Difference between revisions of "Hanging" - New World Encyclopedia

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[[Category:Politics and social sciences]]
 
[[Category:Politics and social sciences]]
 
[[Category:Law]]
 
[[Category:Law]]
  
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[[Image:Goya War3.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Etching by Goya.]]
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'''Hanging''' is the suspension of a person by a ligature, usually a noose or cord tied in a "Hangman's knot" wrapped around the neck, causing death. The knot in the noose is intended to jerk the victim's head back sharply enough to break the neck. Throughout history it has been used as a form of [[capital punishment]]. It was the usual method of execution in [[lynching]]s, and is also a common method of committing [[suicide]].
  
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While hanging, especially when carried out in public, is generally considered a rather inhumane method of execution it was the method of choice in numerous countries, particularly [[Great Britain]] and countries of the former [[British Empire]] for centuries. In its defense, several alternatives were more gruesome—[[drawing and quartering]], burning at the stake, [[crucifixion]], stoning, and so forth. Efforts were made to improve the hanging technique to ensure swift and painless death. In some countries efforts to be more humane resulted in a change in method of execution, the [[United States]]' use of the [[electric chair]] and [[lethal injection]] being notable. Others, such as Great Britain, abolished the death penalty itself; while still others continue with hanging as their method of execution, although the death penalty is rarely applied. Thus, from the history of [[attitude]]s toward the use of hanging can be seen a change from the extreme cases of "man's inhumanity to man" to increasing concern for the rights of all, even [[murder]]ers, to receive humane treatment. The final conclusion of this advance, however, should be the end of violence against others and ourselves, and the ability of all to live in harmony as one human family.
  
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==Terminology==
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The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that '''hanging''' in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck," although it formerly also referred to [[crucifixion]].<ref>Oxford English Dictionary [http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50102329?query_type=word&queryword=hanging&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=WW1y-5Srf0Q-4206&hilite=50102329 Hanging] Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved April 14, 2007.</ref>
  
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The past tense and past participle in [[English Language|English]] of this meaning of the verb "to hang" is "hanged," whereas all other senses of the verb use "hung."
  
'''Hanging''' is the suspension of a person by a ligature, usually a [[Hangman's knot|cord]] wrapped around the neck, causing death.  Throughout history it has been used as a form of [[capital punishment]]. The first record of use is in the [[Persian Empire]] approximately 2,500 years ago,<ref>[http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging2.html#process The process of judicial hanging], Capital Punishment U.K., www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk</ref> and some countries still use it today. It is also a common method of committing [[suicide]].
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For lack of a better term, "hanging" has also been used to describe a method of [[suicide]] in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and, by means of partial suspension or partial weight-bearing on the ligature, brings about unconsciousness and then death. This method has been most often used in [[prison]]s or other institutions, where full suspension support is difficult to devise.
  
==Terminology==
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==Hanging as a method of capital punishment ==
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Hanging is the oldest but most widely used method of [[execution]] in the world today, with over 300 people hanged during 2006, many in public. The first recorded use of judicial hanging is in the [[Persian Empire]] approximately 2,500 years ago.<ref>Richard Clark[http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging2.html "The process of judicial hanging"], ''Capital Punishment U.K.'' Retrieved April 15, 2007.</ref> Along with widespread rejection of the [[death penalty]] as a [[punishment]] in many countries, hanging has come to be seen as a brutal method of execution. Formerly, hangings were conducted in public squares and used as a demonstration of the state's power and to embarrass the person being executed. Hangings were seen as a public spectacle, with people even using the occasion for a family picnic.<ref>Michel Foucault. ''Discipline & Punish.'' Vintage (1995). ISBN 0679752552.</ref>
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It was the preferred method of execution in [[England]] for centuries, with public hangings until 1868. The use of hanging ended only with the abolition of the death penalty in 1964.<ref>Clark [http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging1.html History of British judicial hanging.] Capital Punishment UK. Retrieved April 12, 2007.</ref> Hanging was a method of execution employed by the [[Nazism|Nazis]] during [[World War II]].
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In a [[newspaper]] interview in 1957, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] commented regarding the failed 1956 [[Hungarian revolution]] that "support by United States … is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man." <ref>James Simpson. ''Simpson's Contemporary Quotations.'' (Collins, 1997. [http://www.bartleby.com/63/86/186.html]. ISBN 0062701371) Retrieved April 25, 2007.</ref> In keeping with the metaphor, the prime minister of Hungary during the revolution, [[Imre Nagy]], was secretly tried, executed by hanging, and buried unceremoniously by the new [[Soviet]]-backed Hungarian government, in 1958. Nagy was later publicly rehabilitated by Hungary.<ref>Richard Solash  [http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/06/3c9b40e0-f493-49d4-a33d-6d93c1580bb1.html Hungary: U.S. President To Honor 1956 Uprising] Radio Free Europe. Retrieved April 10, 2007.</ref>
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[[Canada]] used hangings as its method of execution as late as 1962.<ref>Susan Munroe, [http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/crime/a/cappuntimeline.htm History of Capital Punishment in Canada] About: Canada Online. Retrieved April 23, 2007.</ref> The [[India]]n Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment would only be used in extreme cases.<ref>Monica Sakhrani and Maharukh Adenwalla, [http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2005&leaf=03&filename=8383&filetype=html "Death Penalty - Case for Its Abolition"] ''Economic & Political Weekly'' March 12, 2005. Retrieved April 23, 2007.</ref> One such example is that of [[Dhananjoy Chatterjee]], who was convicted of the 1990 [[murder]] and [[rape]] of a 14 year old girl in [[Kolkata]] in India and was subsequently hanged.<ref>Sarath Kumara[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/indi-s30.shtml "West Bengal carries out first hanging in India in a decade"]World Socialist Web Site, 30 September 2004. Retrieved April 23, 2007.</ref>
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Hanging was the method of execution in the [[United States]] until the mid-twentieth century, and was commonly employed in [[lynching]]s. The last '''public''' hanging legally conducted in the United States (and also the last public execution in the United States) was that of [[Rainey Bethea]], who was publicly hanged on August 14 1936, in Owensboro, [[Kentucky]]. By the last decade of the twentieth century hanging had been replaced by lethal injection as the standard method of carrying out the death penalty in states which retained this punishment. Among those with the death penalty, only three states retained hanging as an option; this was exercised three times in the 1990s—Billy Bailey in Delaware in 1996, and Charles Rodman Campbell (1994) and Westley Allan Dodd (1993) in Washington. In the first decade of the twenty-first century only two states, New Hampshire and Washington, continued to allow hanging as an option.<ref>[http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods-execution#state Authorized Methods by State,] Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved April 13, 2009.</ref>
  
The [[OED]] states that hanging in this sense is ''specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck'', although it formerly also referred to [[crucifixion]].
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[[Iran]] has continued to use hangings into the twenty-first century. On July 19, 2005, two boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, ages 15 and 17 respectively, who had been discovered to be having homosexual relations, were publicly hanged at Edalat (Justice) Square in [[Mashhad]], on charges of [[homosexuality]] and [[rape]].<ref>BBC News [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4725959.stm Iran 'must stop youth executions'] BBC News. Retrieved April 10, 2007.</ref> As one of several means of capital punishment in Iran, hangings are carried out by using an automotive telescoping crane to hoist the condemned aloft. The death penalty is used for many offenses and is the only punishment for rape, murder, and [[child abuse|child molestation]], with all hangings taking place in public.  
  
