Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey.[1] Hanging is also a method of suicide.
The past and past participle of hang in this sense is hanged, not hung.
Methods of judicial hanging
There are numerous methods of hanging in execution which instigate death either by cervical fracture or by strangulation.
Short drop
The short drop is a method of hanging in which the condemned prisoner stands on a raised support such as a stool, ladder, cart, or other vehicle, with the noose around the neck. The support is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope.[2][3]
Suspended by the neck, the weight of the body tightens the noose around the neck, effecting strangulation and death. Loss of consciousness is typically rapid and death ensues in a few minutes.[4]
Before 1850, the short drop was the standard method of hanging, and it is still common in suicides and extrajudicial hangings (such as lynchings and summary executions) which do not benefit from the specialised equipment and drop-length calculation tables used in the newer methods.
A short-drop variant is the Austro-Hungarian "pole" method, called Würgegalgen (literally: strangling gallows), in which the following steps take place:
The condemned is made to stand before a specialized vertical pole or pillar, approximately 3 metres (9.8ft) in height.
A rope is attached around the condemned's feet and routed through a pulley at the base of the pole.
The condemned is hoisted to the top of the pole by means of a sling running across the chest and under the armpits.
A narrow-diameter noose is looped around the prisoner's neck, then secured to a hook mounted at the top of the pole.
The chest sling is released, and the prisoner is rapidly jerked downward by the assistant executioners via the foot rope.
The executioner stands on a stepped platform approximately 1.2 metres (3.9ft) high beside the condemned. The executioner would place the heel of his hand beneath the prisoner's jaw to increase the force on the neck vertebrae at the end of the drop, then manually dislocate the condemned's neck by forcing the head to one side while the neck vertebrae were under traction.
This method was later also adopted by the successor states, most notably by Czechoslovakia, where the "pole" method was used as the single type of execution from 1918 until 1954, when the prison hosting Czechoslovakia's executions, Pankrác Prison, constructed an indoor gallows that exclusively accommodated short-drop hangings to replace the pole method.[5] Nazi war criminal Karl Hermann Frank, executed in 1946 in Prague, was among approximately 1,000 condemned people executed by the pole hanging method in Czechoslovakia.[6]
Standard drop
The execution of Henry Wirz in 1865 near the U.S. Capitol; Wirz was given a standard drop, which did not break his neck
The standard drop involves a drop of between 4 and 6 feet (1.2–1.8m) and came into use from 1866, when the scientific details were published by Irish doctor Samuel Haughton. Its use rapidly spread to English-speaking countries and those with judicial systems of English origin.
It was considered a humane improvement on the short drop because it was intended to be enough to break the person's neck, causing immediate unconsciousness and rapid brain death.[7][8]
This method was used to execute condemned Nazis under United States jurisdiction after the Nuremberg Trials, including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ernst Kaltenbrunner.[9][not specific enough to verify] In the execution of Ribbentrop, historian Giles MacDonogh records that: "The hangman botched the execution and the rope throttled the former foreign minister for 20 minutes before he expired."[10] A Life magazine report on the execution merely says: "The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight."[11]
Sepia-tone photo from a contemporary 1901 postcard showing Tom Ketchum's decapitated body following a botched execution by long-drop hanging. Caption reads "Body of Black Jack after the hanging showing head snapped off."Execution of an unidentified Nazi war criminal after World War II
The long-drop process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced to Britain in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advance on the standard drop, and further refined by his successor James Berry. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's height and weight[12] were 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, but not so much that the person was decapitated. Careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose (so that the head was jerked back as the rope tightened) contributed to breaking the neck.
Prior to 1892, the drop was in the range of 4–10ft (1.2–3.0m), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver an energy of 1,260 foot-pounds force (1,710J), which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. This force resulted in some decapitations, such as the infamous case of Black Jack Ketchum in New Mexico Territory in 1901, owing to a significant weight gain while in custody not having been factored into the drop calculations. 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 energy delivered was reduced to about 1,000 foot-pounds force (1,400J).
