrae did not break. He choked slowly, his body resisted to the last. The ribs protruded, all the veins on the body appeared, the diaphragm contracted and unclenched, the convulsions stopped only at the seventh minute.

Correspondence table

The heavier the convict, the shorter the rope should be. There are many tables of correspondence "weight / rope". The table compiled by the executioner James Barry is most commonly used.

Agony 14 minutes long

Alexander Makhomba died almost instantly, and the death of Jerome Anani became the longest, most painful and terrible. The agony lasted fourteen minutes. “He was also hanged very badly: the rope either slipped at the last second, or was initially poorly fixed, in any case, it ended up over the convict’s left ear. For fourteen minutes he was spinning in all directions, convulsively twitching, thrashing, his legs were shaking, bending and unbending, his muscles were so tense that at some point it seemed that he was about to be released. Then the amplitude of his jerks sharply decreased, and soon the body calmed down.

Last meal

The recent publication both angered US public opinion and provoked a scandal. The article listed the most exquisite and delicious dishes that the condemned ordered before execution. In the American prison "Cummins" one prisoner, who was taken to execution, said, pointing to the dessert: "I will finish when I return."

Lynching of two black assassins in the USA. The photo. Private count

Public hanging in Syria in 1979 of people accused of spying for Israel. The photo. D.R.

The first mention of such a type of death penalty as hanging dates back to the era of antiquity. So, as a result of the Catiline conspiracy (60s BC), five rebels were immediately sentenced to death by hanging by the Roman Senate. Here is how the Roman historian Sallust describes their execution:

“There is in the prison, to the left and somewhat below the entrance, a room called the Tullian dungeon; it goes into the ground about twelve feet, and is fortified on every side with walls, and on top is covered with a stone vault; dirt, darkness and stench make a vile and terrible impression. It was there that Lentulus was lowered, and the executioners, following the order, strangled him, throwing a noose around his neck ... In the same way, Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, Ceparius were executed.

However, the era ancient rome has long passed, and hanging, as statistics show, despite all its seeming cruelty, is the most popular method of the death penalty at the present time. This type of execution provides for two possible types lethal outcome: death from rupture of the spinal cord and death as a result of asphyxia. Consider how dying occurs in each of these cases.

Death from spinal injury

If the calculation was made correctly, then the fall will result in severe damage to the cervical spine, as well as the upper sections of the spinal cord and brain stem. Hanging with a long fall in the vast majority of cases is accompanied by instantaneous death of the victim due to decapitation.

Death from mechanical asphyxia

If during the fall of the body of the convict there was no displacement of the vertebrae sufficient to rupture the spinal cord, death occurs from slow strangulation (asphyxia) and can last from three to four to seven to eight minutes (for comparison, death from decapitation with a guillotine occurs usually seven to ten seconds after separation of the head from the body).

The process of dying by hanging can be divided into four stages:

• 1. The consciousness of the victim is preserved, deep and frequent breathing is noted with direct participation in the breathing of the auxiliary muscles, cyanosis (cyanosis) of the skin quickly appears. Heart rate increases, blood pressure rises.
• 2. Consciousness is lost, convulsions appear, involuntary urination and defecation are possible, breathing becomes rare.
• 3. The terminal stage, which lasts from a few seconds to two or three minutes. Respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest occur.
• 4. An agonal state. Following the cessation of breathing, cardiac arrest occurs.

At the same time, it should be noted that in the second case, the process of dying itself lasts longer and is, unlike, more painful. Thus, setting the goal of humanizing the death penalty by hanging, we automatically set the goal of minimizing the number of situations where the convict dies precisely from strangulation.

Before you are three main ways to position the loop around the neck: a) - typical (mainly used in the death penalty), b) and c) - atypical.

Practice shows that if the knot is located on the side of the left ear (a typical way to locate the loop), then in the process of falling, the rope throws its head back. As a result, enough energy is generated to break the spine.

However, not only the danger of an incorrect location of the knot on the neck lies in wait for the convict. The most important and difficult problem in hanging is the choice of rope length. At the same time, its length depends more on the weight of the executed than on his height.

It must be remembered that the hemp rope used in the execution of this type of death penalty is far from the most durable material and tends to break at the most inopportune moment. Just such an incident happened, for example, on July 13 (25), 1826 on Senate Square. Here is how an eyewitness describes this event:

“When everything was ready, with the squeezing of the spring in the scaffold, the platform on which they stood on the benches fell, and at the same moment three fell off - Ryleev, Pestel and Kakhovsky fell down. Ryleyev's cap fell off, and a bloody eyebrow and blood behind his right ear, probably from a bruise, were visible. He sat crouching because he had fallen into 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 up, which was immediately done. I was so busy with Ryleyev that I did not pay attention to the others who had broken off the gallows and did not hear if they were saying anything. When the board was raised again, Pestel's rope was so long that he reached the platform with his socks, which should have prolonged his torment, and it was noticeable for some time that he was still alive.