The past tense and past participle in [[English Language|English]] is ''hanged'', whereas all other senses of the verb ''to hang'' use ''hung'' (although ''hung'' is used by some, particularly those in south-east [[England]]).  
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[[Iraq]] also continues to use hanging as its method of execution. In September 2005, three murderers were the first people to be executed since the downfall of [[Saddam Hussein]]. On March 9 2006, an official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council confirmed that Iraqi authorities had executed the first insurgents by hanging.<ref>Bushra Juh [http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=266369&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/More bombs bring death to Iraq] ''Mail & Guardian Online,'' AP, 2006-03-10, accessdate 2006-04-27.</ref>
  
For lack of a better term, "hanging" has also been used to describe a method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness and then death, by means of partial suspension or partial weight-bearing on the ligature. This method has been most often used in prisons or other institutions, where full suspension support is difficult to devise. The earliest known use in this sense was in [[Anno Domini|A.D.]] 1300. <ref>OED Entry, URL http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50102310?query_type=word&queryword=hang&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=4&search_id=ytyG-jULKok-8630&hilite=50102310</ref>
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In 2006, judicial hangings occurred in [[Bangladesh]], [[Botswana]], [[Egypt]], Iran, Iraq, [[Japan]], [[Jordan]], [[Kuwait]], Pakistan, and [[Singapore]].<ref>Clark[http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging2.html The process of judicial hanging] Capital Punishment UK. Retrieved April 12, 2007.</ref> As of 2006, several countries still claim hanging to be their method of execution, although it has not necessarily been used recently. These include Japan, Singapore, [[Malaysia]], [[South Korea]], India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, [[Zimbabwe]], Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, [[Lebanon]], and [[Syria]], among others.<ref>Ibid. [http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging2.html The process of judicial hanging] Capital Punishment UK. Retrieved April 12, 2007.</ref>
  
 
==Methods of judicial hanging==
 
==Methods of judicial hanging==
There are four methods of performing a judicial hanging &mdash; the short drop, suspension hanging, the standard drop, and the long drop. A mechanised form of hanging, the [[upright jerker]], was also experimented with in the [[19th century]].
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[[Image:KetchumHanging.JPG|left|thumb|Black Jack Ketchum's execution, New Mexico, 1901]]
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There are four methods of performing a judicial hanging &mdash; the short drop, suspension hanging, the standard drop, and the long drop. A mechanized form of hanging, the "upright jerker," was also experimented with in the nineteenth century.  
  
 
===Short drop===
 
===Short drop===
The short drop is done by placing the condemned person on the back of a cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around his neck. The vehicle is then moved away leaving the person dangling from the rope. Prior to 1850, it was the main method used. It is still used widely in Middle Eastern countries.{{fact}}  A ladder was also commonly used with the condemned being forced to ascend, after which the noose was tied and the ladder pulled away or turned, leaving the victim hanging.
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The short drop is done by placing the condemned person on the back of a cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around his neck. The vehicle is then moved away leaving the person dangling from the rope. Prior to 1850, it was the main method used. This method is still used widely in [[Middle East]]ern countries.<ref>[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001242.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns International Noose] Washington Post. Retrieved April 9, 2007.</ref> A ladder was also commonly used with the condemned being forced to ascend, after which the noose was tied and the ladder pulled away or turned, leaving the victim hanging.
  
 
===Suspension hanging===
 
===Suspension hanging===
Suspension hanging is similar, except the [[gallows]] themselves are movable, so that the [[noose]] can be raised once the condemned is in place. This method is currently used in [[Iran]], where tank gun barrels or mobile cranes are used to hoist the condemned into the air. Similar methods involve running the rope through a pulley to allow raising of the person.[[Image:execution_Lincoln_assassins.jpg|thumb|310px|Execution of the persons condemned as Abraham Lincoln assassination conspirators, by the standard drop method, July 7, 1865, at [[Fort McNair]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]]]
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Suspension hanging is similar, except the [[gallows]] themselves are movable, so that the noose can be raised once the condemned is in place. This method is currently used in [[Iran]], where [[tank]] gun barrels or mobile cranes are used to hoist the condemned into the air. Similar methods involve running the rope through a pulley to allow raising of the person.
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[[Image:execution_Lincoln_assassins.jpg|thumb|310px|Execution of the persons condemned as Abraham Lincoln assassination conspirators, by the standard drop method, July 7, 1865, at Fort McNair in [[Washington, D.C.]]]]
  
 
===Standard drop===
 
===Standard drop===
The standard drop, which arrived as calculated in English units, involves a drop of between four to six feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) and came into use in the mid [[19th century]] in English-speaking countries and those where judicial systems were under English influence. It was considered an advance on the short drop because it was intended to be sufficient to break the person's neck, causing immediate paralysis and immobilization (and perhaps immediate unconsciousness).
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The standard drop, which arrived as calculated in English units, involves a drop of between four to six feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) and came into use in the mid nineteenth century in English-speaking countries and those where judicial systems were under English influence. It was considered an advance on the short drop because it was intended to be sufficient to break the person's neck, causing immediate [[paralysis]] and immobilization (and perhaps immediate unconsciousness).
  
 
===Long drop===
 
===Long drop===
[[Image:KetchumHanging.JPG|left|thumb|Black Jack Ketchum's execution, New Mexico, 1901]]
 
[[Image:KetchumDecapitated.jpg|left|thumb|Sepia-tone photo from a contemporary postcard showing Tom Ketchum's decapitated body. Caption reads "Body of Black Jack after the hanging showing head snapped off."]]
 
This process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced in 1872 by [[William Marwood]] as a scientific advancement to the standard drop.  Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's weight was used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken.
 
  
Prior to 1892, the drop was between four and ten feet (about one to three meters), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver a force of 1,260 [[lbf]] (5,600 [[newton]]s or 572 [[kgf]]), which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5th [[cervical vertebrae]]. However, this force resulted in some [[decapitation]]s, such as the famous cases of "Black Jack" [[Tom Ketchum]] in [[New Mexico]] in 1901 and [[Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti]] in 2007. Between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account, and the force delivered was reduced to about 1,000 lbf (4,400 N or 450 kgf). {{seealso|Official Table of Drops}}
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The long drop process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced in 1872 by [[William Marwood]] as a scientific advancement to the standard drop. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's weight was used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken.
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[[Image:KetchumDecapitated.jpg|left|250 px|thumb|Sepia-tone photo from a contemporary postcard showing Tom Ketchum's decapitated body. Caption reads "Body of Black Jack after the hanging showing head snapped off."]]
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Prior to 1892, the drop was between four and ten feet (about one to three meters), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver a force of 1,260 lbf (5,600 [[newton]]s or 572 kgf), which fractured the neck at either the second and third or fourth and fifth [[cervical vertebrae]]. However, this force resulted in some [[decapitation]]s, such as the famous case of "Black Jack" [[Tom Ketchum]] in [[New Mexico]] in 1901. Between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account, and the force delivered was reduced to about 1,000 lbf (4,400 N or 450 kgf).
  