The decapitation of Eva Dugan during a botched hanging in 1930 led the state of Arizona to switch to the gas chamber as its primary execution method, on the grounds that it was believed more humane.[14] One of the more recent decapitations as a result of the long drop occurred when Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was hanged in Iraq in 2007.[15] Accidental decapitation also occurred during the 1962 hanging of Arthur Lucas, one of the last two people put to death in Canada.[16]
Nazis executed under British jurisdiction, including Josef Kramer, Fritz Klein, Irma Grese and Elisabeth Volkenrath, were hanged by Albert Pierrepoint using the variable-drop method devised by Marwood. The record speed for a British long-drop hanging was seven seconds from the executioner entering the cell to the drop. Speed was considered to be important in the British system as it reduced the condemned's mental distress.[17]
Long-drop hanging is still practised as the method of execution in a few countries, including Japan and Singapore.[18][19]
Hanging is a common suicide method. The materials necessary for suicide by hanging are readily available to the average person, compared with firearms or poisons. Full suspension is not required, and for this reason, hanging is especially commonplace among suicidal prisoners(see: Suicide watch). A type of hanging comparable to full suspension hanging may be obtained by self-strangulation using a ligature around the neck and the partial weight of the body (partial suspension) to tighten the ligature. When a suicidal hanging involves partial suspension the deceased is found to have both feet touching the ground, e.g., they are kneeling, crouching or standing. Partial suspension or partial weight-bearing on the ligature is sometimes used, particularly in prisons, mental hospitals or other institutions, where full suspension support is difficult to devise, because high ligature points (e.g., hooks or pipes) have been removed.[20]
In Canada, hanging is the most common method of suicide,[21] and in the U.S., hanging is the second most common method, after self-inflicted gunshot wounds.[22] In the United Kingdom, where firearms are less easily available, in 2001 hanging was the most common method among men and the second most commonplace among women (after poisoning).[23]
Those who survive a suicide-via-hanging attempt, whether due to breakage of the cord or ligature point, or being discovered and cut down, face a range of serious injuries, including cerebral anoxia (which can lead to permanent brain damage), laryngeal fracture, cervical spine fracture (which may cause paralysis), tracheal fracture, pharyngeal laceration, and carotid artery injury.[24]
As human sacrifice
There are some suggestions that the Vikings practised hanging as human sacrifices to Odin, to honour Odin's own sacrifice of hanging himself from Yggdrasil.[25] In Northern Europe, it is widely speculated that the Iron Age bog bodies, many of which show signs of having been hanged, were examples of human sacrifice to the gods.[26]
Medical effects
Anoxic brain injury following a hanging—both the loss of visible differentiation between grey and white matter and the reduced ventricle size due to brain swelling are visible
A hanging may induce one or more of the following medical conditions, some leading to death:
The cause of death in hanging depends on the conditions related to the event. When the body is released from a relatively high position, the major cause of death is severe trauma to the upper cervical spine. The injuries produced are highly variable. One study showed that only a small minority of a series of judicial hangings produced fractures to the cervical spine (6 out of 34 cases studied), with half of these fractures (3 out of 34) being the classic "hangman's fracture" (bilateral fractures of the pars interarticularis of the C2 vertebra).[27]
According to Historical and biomechanical aspects of hangman's fracture, the phrase in the usual execution order, "hanged by the neck until dead", was necessary.[1]
The side, or subaural knot, has been shown to produce other, more complex injuries, with one thoroughly studied case producing only ligamentous injuries to the cervical spine and bilateral vertebral artery disruptions, but no major vertebral fractures or crush injuries to the spinal cord.[28]
John Ogilvie, who in 1615 was hanged and disembowelled after torture for his refusal to give up the Catholic faith and convert to Protestantism
In the absence of fracture and dislocation, occlusion of blood vessels becomes the major cause of death, rather than asphyxiation. Obstruction of venous drainage of the brain via occlusion of the internal jugular veins leads to cerebral oedema and then cerebral ischemia. The face will typically become engorged and cyanotic (turned blue through lack of oxygen). Compromise of the cerebral blood flow may occur 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.[29]
Hanging has been a method of capital punishment in many countries, and is still used by many countries to this day. Long-drop hanging is mainly used by former British colonies, while short-drop and suspension hanging is common elsewhere, in countries including Iran and Afghanistan.