In order to avoid such trouble during the execution (since it could spoil the image of the executioner, demonstrating his inability to handle the execution tool), in England, and then in other countries that practiced hanging, it was customary to stretch the rope on the eve of the execution in order to make it more elastic.

In order to calculate the optimal rope length, we analyzed the so-called "official drop table" - the UK Home Office reference book on the optimal height from which the body of a person on death row should fall when hanging. In order to then calculate the most suitable length of the rope, it was only necessary to add the "height of the fall" to the height of the bar or hook to which the rope was attached.

The resulting table allows you to calculate the optimal length of the rope for a convict with any weight. At the same time, it is worth remembering only that there is an inverse relationship between the weight of the executed and the height of the fall (the greater the weight, the shorter the length of the rope).

Hello dear!
I read another booklet here, and decided - why not talk about such an important topic as “the highest measure social protection”, as it was once called by entertainers with communist convictions? The topic is complex, difficult, but interesting. I propose to skip the moral aspects (it is possible / impossible, and who are the judges, etc., etc.) and talk exclusively about the mechanism for the deprivation of life by the state of its citizens, as a measure of the highest possible punishment.
At the 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 remains the same. And most likely it always will be. For....
If you 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 in the dozen 2, and some of them are very, very cruel...
But whatever it was, the world is moving forward, and paradoxically, it is becoming kinder and more tolerant. It is clear that perhaps now it is not so visible, but, I repeat, when compared with previous centuries, the difference is obvious.
This is evident, including the highest measure of punishment. 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 the existing ones, and if there is interest, we will recall those that were earlier.
So....

Classics of the genre.

Let's start with the most common execution in the world - hanging.
This type of execution is considered, for some reason, the most shameful. Apparently, this is connected with the legend that after his betrayal, Judas hanged himself on an aspen. If a military man is executed on the gallows, he considers this 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 convict is hung on 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 at the Nuremberg trials.

And despite the apparent simplicity - it's not all too simple.
It is clear that a more humane death, speaking about the qualifications of the executioner, was death from damage to the spinal cord and vertebrae. After a noose was put on the convict's neck, a hatch opens under his feet. At the same time, the length of the rope (and, accordingly, the fall distance) 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 even a detachment of the head.
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's give the floor to the eyewitness of those events: “ When everything was ready, with the squeezing of the spring in the scaffold, the platform on which they stood on the benches fell, and at the same moment three fell off - Ryleev, Pestel and Kakhovskiy fell down. Ryleyev's cap fell off, and a bloody eyebrow and blood behind his right ear, probably from a bruise, were visible. He sat crouching because he had fallen into 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 up, which was immediately done. I was so busy with Ryleyev that I did not pay attention to the others who had broken off the gallows and did not hear if they were saying anything. When the board was raised again, Pestel's rope was so long that he reached the platform with his socks, which should have prolonged 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. There are special length tolerance tables depending on height and weight, and the loop itself is made with the help of a special knot called a hanging or Lynch knot. The ideal knot is one that is wound 13 turns. The form of the gallows is T-shaped or in the form of the Russian letter G, went from Ancient Rome. Why it is so, now I find it difficult to say - I will still investigate. But tradition is tradition... However, each country had its own peculiarities. In Europe, for example, robbers were hung from trees along the roads. And in Russia, for some reason, it was customary to build gallows on rafts for the rebels and rebels and let such rafts hang downstream with the hanged.

Old version

Rope (which in Russia used to be often called "Stolypin's tie") is used by most executors today, although earlier in Asia there could be variations like string from a piano or barbed wire.
All the nuances before the execution must be foreseen by the executioner. And it depends only on him whether the victim will suffer or die relatively easily.
Sergeant american army John Wood, who acted as an executioner for the criminals convicted at the Nuremberg Tribunal, knew his business well and they all died quickly. But the Japanese who hung Richard Sorge were amateurs. Even after he was removed from the gallows, his heart was beating for 8 minutes.

Nuremberg executioner John Wood

Among the most famous people, executed in this way relatively recently, one can remember the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (father of Benazir Bhutto), Saddam Hussein and his younger brother Barzan Ibrahim Hassan 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 )
As well as 2 US states - Washington and New Hampshire. Let me remind you that in the United States the death penalty is legal in 32 states.
To be continued...