==Suicide==
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===Equipment===
Suspension hanging is a common method of suicide. The materials necessary for suicide by hanging are relatively easily available to the average person, compared with firearms or lethal poison. Full suspension is not required, and for this reason hanging is especially commonplace among suicidal [[Prison|prisoners]]. A type of hanging comparable to full suspension hanging may be obtained by self-strangulation using a ligature of the neck and only partial weight of the body (partial suspension). This method is dependent on unconsciousness produced by arterial blood flow restriction while the breath is held.
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The equipment used in all of these methods is similar. Usually hanging involves the use of a noose, gallows, and hood often with the pinioning of the arms. The simplest type of noose is a simple slipknot. Variables include the length of or number of cords composing the rope. Gallows can be anything from a tree to more intentionally designed platforms with traps through which the condemned fall. Some places also use cranes as gallows.  
* In [[Canada]], hanging is the second most common method of suicide,<ref name="cansuicide">{{cite news | first= | last= | pages= | title=Statistics about suicide | date= | publisher=WrongDiagnosis.com | url=http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/s/suicide/stats.htm}}</ref> after [[suffocation]].
 
* In the U.S., hanging is the second most common method of suicide, after firearms, <ref>[http://www.preventsuicidenow.com/suicide-statistics.html Suicide Statistics]. URL accessed on 2006-05-16.</ref>.
 
* In Great Britain, where firearms are less easily available, as of 2001 hanging was the most common method among men and the second-most commonplace among women (after poisoning).<ref>[http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/HSQ20.pdf Trends in suicide by method in England and Wales, 1979 to 2001] ([[PDF]]), ''Office of National Statistics''. URL accessed on 2006-05-16.</ref>
 
[[Image:Giotto - Scrovegni - -47- - Desperation.jpg|thumb|Suicide by hanging.]]
 
===Notable suicides by hanging===
 
  
<!--Please don't add Saddam Hussein to this section. This section is about notable suicides, and Hussein's hanging was not suicide.>
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The condemned is usually hooded before the act. There are three purposes for the hood: to prevent the prisoner from moving at the last second in reaction to the executioner's movements, to minimize rope burn on the prisoner before death, and to prevent officials and witnesses from seeing the dead person's face during and after the execution. Arms and legs are often pinioned, also to prevent the prisoner from moving during the execution.<ref>[http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging2.html#equip The Process of Judicial Hanging] ''Capital Punishment UK''. Retrieved April 15, 2007.</ref>
  
*[[Chongzhen Emperor]], emperor of [[China]]'s [[Ming Dynasty]]
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==Medical effects==
*[[Judas Iscariot]], a prominent figure in the Christian [[gospel]]s
 
*[[Jocasta]] and [[Antigone]] in [[Sophocles]]' Three Theban Plays
 
*[[Ludwig Boltzmann]], physicist, pioneer of [[statistical mechanics]]
 
*[[Sergei Yesenin]], a [[Russians|Russian]] poet, ex-husband of [[Isadora Duncan]]
 
*[[Marina Tsvetayeva]], a [[Russians|Russian]] poet
 
*[[Jonathan Brandis]], an American actor
 
*[[Hans Berger]], German inventor of [[electroencephalography]]
 
*[[Harold Shipman]], English doctor, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment
 
*[[Ian Curtis]], lead singer of [[Joy Division]]
 
*[[Phil Ochs]], political folksinger
 
*[[Tom Hepburn]], brother of [[Katharine Hepburn]]
 
*[[Fred West]], serial killer
 
*[[Hideto Matsumoto]], Japanese rock musician
 
*[[Paul Hester]], former drummer of [[Crowded House]]
 
*[[Michael Hutchence]], former lead singer of [[INXS]]
 
*[[Santos Dumont]], [[Brazil|Brazilian]] [[aviation]] pioneer
 
*[[Stuart Adamson]], former lead singer and guitarist of [[Big Country]]
 
*[[Pete Ham]], guitarist and singer of rock band [[Badfinger]]
 
*[[Justin Fashanu]], footballer
 
*[[Ray Combs]], former host of [[Family Feud]]
 
<!--Please don't add Saddam Hussein to this section. This section is about notable suicides, and Hussein's hanging was not suicide.—>
 
  
==Medical effects==
 
[[Image:Goya War3.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Etching by [[Goya]].]]
 
 
A hanging may cause one or more of the following medical conditions:
 
A hanging may cause one or more of the following medical conditions:
  
 
* Close the [[carotid arteries]]
 
* Close the [[carotid arteries]]
 
* Close the [[jugular vein]]s
 
* Close the [[jugular vein]]s
* Induce [[Carotid sinus#Carotid sinus reflex death|carotid reflex]], which reduces heartbeat when the pressure in the [[carotid arteries]] is high, causing [[cardiac arrest]]
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* Induce carotid reflex, which reduces heartbeat when the pressure in the [[carotid arteries]] is high, causing [[cardiac arrest]]
* Break the [[neck]] ([[cervical fracture]]) causing traumatic [[Spinal cord injury#Cervical injuries|spinal cord injury]]
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* Break the [[neck]] ([[cervical fracture]]) causing traumatic spinal cord injury
* Close the [[airway]] causing [[cerebral ischemia]]
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* Close the airway causing [[cerebral ischemia]]
*[[Decapitation]]
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* [[Decapitation]]
  
The cause of death in hanging depends on the conditions related to the event. When the body is released from a relatively high position, death is usually caused by severing the spinal cord between C1 and C2, which may be functional decapitation. High cervical fracture frequently occurs in judicial hangings, and in fact the C1-C2 fracture has been called the "[[Hangman's fracture]]" in medicine, even when it occurs in other circumstances. Usually, accidental C1-C2 fracture victims do not immediately become unconscious; instead death occurs after some minutes, from asphyxia.{{cn}}
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The two primary causes of death are a broken neck or asphyxiation. Death occurs after some minutes, from asphyxia.<ref>[http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic227.htm Hanging Injuries and Strangulation.] eMedicine. Retrieved April 14, 2007.</ref>
  
In the absence of fracture and dislocation, occlusion of blood vessels becomes the major cause of death. Obstruction of venous drainage of the brain via occlusion of the internal jugular veins leads to [[cerebral oedema]] and then [[cerebral ischemia]]. Other processes that have been suggested to contribute are vagal collapse (via mechanical stimulation of the carotid sinus), and compromise of the cerebral blood flow by obstruction of the carotid arteries, even though their obstruction requires far more force than the obstruction of jugular veins, since they are seated deeper and they contain blood in much higher pressure compared to the jugular veins. Only 31 newtons (7 lbf or 3.2 kgf) of pressure may be enough to constrict the carotid arteries to the point of rapid unconsciousness.{{cn}}
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The heart may continue to beat for some period after the brain can no longer be resuscitated. The time of death in such cases is a matter of convention. In judicial hangings, death is pronounced at cardiac arrest, which may occur at times from several minutes up to 15 minutes or longer after hanging. During suspension, once the prisoner has lapsed into unconsciousness, rippling movements of the body and limbs may occur for some time, which are usually attributed to nervous and muscular reflexes. In Britain, it was normal to leave the body suspended for an hour to ensure death.
[[Image:Knot-hangmans-noose.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Hangman's knot]]
 