Capital punishment was a part of the legal system of Australia from the establishment of New South Wales as a British penal colony, until 1985, by which time all Australian states and territories had abolished the death penalty;[30] in practice, the last execution in Australia was the hanging of Ronald Ryan on 3 February 1967, in Victoria.[31]
During the 19th century, crimes that could carry a death sentence included burglary, sheep theft, forgery, sexual assaults, murder and manslaughter. During the 19th century, there were roughly eighty people hanged every year throughout the Australian colonies for these crimes.[citation needed]
Bahamas employs hanging to execute the condemned but no executions have been conducted in the country since 2000.[32] As of 2023, there have been some inmates on death row but their sentences have been commuted.[citation needed]
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.[33] The death penalty was abolished for all crimes, except for those committed under extraordinary circumstances such as war or military law, in 1890.[34]
Bulgaria's national hero, Vasil Levski, was executed by hanging by the Ottoman court in Sofia in 1873. Every year since Bulgaria's liberation, thousands come with flowers on the date of his death, 19 February, to his monument where the gallows stood. The last execution was in 1989, and the death penalty was abolished for all crimes in 1998.[34]
Historically, hanging was the only method of execution used in Canada and was in use as possible punishment for all murders until 1961, when murders were reclassified into capital and non-capital offences. The death penalty was restricted to apply only for certain offences to the National Defence Act in 1976 and was completely abolished in 1998.[35] The last hangings in Canada took place on 11 December 1962.[34]
In 1955, Egypt hanged three Israelis on charges of spying.[36] In 1982 Egypt hanged three civilians convicted of the assassination of Anwar Sadat.[37] In 2004, Egypt hanged five militants on charges of trying to kill the Prime Minister.[38] To this day, hanging remains the standard method of capital punishment in Egypt, which executes more people each year than any other African country.
Public execution of Polish civilians by the Nazi Germans in German occupied Kraków in 1942Alleged Soviet partisans hanged by the Nazis in January 1943
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 commonly sentenced were partisans and black marketeers, whose bodies were usually left hanging for long periods. There are also numerous reports of concentration camp inmates being hanged. Hanging was continued in post-war Germany in the British and US Occupation Zones under their jurisdiction, and for Nazi war criminals, until well after (western) Germany itself had abolished the death penalty by the German constitution as adopted in 1949. West Berlin was not subject to the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) and abolished the death penalty in 1951. The German Democratic Republic abolished the death penalty in 1987. The last execution ordered by a West German court was carried out by guillotine in Moabit prison in 1949. The last hanging in Germany was the one ordered of several war criminals in Landsberg am Lech on 7 June 1951. The last known execution in East Germany was in 1981 by a pistol shot to the neck.[30]
Hong Kong
Even though Hong Kong is now part of China it has no capital punishment; it is a special administrative region of China. When Hong Kong was still a part of the British Empire, it had hanging as the method of execution. The last person who was executed was a Chinese Vietnamese man who attacked a security guard and another person. This was in 1966.[39]
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 publicly exonerated by Hungary.[40] Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1990.[30]
Hanging was introduced by the British. All executions in India since independence have been carried out by hanging, although the law provides for military executions to be carried out by firing squad. In 1949, Nathuram Godse, who had been sentenced to death for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, was the first person to be executed by hanging in independent India.[41]
Since 2001, eight people have been executed in India. Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the 1991 rapist and murderer was executed on 14 August 2004 in Alipore Jail, Kolkata. Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the 2008 Mumbai attacks was executed on 21 November 2012 in Yerwada Central Jail, Pune. The Supreme Court of India had previously rejected his mercy plea, which was then rejected by the President of India. He was hanged one week later. Afzal Guru, a terrorist found guilty of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, was executed by hanging in Tihar Jail, Delhi on 9 February 2013. Yakub Memon was convicted over his involvement in the 1993 Bombay bombings by Special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities court on 27 July 2007. His appeals and petitions for clemency were all rejected and he was finally executed by hanging on 30 July 2015 in Nagpur jail. In March 2020, four prisoners convicted of rape and murder were executed by hanging in Tihar Jail.[43]
A public execution for a man convicted of rape, Qarchak, Iran, 26 October 2011.
