🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1993Jan5.060212.11129@tessi.com> allen@tessi.com (Allen Warren) writes:

>Dodd wants to be killed, but according to poles in the state of 
>Washington, the majority don't believe in executing Dodd.  

Somehow, though, the electorate decided in favor of restoring the 
death penalty, including hanging, when the Supreme Court stopped 
blocking it.  An interesting forest vs. trees question: how many 
people support the death penalty in the abstract, but would not 
support it in any individual's case regardless of details?  Does
even someone like Dodd produce enough human sympathy to turn
people against execution?

>I find it
>ironic how the State will perform the execution in a manner in which
>Dodd himself killed his victims:  by hanging.  

Actually, from what I've read he strangled them.  Drop-hanging 
kills by breaking the neck, not by strangulation, assuming it's 
done properly.  The slow, gruesome hangings popular in movies are a 
different matter.  If the victim isn't dropped far enough, death is 
by strangulation.  This is what you get in the old Westerns when 
the lynching victim is dropped a few feet from horseback.  I doubt 
any U.S. court would approve this sort of execution.  It is 
undeniably cruel & unusual.  

Back when hanging was much more common, experienced executioners 
compiled tables of how far a person should be dropped based on 
height, weight, and/or build.  I seem to recall reading that 
Washington uses an old military manual for this.  They seem to
have done it right this time, at least, but if they start doing
it a lot, eventual screwups are inevitable.
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