Where death has been caused by blocking the veins, the face will typically have become engorged and [[cyanosis|cyanotic]] (turned blue through lack of oxygen). There will be the classic sign of strangulation&mdash;[[petechiae]]&mdash;little blood marks on the face and in the eyes from burst blood capillaries. The tongue may protrude. Where death has occurred through carotid artery obstruction or cervical fracture, the face will typically be pale in colour and not show petechiae. There exist many reports and pictures of actual short drop hangings which seem to show that the person died quickly, while others indicate a slow and agonising death by strangulation. <ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging2.html#causes | title=How hanging causes death | accessdate=2006-04-27}}</ref>
 
  
When cerebral circulation is severely compromised by any mechanism, arterial or venous, death occurs over four or more minutes from cerebral hypoxia, although the heart may continue to beat for some period after the brain can no longer be resuscitated. The time of death in such cases is a matter of convention. In judicial hangings, death is pronounced at cardiac arrest, which may occur at times from several minutes up to 15 minutes or longer after hanging. During suspension, once the prisoner has lapsed into unconsciousness, rippling movements of the body and limbs may occur for some time which are usually attributed to nervous and muscular reflexes.  In Britain, it was normal to leave the body suspended for an hour to ensure death.
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==Suicide==
 
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[[Image:Giotto - Scrovegni - -47- - Desperation.jpg|thumb|Suicide by hanging.]]
There is a popular myth about sexual stimulation of hanged men, because of the apparent erection some exhibited. [[Death erection|The effect]] is attributed to gravity causing the blood to  settle in the legs and lower torso, thereby engorging the penis.  
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Suspension hanging is a common method of [[suicide]]. The materials necessary for suicide by hanging are relatively easily available to the average person, compared with [[gun|firearms]] or lethal [[poison]]. Full suspension is not required, and for this reason hanging is especially commonplace among suicidal [[prison]]ers. A type of hanging comparable to full suspension hanging may be obtained by self-strangulation using a ligature of the neck and only partial weight of the body (partial suspension). This method is dependent on unconsciousness produced by arterial blood flow restriction while the breath is held.
 
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* In [[Canada]], hanging is the second most common method of suicide,<ref>Statistics about suicide. WrongDiagnosis.com [http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/s/suicide/causes.htm] Retrieved April 13, 2007.</ref> after [[suffocation]].
After death, the body typically shows marks of suspension: bruising and rope marks on the neck. Forensic experts may often be able to tell if hanging is suicide or homicide, as each leaves a distinctive ligature mark. One of the hints they use is the [[hyoid bone]]. If broken, it often means the person has been [[murder]]ed by manual [[choking]]. Also, there have been cases of [[autoerotic asphyxiation]] leading to death. Children have accidentally died playing the [[choking game]].
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* In the [[United States]], hanging is the second most common method of suicide, after firearms.<ref>[http://www.preventsuicidenow.com/suicide-statistics.html Suicide Statistics,] Suicide.org. Retrieved April 25, 2007.</ref>
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* In [[Great Britain]], where firearms are less easily available, as of 2001 hanging was the most common method among men and the second-most commonplace among women (after poisoning).<ref>[http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/HSQ20.pdf Trends in suicide by method in England and Wales, 1979 to 2001] (PDF), ''Office of National Statistics.'' Retrieved April 25, 2007.</ref>
  
==Notable references by country (political) ==
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==Notable Examples of Judicial Hangings==
  
Hanging has been a method of [[capital punishment]] in many countries. <!--This section should only contain notable political hanging deaths and political policies on hanging, and not a specific overview for each country.—>
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* [[Bulgaria]]'s national hero, [[Vasil Levski]], was executed by hanging by the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] court in [[Sofia]] in 1873.
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* [[Brazil]]ian national hero [[Tiradentes]] (1792) was killed by hanging.
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* [[Nathuram Godse]], [[Mahatma Gandhi|Mohandas Gandhi]]’s assassin, was executed by hanging in 1949.
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* [[Saddam Hussein]] the former leader of [[Iraq]], was hanged after being found guilty of brutal executions
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* [[Nazism|Nazi]] [[war crime|war criminal]] [[Adolf Eichmann]] was hanged in [[Israel]] after being captured by [[Mossad]] agents in [[Argentina]] in 1961.
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* Those convicted of war crimes at the [[Nuremberg Trials]] following [[World War II]] were hanged.
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* During the [[Salem Witch Trials]] in Salem, Massachusetts, many accused of [[witchcraft]] were hanged.
  
===Australia===
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==Alternatives to Hanging==
{{main|Capital punishment in Australia}}
+
Because of the variables involved in hanging, opponents have criticized it as a particularly inhumane method of execution. This criticism is driven by stories of hangings taking hours or of the horrible pain it might cause in comparison with other methods. As a result, hanging is no longer commonly used in the western world, where other methods of execution have supplanted hanging as the method of choice. These modern alternative methods include [[lethal injection]] and the [[gas chamber]]. Historically, other methods of execution included [[firing squad]] and [[electric chair]], although these two have fallen out of favor for their barbarism. Even the more humane treatments have been questioned for the pain they cause to prisoners.<ref>Human Rights Watch [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/12/15/usdom14889.htm Florida, California: Lethal Injection Under Attack] Human Rights Watch. Retrieved April 15, 2007.</ref>
Capital punishment was a part of the legal system of [[Australia]] from its early days as a penal colony for the British Empire, until 1985. During the 19th century, crimes that could carry a death sentence included [[burglary]], sheep stealing, [[forgery]], [[sexual assault]]s, murder and [[manslaughter]]. There is one reported case of someone being executed for "being illegally at large"{{cn}}. During the 19th century, there were about 80 people hanged each year throughout Australia for these crimes.
 
  
Australia abolished the death penalty in all states by 1985. <ref name="relTolerance">[http://www.religioustolerance.org/executh.htm Countries that have abandoned the use of the death penalty], Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, November 8, 2005</ref>
+
Many people have criticized the [[death penalty]] in general, saying that "two wrongs do not make a right," and thus added their voices in opposition to hanging. Opposition is led by such groups as [[Amnesty International]], the [[Human Rights Watch]], and various [[religion|religious]] groups opposed to executions.
The last man executed by hanging in Australia was [[Ronald Ryan]] on February 3, 1967, in [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]].<ref>[http://www.nswccl.org.au/issues/death_penalty/australia.php Death penalty in Australia], New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties</ref>
 
  
===Brazil===
+
== Notes ==
 
 
Death by hanging was the customary method of capital punishment in [[Brazil]] throughout its history. Some important national heroes like [[Tiradentes]] (1792) were killed by hanging. The last man executed in Brazil was the slave Francisco, in 1876.
 