Death by hanging is the primary means of capital punishment in Iran, which carries out one of the highest numbers of annual executions in the world. The method used is the short drop, which does not break the neck of the condemned, but rather causes a slower death due to strangulation. It is legal for murder, rape, and drug trafficking unless the criminal pays diyya to the victim's family, thus attaining their forgiveness (see Sharia). If the presiding judge deems the case to be "causing public outrage", he can order the hanging to take place in public at the spot where the crime was committed, typically from a mobile telescoping crane which hoists the condemned high into the air.[44] On 19 July 2005, two boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, aged 15 and 17 respectively, who had been convicted of the rape of a 13-year-old boy, were hanged at Edalat (Justice) Square in Mashhad, on charges of homosexuality and rape.[45][46] On 15 August 2004, a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Sahaaleh (also called Atefeh Rajabi), was executed for having committed "acts incompatible with chastity".[47]
At dawn on 27 July 2008, the Iranian government executed 29 people at Evin Prison in Tehran.[48] On 2 December 2008, an unnamed man was hanged for murder at Kazeroun Prison, just moments after he was pardoned by the murder victim's family. He was quickly cut down and rushed to a hospital, where he was successfully revived.[49]
The conviction and hanging of Reyhaneh Jabbari caused international uproar as she was sentenced to death in 2009 and hanged on 25 October 2014 for murdering a former intelligence officer; according to Jabbari's testimony she stabbed him during an attempted rape and then another person killed him.[50]
Hanging was used under the regime of Saddam Hussein,[51] but was suspended along with capital punishment on 10 June 2003, when a coalition led by the United States invaded and overthrew the previous regime. The death penalty was reinstated on 8 August 2004.[52]
In September 2005, three murderers were the first people to be executed since the restoration. Then on 9 March 2006, an official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council confirmed that Iraqi authorities had executed the first insurgents by hanging.[53]
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity[54] on 5 November 2006, and was executed on 30 December 2006 at approximately 6:00a.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.[55]
Barzan Ibrahim, the head of the Mukhabarat, Saddam's security agency, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge, were executed on 15 January 2007, also by the long-drop method, but Barzan was decapitated by the rope at the end of his fall.[56]
Former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan had been sentenced to life in prison on 5 November 2006, but the sentence was changed to death by hanging on 12 February 2007.[57] He was the fourth and final man to be executed for the 1982 crimes against humanity on 20 March 2007. The execution went smoothly.[58]
At the Anfal genocide trial, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (alias Chemical Ali), former defence minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay, and former deputy Hussein Rashid Mohammed were sentenced to hang for their role in the Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds on 24 June 2007.[59] Al-Majid was sentenced to death three more times: once for the 1991 suppression of a Shi'a uprising along with Abdul-Ghani Abdul Ghafur on 2 December 2008;[60] once for the 1999 crackdown in the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr on 2 March 2009;[61] and once on 17 January 2010 for the gassing of the Kurds in 1988;[62] he was hanged on 25 January.[63]
On 26 October 2010, Saddam's top minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to hang for persecuting the members of rival Shi'a political parties.[64] His sentence was commuted to indefinite imprisonment after Iraqi president Jalal Talabani did not sign his execution order and he died in prison in 2015.
On 14 July 2011, US forces transferred condemned prisoners Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay and two of Saddam's half-brothers, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Watban Ibrahim al-Tikriti, to Iraqi authorities for execution.[65] The Iraqi High Tribunal had sentenced Saddam's half-brothers to death on 11 March 2009 for their roles in the executions of 42 traders who were accused of manipulating food prices.[66] None of the three men were executed.
It is alleged that Iraq's government keeps the execution rate secret, and hundreds may be carried out every year. In 2007, Amnesty International stated that 900 people were at "imminent risk" of execution in Iraq.
Although Israel has provisions in its criminal law to use the death penalty for extraordinary crimes, it has been used only twice, and only one of those executions was by hanging. On 31 May 1962, Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was captured, taken to Israel and then executed by hanging.[34]
On 27 February 2004, the mastermind of the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Shoko Asahara, was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. On 25 December 2006, serial killer Hiroaki Hidaka and three others were hanged in Japan. Long-drop hanging is the method of carrying out judicial capital punishment on civilians in Japan, as in the cases of Norio Nagayama,[69]Mamoru Takuma,[70] and Tsutomu Miyazaki.[71] In 2018 Shoko Asahara and several of his cult members were hanged for committing the 1995 sarin gas attack.
Jordan
Death by hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment in Jordan. On 14 August 1993, Jordan hanged two Jordanians convicted of spying for Israel.[72]Sajida al-Rishawi, "The 4th bomber" of the 2005 Amman bombings, was executed by hanging alongside Ziad al-Karbouly on 4 February 2015 in retribution for the immolation of Jordanian pilot Muath Al-Kasasbeh.
