Execution Method Quotes
In 1938 when Hitler started his military operatiomn to overrun Europe, he abolished beheading with the axe a traditional and barbarous form of capital punishment. The two legal methods of execution in Germany after this decree were hanging and a version of the guillotine.
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was not thye inventor or the execution machine that bears his name. The actual inventor of the prototype was Antoine Louis. However, Guillotin--a physician by training was very concerned that a very high percentage of beheadings were botched by the executioner and the victim suffered greatly. He became the public and political advocate for the reform of the mode of execution in France to reduce suffering. The device ended up with his name as the noun to describe it. In this quotation, he made his first majhor speech to his fellows of the French Chamber of Deputies in 1791. Prior to the Frech Revolution beheading was the method of execution reserved for the Nobility & Aristocracy. They couod pay the executioner a "fee" to be sure that his sword or ax was sharp and that he/she would not suffer much. Nonetheless, many executions were botched. After the Revolution giving ALL citizens the same royal execution if they were convicted felons. So its adoption was a revolutionay act and philosophically based.
Recalling what the Oklahoma state medical examiner told him about electrocutions.
Ironically it takes skill to hang a person, or to operate an electric chair or gas chamber, and lethal injection takes several skilled trained people. While a firing squad can be organized with people who have no other skill than to shoot straight at a short distance of which there are tens of millions of Americans. However, for many people it was offensive in discussing the serious and fundamentally moral issue of capital punishment to be concerned with saving a few dollars relative to being humane and reflecting American values.