The death penalty was abolished for all crimes, except for those committed under extraordinary circumstances such as war or military law, in 1890.
 
[http://encarta.msn.com/media_461543496/Capital_Punishment_Worldwide.html Capital Punishment Worldwide], MSN Encarta</ref>
 
 
 
===Bulgaria===
 
 
 
[[Bulgaria]]'s national hero, [[Vasil Levski]], was executed by hanging by the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] court in [[Sofia]] in 1873. Every year since Bulgaria's [[liberation]], thousands come with flowers on the date of his death, February 19, to his monument where the gallows stood.
 
 
 
The last execution was in 1989, and the death penalty was abolished for all crimes in 1998.<ref name="encarta" />
 
 
 
===Canada===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Canada}}
 
Historically, hanging was the only method of execution used in [[Canada]] and was in use as punishment for all murders until 1961, when murders were reclassified into capital and non-capital offenses. The death penalty was restricted to only apply for certain offenses to the National Defence Act in 1976 and was completely abolished in 1998.<ref>Susan Munroe, [http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/crime/a/cappuntimeline.htm History of Capital Punishment in Canada], About: Canada Online, </ref>
 
 
 
The last hangings in Canada took place on December 11, 1962.<ref name="encarta" />
 
 
 
===Germany===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Germany}}
 
In the territories occupied by [[Nazi Germany]] from 1939 to 1945, strangulation hanging was a preferred means of public execution, although more criminal executions were performed by guillotine than hanging. The most common sentenced were [[partisan]]s and [[black market|black marketeers]], whose bodies were usually left hanging for long periods of time. There are also numerous reports of concentration camp inmates being hanged. Hanging was continued in post-war occupation in the zone controlled by the U.K., and for Nazi war criminals.
 
 
 
The death penalty was not allowed in Germany according to the [[Constitution of Germany|current constitution]] as adopted in 1949, but the [[German Democratic Republic]], also known as East Germany, did not abolish the death penalty until 1987. The last known execution in East Germany was in 1982, but by gunshot. Date for the last known hanging is sought. <ref name="relTolerance" />
 
 
 
===Hungary===
 
 
 
In a newspaper interview in 1957, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] commented regarding the failed late-1956 [[Hungarian revolution]] that "support by United States ... is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man."<ref>{{cite book| last = Simpson| first = James | title = Simpson's Contemporary Quotations| publisher = Collins| date = 1997| url =  http://www.bartleby.com/63/86/186.html| pages = 672 pages | id = ISBN 0-06-270137-1}}</ref>. In keeping with the metaphor, the prime minister of Hungary during the 1956 revolution, [[Imre Nagy]], was secretly tried, executed by hanging, and buried unceremoniously by the new [[Soviet]]-backed Hungarian government, in 1958. Nagy was later publically rehabilitated by Hungary [http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/06/3c9b40e0-f493-49d4-a33d-6d93c1580bb1.html].
 
 
 
Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1990. <ref name="relTolerance" />
 
 
 
===India===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in India}}
 
 
 
[[Nathuram Godse]], [[Mahatma Gandhi|Mohandas Gandhi]]’s assassin, was executed by hanging in 1949.
 
 
 
The modern [[Supreme Court of India]] has suggested that capital punishment should be given only in the "rarest of rare cases".<ref>[http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2005&leaf=03&filename=8383&filetype=html Sakhrani, Monica; Adenwalla, Maharukh; Economic & Political Weekly, "''Death Penalty - Case for Its Abolition''"]</ref>
 
 
 
A recent case of capital punishment by hanging is that of [[Dhananjoy Chatterjee]], who was convicted of the 1990 murder and rape of a 14 year old girl in [[Kolkata]] in [[India]].  The manner in which the crime was committed (the accused bludgeoned the victim with a blunt object and raped her as she was slowly dying) was considered brutal enough by the supreme court to warrant the death penalty. An appeal for clemency was made to the president of India but was turned down. Chatterjee was executed on August 14, 2004, in the first execution in India since 1995.<ref>[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/indi-s30.shtml Kumara, Sarath; World Socialist Web Site; "''West Bengal carries out first hanging in India in a decade''"]</ref>
 
 
 
===Iran===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Iran}}
 
[[Image:PublicExecutionIRI.jpg|right]]
 
As one of several means of [[capital punishment in Iran]], hangings are carried out by using an automotive telescoping [[crane (machine)|crane]] to hoist the condemned aloft. The death penalty is used for many offenses and is the only punishment for rape, murder and child molestation, with all hangings taking place in public.
 
 
 
On July 19 2005, two boys, [[Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni]], ages 15 and 17 respectively, who had been discovered to be having homosexual relations, were publicly hanged at Edalat (Justice) Square in [[Mashhad]], on charges of [[homosexuality]] and [[rape]]. <ref> {{cite web| url=http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/07/iran_executes_2.html | title=Iran executes 2 gay teenagers | accessdate=2006-04-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.gayrussia.ru/en/detail.php?ID=1596 | title=Exclusive interview with gay activists in Iran on situation of gays, recent executions of gay teens and the future | accessdate=2006-04-27}}</ref>
 
On August 15, 2004, a 16-year-old girl, [[Atefeh Sahaaleh]] (a.k.a. Ateqeh Rajabi), was executed for having committed "acts incompatible with [[chastity]]."
 
 
 
===Iraq===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Iraq}}
 
{{seealso|Execution of Saddam Hussein}}
 
Hanging was used under the regime of [[Saddam Hussein]]<ref>[http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging2.html Clark, Richard; ''The process of Judicial Hanging'']</ref>, but was suspended along with capital punishment in 2003 when the [[USA|United States]] invaded and overthrew the previous regime. The death penalty was reinstated in May 2005.
 
 
 
In September 2005, three murderers were the first people to be executed since the restoration. Then on March 9 2006, an official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council confirmed that Iraqi authorities had executed the first [[insurgent]]s by hanging.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=266369&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/ | title=More bombs bring death to Iraq | publisher=Mail & Guardian Online | date=2006-03-10 | accessdate=2006-04-27}}</ref>
 
 
 
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging for [[crimes against humanity]]<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/05/dujail.saddam/index.html | title=Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging| publisher=CNN.com | date=2006-05-11 | accessdate=2006-05-11}}</ref> on November 5, 2006, and was executed on December 30, 2006 at approximately 6:05 a.m. local time. During the drop there was an audible crack indicating that his neck was broken; a successful example of a long drop hanging.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272610730.shtml | title = Saddam Hussein Hanging Video Shows Defiance, Taunts and Glee | work = [[National Ledger]] |date= 2007-01-01 | accessdate = 2007-01-20}}</ref>
 
 
 
By contrast, [[Barzan Ibrahim]], the head of the Mukhabarat, Saddam's security agency, was executed on January 15, 2007, also by the long drop method, but was decapitated by the rope at the end of his fall indicating that the drop was too long.<ref>[http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=177248&format=&page=1 AP: Saddam’s half brother and ex-official hanged] January 15, 2007</ref>
 
 
 
===Israel===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Israel}}
 
Although [[Israel]] has provisions in its criminal law to use the death penalty for extraordinary crimes, it has only been used twice, and only once by hanging. On May 31, 1962, Nazi leader [[Adolf Eichmann]] was executed by hanging. <ref name="encarta" />. (Before that, in 1948 Major [[Meir Tobianski]] was wrongfully charged with treason, court-martialed and shot. Later he was [[Exoneration|exonerated]]). [http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=9790)] Several other people sentenced to death in Israel over the years have had their sentences commutted.
 