Kuwait
Kuwait has always used hanging for execution. During the Gulf War, Iraqi government officials executed different people for different reasons. After the war, Kuwait hanged Iraqi collaborators.[73] Sometimes the executions are in public. The most recent executions were in 2022. [74]
Lebanon hanged two men in 1998 for murdering a man and his sister.[75] However, capital punishment ended up being altogether suspended in Lebanon, as a result of staunch opposition by activists and some political factions.[76]
Liberia
The Hanging of the Harper Seven, Liberia – 16 February 1979
On 16 February 1979, seven men convicted of the ritual killing of the popular Kru traditional singer Moses Tweh, were publicly hanged at dawn in Harper.[77][78]
Hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment in Malaysia and has been used to execute people convicted of murder, drug trafficking and waging war against the government. The Barlow and Chambers execution was carried out as a result of new tighter drug regulations.
Hanging was commonly practised in the Russian Empire during the rule of the Romanov Dynasty as an alternative to impalement, which was used in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Hanging was abolished in 1868 by Alexander II after serfdom,[clarification needed] but was restored by the time of his death and his assassins were hanged. While those sentenced to death for murder were usually pardoned and sentences commuted to life imprisonment, those guilty of high treason were usually executed. This also included the Grand Duchy of Finland and Kingdom of Poland under the Russian crown. Taavetti Lukkarinen became the last Finn to be executed this way. He was hanged for espionage and high treason in 1916.
The hanging was usually performed by short drop in public. The gallows were usually either a stout nearby tree branch, as in the case of Lukkarinen, or a makeshift gallows constructed for the purpose.
After the October Revolution in 1917, capital punishment was, on paper, abolished, but continued to be used unabated against people perceived to be enemies of the regime. Under the Bolsheviks, most executions were performed by shooting, either by firing squad or by a single firearm. In 1943, hanging was restored primarily for German servicemen and native collaborators for atrocities committed against Soviet POWs and civilians. The last to be hanged were Andrey Vlasov and his companions in 1946.
In Singapore, long-drop hanging[18] is currently used as a mandatory punishment for crimes such as drug trafficking, murder and some types of kidnapping. It was introduced by the British, when they occupied Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia. It has also been used for punishing those convicted of unauthorised discharging of firearms.[79]
Hanging was abolished in Sri Lanka in 1956, but in 1959 it was brought back and later halted in 1978. In 1975, the day before the execution of Maru Sira, he had been overdosed by the prison guards to prevent him from escaping. On the day of his execution he was unconscious, so when he was brought to the gallows, he was slumped over on the trapdoor with a noose around his neck, and when the executioner pulled the lever, his execution was botched and he strangled.
Eli Cohen, publicly hanged by Syria on 18 May 1965
Syria has publicly hanged people, such as two individuals in 1952, Israeli spy Eli Cohen in 1965, and a number of Jews accused of spying for Israel in 1969.[80][81][82]
According to a 19th-century report, members of the Alawite sect centred on Lattakia in Syria had a particular aversion towards being hanged, and the family of the condemned was willing to pay "considerable sums" to ensure its relations were impaled, instead of being hanged. As far as Burckhardt could make out, this attitude was based upon the Alawites' idea that the soul ought to leave the body through the mouth, rather than leave it in any other fashion.[83]
As a form of judicial execution in England, hanging is thought to date from the Anglo-Saxon period.[85] Records of the names of British hangmen begin with Thomas de Warblynton in the 1360s;[citation needed] complete records extend from the 16th century to the last hangmen, Robert Leslie Stewart and Harry Allen, who conducted the last British executions in 1964.
Until 1868 hangings were performed in public. In London, the traditional site was at Tyburn, a settlement west of the City on the main road to Oxford, which was used on eight hanging days a year, though before 1865, executions had been transferred to the street outside Newgate Prison, Old Bailey, now the site of the Central Criminal Court.
Three British subjects were hanged after World War II after having been convicted of having helped Nazi Germany in its war against Britain. John Amery, the son of prominent British politician Leo Amery, became an expatriate in the 1930s, moving to France. He became involved in pre-war fascist politics, remained in what became Vichy France following France's defeat by Germany in 1940 and eventually went to Germany and later the German puppet state in Italy headed by Benito Mussolini. Captured by Italian partisans at the end of the war and handed over to British authorities, Amery was accused of having made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis and of having attempted to recruit British prisoners of war for a Waffen SS regiment later known as the British Free Corps. Amery pleaded guilty to treason charges on 28 November 1945[86] and was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 19 December 1945. William Joyce, an American-born Irishman who had lived in Britain and possessed a British passport, had been involved in pre-war fascist politics in the UK, fled to Nazi Germany just before the war began to avoid arrest by British authorities and became a naturalised German citizen. He made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis, becoming infamous under the nickname Lord Haw Haw. Captured by British forces in May 1945, he was tried for treason later that year. Although Joyce's defence argued that he was by birth American and thus not subject to being tried for treason, the prosecution successfully argued that Joyce's pre-war British passport meant that he was a subject of the British Crown and he was convicted. After his appeals failed, he was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 3 January 1946.[87]Theodore Schurch, a British soldier captured by the Nazis who then began working for the Italian and German intelligence services by acting as a spy and informer who would be placed among other British prisoners, was arrested in Rome in March 1945 and tried under the Treachery Act 1940. After his conviction, he was hanged at HM Prison Pentonville on 4 January 1946.
The Homicide Act 1957 created the new offence of capital murder, punishable by death, with all other murders being punishable by life imprisonment.
In 1965, Parliament passed the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, temporarily abolishing capital punishment for murder for five years. The Act was renewed in 1969, making the abolition permanent. With the passage of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998, the death penalty was officially abolished for all crimes in both civilian and military cases. Following its complete abolition, the gallows were removed from Wandsworth Prison, where they remained in full working order until that year.
Hanging was also the method used in many colonies and overseas territories.[89]
Silken rope
In the UK, some felons are traditionally said to have been executed by hanging with a silken rope:
Hereditary peers who committed capital offences,[90] as anticipated by the fictional Duke of Denver, brother of Lord Peter Wimsey. The Duke was accused of murder in the novel Clouds of Witness, and this execution would have been his fate, after conviction by his peers in a trial in the House of Lords. It has been claimed that the execution of Earl Ferrers in 1760 – the only time a peer was hanged after trial by the House of Lords – was carried out with the normal hempen rope instead of a silk one. The writ of execution does not specify a silk rope be used,[91] and The Newgate Calendar makes no mention of the use of such an item[92] – an unusual omission given its highly sensationalist nature.
An image of suspected witches being hanged in England, published in 1655.
Balvenie Pillar, also known as Tom na Croiche (Hangman's Knoll). The pillar was erected in 1755 to commemorate the last public hanging in the Atholl region of Scotland in 1630.
Hanging noose used at public executions outside Lancaster Castle, c.1820s–1830s.
The execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, who were all convicted by a military tribunal for being involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 7 July 1865
Capital punishment in the U.S. varies from state to state; it is outlawed in some states but used in most others. However, the death penalty under federal law is applicable in every state. Hanging is no longer used as a method of execution.
The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Dakota uprising, led to the largest mass execution in the United States when 38 Sioux Indians, who were facing starvation and displacement, attacked white settlers, for which they were sentenced to death via hanging in Mankato, Minnesota in December 1862.[97] Originally, 303 had been sentenced to hang, but the convictions were reviewed by President Abraham Lincoln and the sentences of all but 38 were commuted.[98] In 2019, an historic apology was issued to the Dakota people for the mass hanging and the "trauma inflicted on Native people at the hands of state government."[97]
In California, Clinton Duffy, who served as warden of San Quentin State Prison between 1940 and 1952, presided over ninety executions.[103] He began to oppose the death penalty, and after his retirement, wrote a memoir entitled Eighty-Eight Men and Two Women in support of the movement to abolish the death penalty. The book documents several hangings gone wrong and describes how they led his predecessor, Warden James B. Holohan, to persuade the California Legislature to replace hanging with the gas chamber in 1937.[104][105]
Various methods of capital punishment have been replaced by lethal injection in most states and the federal government. Many states that offered hanging as an option have since eliminated the method. Condemned murderer Victor Feguer became the last inmate to be executed by hanging in the state of Iowa on 15 March 1963. Hanging was the preferred method of execution for capital murder cases in Iowa until 1965, when the death penalty was abolished and replaced with life imprisonment without parole. Barton Kay Kirkham was the last person to be hanged in Utah, preferring it over execution by firing squad. Laws in Delaware were changed in 1986 to specify lethal injection, except for those convicted before 1986 (who were still allowed to choose hanging). If a choice was not made, or the convict refused to choose injection, then hanging would become the default method. This was the case in the 1996 execution of Billy Bailey, the most recent hanging in American history; since then, no Delaware prisoner fit the category, and the state's gallows were later dismantled.