 
 
===Japan===
 
 
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Japan}}
 
On February 27, 2004, the mastermind of the [[Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway]], [[Shoko Asahara]], was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. On December 25, 2006, four men were hanged in [[Japan]]. Hanging is the common method of execution in capital punishment cases in Japan. <!--"present" is ambiguous—at present there are 94 people reported to be on death row in Japan.—>
 
 
 
===Jordan===
 
 
 
Death by hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment in [[Jordan]].
 
 
 
===Pakistan===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Pakistan}}
 
 
 
More than 3,000 people are on the [[Pakistan]]'s death row, where hanging is the most common form of execution.
 
 
 
===Singapore===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Singapore}}
 
In [[Singapore]], mandatory hanging using the long-drop method is currently used as punishment for various crimes, such as [[drug trafficking]], [[kidnapping]] and unauthorized possession of firearms. <ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.suntimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesNEW/basket7st/basket7st1132576915.aspx | title=Singapore clings to death penalty | publisher=Sunday Times (South Africa) | date=2005-11-21 | accessdate=2006-04-02}}</ref> <br/>
 
 
 
A 25-year old Australian, [[Nguyen Tuong Van]], was hanged on December 2, 2005, after being convicted of drug trafficking in 2002. Numerous efforts from both the Australian government, [[Queen's Counsel]]s and petitions from organizations such as [[Amnesty International]] failed to persuade Singapore to rescind its decision.
 
A 24-year old [[Malaysia]]n, [[Took Leng How]], was hanged on November 2, 2006, after being convicted of the murder of [[Huang Na]] in 2004.
 
 
 
[[Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi]], a [[Nigeria]]n national was sentenced to death in Singapore for [[drug trafficking]]. He was hanged on January 26, 2007.
 
 
 
===Soviet Union===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in Russia}}
 
Similar to many other countries, the [[Russian Empire]] used the death penalty for a wide range of crimes.
 
The death penalty was officially outlawed shortly after the revolution of 1917 but later permitted the use of such penalty for soldiers on the front. In the next several decades, the death penalty was alternatively permitted and prohibited, but during [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin's]] reign, the death penalty was used in many cases.
 
 
 
Death penalty is still technically allowed but is currently under a moratorium.
 
The last persons to be sentenced to death by hanging were [[Andrey Vlasov]] and 11 other officers of his army on August 1, 1946.
 
 
 
===United Kingdom===
 
[[Image:Pisanello 010.jpg|thumb|Detail from a painting by [[Pisanello]], 1436-1438]]
 
{{main|Capital punishment in the United Kingdom}}
 
 
 
As a form of [[judiciary|judicial]] execution in [[England]], hanging is thought to date from the [[Saxon people|Saxon]] period, approximately around 400. Records of the names of British [[Executioner|hangmen]] begin with Thomas de Warblynton in the 1360s; complete records extend from the 1500s to the last hangmen, [[Robert Leslie Stewart]] and [[Harry Allen]], who conducted the last British executions in 1964.
 
 
 
In 1965, Parliament passed the "Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act" abolishing capital punishment for murder.  And with the introduction of the Human Rights Act in 1998, the death penalty was officially abolished for all crimes in both civilian and military cases.
 
 
 
The last woman to be hanged was [[Ruth Ellis]] on July 13 1955 by [[Albert Pierrepoint]] who was a prominent hangman in the 20th century in England.
 
The last hanging in Great Britain happened in 1964, when [[Peter Anthony Allen]], at [[Walton Prison]] in [[Liverpool]], and [[Gwynne Owen Evans]], at [[Strangeways Prison]] in [[Manchester]] were executed for the murder of [[John Alan West]].
 
 
 
===United States===
 
{{main|Capital punishment in the United States}}
 
The last public hanging legally conducted in the United States (and also the last public execution in the United States) was that of [[Rainey Bethea]], who was publicly hanged on August 14 1936, in [[Owensboro, Kentucky]].
 
 
 
Capital punishment varies from state to state; it is outlawed in some states but commonly used in others. Other forms of capital punishment have largely been replaced by [[lethal injection]] in the U.S., where the condemned may choose this as an option. Only lethal injection is used at the federal level and only the states of [[Washington]] and [[New Hampshire]] still retain hanging as an option.
 
 
 
Laws in [[Delaware]] were changed in 1996 to specify [[lethal injection]], except for those convicted prior to 1996, who were allowed to choose lethal injection. If a choice was not made, or the convict refused to choose injection, then hanging was the default method. This was the case in the 1996 execution of [[Billy Bailey]], the most recent hanging in American history. Since the hanging of Bailey, no Delaware prisoner has fitted into this category, thus the practice has ended there ''[[de facto]]'', and the gallows have been dismantled.
 
 
 
In New Hampshire, if it is found to be 'impractical' to carry out the execution by lethal injection, then the condemned will be hanged.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/lxii/630/630-5.htm | title=Section 630.5, Procedures in Capital Murder | accessdate=2006-04-27 }}</ref>
 
 
 
==Popular culture ==
 
 
 
*The word game [[hangman]] uses a stick-figure drawing of a hanged person as a method of keeping score; when the figure is complete, the player has lost.
 
 
 
*In some films, for example,  ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]'' and ''[[Back to the Future Part III]]'', victims are often saved by their accomplices who shoot the rope with a gun just in time. The television show ''[[MythBusters]]'' asserted that this was not possible, and that it took several well-placed shots to break the rope.
 
 
 
*According to [[urban legend]], referred to in [[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]], hanging frequently produces an erection in men at death.  Supposedly this is where the term "well hung" originated as witnesses to the hanging would remove the men's pants and examine the size of his penis if the erection was particularly large or noticeable.
 
 
 
*The [[mandrake (plant)|mandrake]] plant often has bifurcated roots, which (as in the case of [[ginseng]]), has historically caused it to be identified with the human body and figure. It was a common belief in some countries that a mandrake plant would grow in the shadow of a gallows, where the semen of a hanged man dripped on to the earth; this would appear to be the reason for the methods employed by the alchemists who "projected human seed into animal earth." In Germany, the plant is known as the Alraune: the novel (later adapted as a film) ''[[Alraune]]'' by [[Hanns Heinz Ewers]] is based around a soulless woman conceived from a hanged man's semen, the title referring to this myth of the Mandrake's origins.
 