The upright jerker is a method of hanging that originated in the United States in the late 19th century. The person to be hanged is jerked into the air by weights and pulleys. It proved to be ineffective at breaking the neck of the condemned, and death by asphyxiation often occurred. In the United States, use of the method ceased in the late 1930s. However, Iran continues to intermittently employ a variant of this method, using a crane rather than a specially-designed mechanism of pulleys. The method has received heavy criticism from human rights organizations and the European Union.[106]
Inverted hanging, the "Jewish" punishment
Woodcut by Johann Stumpf, who witnessed this type of execution in 1553
A completely different principle of hanging is to hang the convicted person from their legs, rather than from their neck, either as a form of torture, or as an execution method. In late medieval Germany, this came to be primarily associated with Jews accused of being thieves, called the Judenstrafe. The jurist Ulrich Tengler, in his Layenspiegel from 1509, describes the procedure as follows, in the section "Von Juden straff":[107]
To drag the Jew to the ordinary execution place between two angry or biting dogs. After dragging, to hang him from his feet by rope or chain at a designated gallows between the dogs, so that he is directed from life to death[108]
Guido Kisch[de] showed that originally, this type of inverted hanging between two dogs was not a punishment specifically for Jews. Esther Cohen writes:[109]
The inverted hanging with the accompaniment of two dogs, originally reserved for traitors, was identified from the fourteenth century as the "Jewish execution", being practised in the later Middle Ages in both northern and Mediterranean Europe. The Jewish execution in Germany has been thoroughly studied by G. Kisch, who has argued convincingly that neither the inverted hanging nor the stringing up of dogs or wolves beside the victim were particularly Jewish punishments during the High Middle Ages. They first appeared as Jewish punishments in Germany only towards the end of the thirteenth century, never being recognized as exclusively Jewish penalties.
In France the inverted, animal-associated hanging came to be connected with Jews by the later Middle Ages. The inverted hanging of Jews is specifically mentioned in the old customs of Burgundy in the context of animal hanging. The custom, dogs and all, was still in force in Paris shortly before the final expulsion of the Jews in 1394.
In Spain 1449, during a mob attack against the Marranos (Jews nominally converted to Christianity), the Jews resisted, but lost and several of them were hanged up by the feet.[110] The first attested German case for a Jew being hanged by the feet is from 1296, in present-day Soultzmatt.[111] Some other historical examples of this type of hanging within the German context are one Jew in Hennegau 1326, two Jews hanged in Frankfurt 1444,[112] one in Halle in 1462,[113] one in Dortmund 1486,[114] one in Hanau 1499,[112] one in Breslau 1505,[115] one in Württemberg 1553,[116] one in Bergen 1588,[112] one in Öttingen 1611,[117] one in Frankfurt 1615 and again in 1661,[112] and one condemned to this punishment in Prussia in 1637.[118]
The details of the cases vary widely: In the 1444 Frankfurt cases and the 1499 Hanau case, the dogs were dead prior to being hanged, and in the late 1615 and 1661 cases in Frankfurt, the Jews (and dogs) were merely kept in this torture for half an hour, before being garroted from below. In the 1588 Bergen case, all three victims were left hanging till they were dead, ranging from 6 to 8 days after being hanged. In the Dortmund 1486 case, the dogs bit the Jew to death while hanging. In the 1611 Öttingen case, the Jew "Jacob the Tall" thought to blow up the Deutsche Ordenhaus with gunpowder after having burgled it. He was strung up between two dogs, and a large fire was made close to him, and he expired after half an hour under this torture. In the 1553 Württemberg case, the Jew chose to convert to Christianity after hanging like this for 24 hours; he was then given the mercy to be hanged in the ordinary manner, from the neck, and without the dogs beside him. In the 1462 Halle case, the Jew Abraham also converted after 24 hours hanging upside down, and a priest went up on a ladder and baptised him. For two more days, Abraham was left hanging, while the priest argued with the city council that a true Christian should not be punished in this way. On the third day, Abraham was granted a reprieve, and was taken down, but died 20 days later in the local hospital having meanwhile suffered in extreme pain. In the 1637 case, where the Jew had murdered a Christian jeweller, the appeal to the empress was successful, and out of mercy, the Jew was condemned to be merely pinched with glowing pincers, have hot lead dripped into his wounds, and then be broken alive on the wheel.