 
 
== References ==
 
 
<div class="references-small">
 
<div class="references-small">
 
<references/>
 
<references/>
 
</div>
 
</div>
  
== See also ==
+
==References==
* [[Autoerotic asphyxiation]]
 
* [[Capital punishment]]
 
* [[Death erection]]
 
* [[Executioner]]
 
* [[Gallows]]
 
* [[Hangman|Hangman (game)]]
 
* [[Hand of Glory]]
 
* [[Hanging in NDH|Hanging in NDH (Croatia)]]
 
* [[Hanging Judge]]
 
* [[Hangman's knot]]
 
* [[Jack Ketch]]
 
* [[:Category:Lists of executed people|Lists of executed people]]
 
* [[List of suicides]]
 
* [[Lynching]]
 
* [[Official Table of Drops]]
 
* [[Dule Tree]]
 
 
 
{{Commonscat}}
 
 
 
== External links ==
 
* [http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic227.htm Hanging injuries and strangulation]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 +
*Duff, Charles. 1999. ''A Handbook on Hanging''. New York Review Books Classics. ISBN 0940322676
 +
*Gatrell, V.A.C. 1996. ''The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868''. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192853325
 +
*Kellaway, Jean. 2004. ''The History of Torture & Execution: From Early Civilization through Medieval Times to the Present''. Mercury Books. ISBN 1904668038
 +
*Steelwater, Eliza. 2003. ''The Hangman's Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America's Struggle with the Death Penalty''. Westview Press. ISBN 081334042X
  
 
{{Credit1|Hanging|104966186|}}
 
{{Credit1|Hanging|104966186|}}

Latest revision as of 01:19, 28 January 2022


Etching by Goya.

Hanging is the suspension of a person by a ligature, usually a noose or cord tied in a "Hangman's knot" wrapped around the neck, causing death. The knot in the noose is intended to jerk the victim's head back sharply enough to break the neck. Throughout history it has been used as a form of capital punishment. It was the usual method of execution in lynchings, and is also a common method of committing suicide.

While hanging, especially when carried out in public, is generally considered a rather inhumane method of execution it was the method of choice in numerous countries, particularly Great Britain and countries of the former British Empire for centuries. In its defense, several alternatives were more gruesome—drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, crucifixion, stoning, and so forth. Efforts were made to improve the hanging technique to ensure swift and painless death. In some countries efforts to be more humane resulted in a change in method of execution, the United States' use of the electric chair and lethal injection being notable. Others, such as Great Britain, abolished the death penalty itself; while still others continue with hanging as their method of execution, although the death penalty is rarely applied. Thus, from the history of attitudes toward the use of hanging can be seen a change from the extreme cases of "man's inhumanity to man" to increasing concern for the rights of all, even murderers, to receive humane treatment. The final conclusion of this advance, however, should be the end of violence against others and ourselves, and the ability of all to live in harmony as one human family.

Terminology

The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck," although it formerly also referred to crucifixion.[1]

The past tense and past participle in English of this meaning of the verb "to hang" is "hanged," whereas all other senses of the verb use "hung."

For lack of a better term, "hanging" has also been used to describe a method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and, by means of partial suspension or partial weight-bearing on the ligature, brings about unconsciousness and then death. This method has been most often used in prisons or other institutions, where full suspension support is difficult to devise.

Hanging as a method of capital punishment

Hanging is the oldest but most widely used method of execution in the world today, with over 300 people hanged during 2006, many in public. The first recorded use of judicial hanging is in the Persian Empire approximately 2,500 years ago.[2] Along with widespread rejection of the death penalty as a punishment in many countries, hanging has come to be seen as a brutal method of execution. Formerly, hangings were conducted in public squares and used as a demonstration of the state's power and to embarrass the person being executed. Hangings were seen as a public spectacle, with people even using the occasion for a family picnic.[3]

It was the preferred method of execution in England for centuries, with public hangings until 1868. The use of hanging ended only with the abolition of the death penalty in 1964.[4] Hanging was a method of execution employed by the Nazis during World War II.

In a newspaper interview in 1957, Nikita Khrushchev commented regarding the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution that "support by United States … is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man." [5] In keeping with the metaphor, the prime minister of Hungary during the revolution, Imre Nagy, was secretly tried, executed by hanging, and buried unceremoniously by the new Soviet-backed Hungarian government, in 1958. Nagy was later publicly rehabilitated by Hungary.[6]

Canada used hangings as its method of execution as late as 1962.[7] The Indian Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment would only be used in extreme cases.[8] One such example is that of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who was convicted of the 1990 murder and rape of a 14 year old girl in Kolkata in India and was subsequently hanged.[9]

Hanging was the method of execution in the United States until the mid-twentieth century, and was commonly employed in lynchings. The last public hanging legally conducted in the United States (and also the last public execution in the United States) was that of Rainey Bethea, who was publicly hanged on August 14 1936, in Owensboro, Kentucky. By the last decade of the twentieth century hanging had been replaced by lethal injection as the standard method of carrying out the death penalty in states which retained this punishment. Among those with the death penalty, only three states retained hanging as an option; this was exercised three times in the 1990s—Billy Bailey in Delaware in 1996, and Charles Rodman Campbell (1994) and Westley Allan Dodd (1993) in Washington. In the first decade of the twenty-first century only two states, New Hampshire and Washington, continued to allow hanging as an option.[10]

Iran has continued to use hangings into the twenty-first century. On July 19, 2005, two boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, ages 15 and 17 respectively, who had been discovered to be having homosexual relations, were publicly hanged at Edalat (Justice) Square in Mashhad, on charges of homosexuality and rape.[11] As one of several means of capital punishment in Iran, hangings are carried out by using an automotive telescoping crane to hoist the condemned aloft. The death penalty is used for many offenses and is the only punishment for rape, murder, and child molestation, with all hangings taking place in public.

Iraq also continues to use hanging as its method of execution. In September 2005, three murderers were the first people to be executed since the downfall of Saddam Hussein. On March 9 2006, an official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council confirmed that Iraqi authorities had executed the first insurgents by hanging.[12]

In 2006, judicial hangings occurred in Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, and Singapore.[13] As of 2006, several countries still claim hanging to be their method of execution, although it has not necessarily been used recently. These include Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria, among others.[14]

Methods of judicial hanging

Black Jack Ketchum's execution, New Mexico, 1901

There are four methods of performing a judicial hanging — the short drop, suspension hanging, the standard drop, and the long drop. A mechanized form of hanging, the "upright jerker," was also experimented with in the nineteenth century.

Short drop

The short drop is done by placing the condemned person on the back of a cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around his neck. The vehicle is then moved away leaving the person dangling from the rope. Prior to 1850, it was the main method used. This method is still used widely in Middle Eastern countries.[15] A ladder was also commonly used with the condemned being forced to ascend, after which the noose was tied and the ladder pulled away or turned, leaving the victim hanging.

Suspension hanging

Suspension hanging is similar, except the gallows themselves are movable, so that the noose can be raised once the condemned is in place. This method is currently used in Iran, where tank gun barrels or mobile cranes are used to hoist the condemned into the air. Similar methods involve running the rope through a pulley to allow raising of the person.

Execution of the persons condemned as Abraham Lincoln assassination conspirators, by the standard drop method, July 7, 1865, at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.

Standard drop

The standard drop, which arrived as calculated in English units, involves a drop of between four to six feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) and came into use in the mid nineteenth century in English-speaking countries and those where judicial systems were under English influence. It was considered an advance on the short drop because it was intended to be sufficient to break the person's neck, causing immediate paralysis and immobilization (and perhaps immediate unconsciousness).

Long drop

The long drop process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advancement to the standard drop. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's weight was used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken.

Sepia-tone photo from a contemporary postcard showing Tom Ketchum's decapitated body. Caption reads "Body of Black Jack after the hanging showing head snapped off."

Prior to 1892, the drop was between four and ten feet (about one to three meters), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver a force of 1,260 lbf (5,600 newtons or 572 kgf), which fractured the neck at either the second and third or fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. However, this force resulted in some decapitations, such as the famous case of "Black Jack" Tom Ketchum in New Mexico in 1901. Between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account, and the force delivered was reduced to about 1,000 lbf (4,400 N or 450 kgf).

Equipment

The equipment used in all of these methods is similar. Usually hanging involves the use of a noose, gallows, and hood often with the pinioning of the arms. The simplest type of noose is a simple slipknot. Variables include the length of or number of cords composing the rope. Gallows can be anything from a tree to more intentionally designed platforms with traps through which the condemned fall. Some places also use cranes as gallows.

The condemned is usually hooded before the act. There are three purposes for the hood: to prevent the prisoner from moving at the last second in reaction to the executioner's movements, to minimize rope burn on the prisoner before death, and to prevent officials and witnesses from seeing the dead person's face during and after the execution. Arms and legs are often pinioned, also to prevent the prisoner from moving during the execution.[16]

Medical effects

A hanging may cause one or more of the following medical conditions:

  • Close the carotid arteries
  • Close the jugular veins
  • Induce carotid reflex, which reduces heartbeat when the pressure in the carotid arteries is high, causing cardiac arrest
  • Break the neck (cervical fracture) causing traumatic spinal cord injury
  • Close the airway causing cerebral ischemia
  • Decapitation

The two primary causes of death are a broken neck or asphyxiation. Death occurs after some minutes, from asphyxia.[17]

The heart may continue to beat for some period after the brain can no longer be resuscitated. The time of death in such cases is a matter of convention. In judicial hangings, death is pronounced at cardiac arrest, which may occur at times from several minutes up to 15 minutes or longer after hanging. During suspension, once the prisoner has lapsed into unconsciousness, rippling movements of the body and limbs may occur for some time, which are usually attributed to nervous and muscular reflexes. In Britain, it was normal to leave the body suspended for an hour to ensure death.

Suicide

Suicide by hanging.

Suspension hanging is a common method of suicide. The materials necessary for suicide by hanging are relatively easily available to the average person, compared with firearms or lethal poison. Full suspension is not required, and for this reason hanging is especially commonplace among suicidal prisoners. A type of hanging comparable to full suspension hanging may be obtained by self-strangulation using a ligature of the neck and only partial weight of the body (partial suspension). This method is dependent on unconsciousness produced by arterial blood flow restriction while the breath is held.

  • In Canada, hanging is the second most common method of suicide,[18] after suffocation.
  • In the United States, hanging is the second most common method of suicide, after firearms.[19]
  • In Great Britain, where firearms are less easily available, as of 2001 hanging was the most common method among men and the second-most commonplace among women (after poisoning).[20]

Notable Examples of Judicial Hangings

Alternatives to Hanging

Because of the variables involved in hanging, opponents have criticized it as a particularly inhumane method of execution. This criticism is driven by stories of hangings taking hours or of the horrible pain it might cause in comparison with other methods. As a result, hanging is no longer commonly used in the western world, where other methods of execution have supplanted hanging as the method of choice. These modern alternative methods include lethal injection and the gas chamber. Historically, other methods of execution included firing squad and electric chair, although these two have fallen out of favor for their barbarism. Even the more humane treatments have been questioned for the pain they cause to prisoners.[21]

Many people have criticized the death penalty in general, saying that "two wrongs do not make a right," and thus added their voices in opposition to hanging. Opposition is led by such groups as Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch, and various religious groups opposed to executions.

Notes

  1. Oxford English Dictionary Hanging Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved April 14, 2007.
  2. Richard Clark"The process of judicial hanging", Capital Punishment U.K. Retrieved April 15, 2007.
  3. Michel Foucault. Discipline & Punish. Vintage (1995). ISBN 0679752552.
  4. Clark History of British judicial hanging. Capital Punishment UK. Retrieved April 12, 2007.
  5. James Simpson. Simpson's Contemporary Quotations. (Collins, 1997. [1]. ISBN 0062701371) Retrieved April 25, 2007.
  6. Richard Solash Hungary: U.S. President To Honor 1956 Uprising Radio Free Europe. Retrieved April 10, 2007.
  7. Susan Munroe, History of Capital Punishment in Canada About: Canada Online. Retrieved April 23, 2007.
  8. Monica Sakhrani and Maharukh Adenwalla, "Death Penalty - Case for Its Abolition" Economic & Political Weekly March 12, 2005. Retrieved April 23, 2007.
  9. Sarath Kumara"West Bengal carries out first hanging in India in a decade"World Socialist Web Site, 30 September 2004. Retrieved April 23, 2007.
  10. Authorized Methods by State, Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved April 13, 2009.
  11. BBC News Iran 'must stop youth executions' BBC News. Retrieved April 10, 2007.
  12. Bushra Juh bombs bring death to Iraq Mail & Guardian Online, AP, 2006-03-10, accessdate 2006-04-27.
  13. ClarkThe process of judicial hanging Capital Punishment UK. Retrieved April 12, 2007.
  14. Ibid. The process of judicial hanging Capital Punishment UK. Retrieved April 12, 2007.
  15. International Noose Washington Post. Retrieved April 9, 2007.
  16. The Process of Judicial Hanging Capital Punishment UK. Retrieved April 15, 2007.
  17. Hanging Injuries and Strangulation. eMedicine. Retrieved April 14, 2007.
  18. Statistics about suicide. WrongDiagnosis.com [2] Retrieved April 13, 2007.
  19. Suicide Statistics, Suicide.org. Retrieved April 25, 2007.
  20. Trends in suicide by method in England and Wales, 1979 to 2001 (PDF), Office of National Statistics. Retrieved April 25, 2007.
  21. Human Rights Watch Florida, California: Lethal Injection Under Attack Human Rights Watch. Retrieved April 15, 2007.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Duff, Charles. 1999. A Handbook on Hanging. New York Review Books Classics. ISBN 0940322676
  • Gatrell, V.A.C. 1996. The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192853325
  • Kellaway, Jean. 2004. The History of Torture & Execution: From Early Civilization through Medieval Times to the Present. Mercury Books. ISBN 1904668038
  • Steelwater, Eliza. 2003. The Hangman's Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America's Struggle with the Death Penalty. Westview Press. ISBN 081334042X

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