Some of the reported cases may be myths, or wandering stories. The 1326 Hennegau case, for example, deviates from the others in that the Jew was not a thief, but was suspected (even though he was a convert to Christianity) of having struck an al fresco painting of Virgin Mary, so that blood had begun to seep down the wall from the painting. Even under all degrees of judicial torture, the Jew denied performing this sacrilegious act, and was therefore exonerated. Then a brawny smith demanded from him a trial by combat, because, supposedly, in a dream the Virgin herself had besought the smith to do so. The court accepted the smith's challenge, he easily won the combat against the Jew, who was duly hanged up by the feet between two dogs. To add to the injury, one let him be slowly roasted as well as hanged.[119] This is a very similar story to one told in France, in which a young Jew threw a lance at the head of a statue of the Virgin, so that blood spurted out of it. There was inadequate evidence for a normal trial, but a frail old man asked for trial by combat, and bested the young Jew. The Jew confessed his crime, and was hanged by his feet between two mastiffs.[120]
The features of the earliest attested case, that of a Jewish thief hanged by the feet in Soultzmatt in 1296 are also rather divergent from the rest. The Jew managed somehow, after he had been left to die, to twitch his body in such a manner that he could hoist himself up on the gallows and free himself. At that time, his feet were so damaged that he was unable to escape, and when he was discovered 8 days after he had been hanged, he was strangled to death by the townspeople.[121]
As late as in 1699 Celle, the courts were sufficiently horrified at how the Jewish leader of a robber gang (condemned to be hanged in the normal manner) declared blasphemies against Christianity, that they made a ruling on the post mortem treatment of Jonas Meyer. After 3 days, his corpse was cut down, his tongue cut out, and his body was hanged up again, but this time from its feet.[122]
Punishment for traitors
Guido Kisch writes that the first instance he knows where a person in Germany was hanged up by his feet between two dogs until he died occurred about 1048, some 250 years earlier than the first attested Jewish case. This was a knight called Arnold, who had murdered his lord; the story is contained in Adam of Bremen's History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen.[123] Another example of a non-Jew who suffered this punishment as a torture, in 1196 Richard, Count of Acerra, was one of those executed by Henry VI in the suppression of the rebelling Sicilians:[124]
He [Henry VI] held a general court in Capua, at which he ordered that the count first be drawn behind a horse through the squares of Capua, and then hanged alive head downwards. The latter was still alive after two days when a certain German jester called Leather-Bag [Follis], hoping to please the emperor, tied a large stone to his neck and shamefully put him to death
A couple of centuries earlier, in France 991, a viscount Walter nominally owing his allegiance to the French King Hugh Capet chose, on instigation of his wife, to join the rebellion under Odo I, Count of Blois. When Odo found out he had to abandon Melun after all, Walter was duly hanged before the gates, whereas his wife, the fomentor of treason, was hanged by her feet, causing much merriment and jeers from Hugh's soldiers as her clothes fell downwards revealing her naked body, although it is not wholly clear if she died in that manner.[125]
Elizabethan maritime law
During Queen Elizabeth I's reign, the following was written concerning those who stole a ship from the Royal Navy:[126]
If anye one practysed to steale awaye anye of her Majesty's shippes, the captaine was to cause him to be hanged by the heels untill his braines were beaten out against the shippe's sides, and then to be cutt down and lett fall intoe the sea.
Hanging by the ribs
A Man Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows by William Blake. Originally published in Stedman's Narrative.
In 1713, Juraj Jánošík, a semi-legendary Slovak outlaw and folk hero, was sentenced to be hanged from his left rib. He was left to slowly die.[127]
The German physician Gottlob Schober (1670–1739),[128] who worked in Russia from 1712, notes that a person could hang from the ribs for about three days prior to expiring, his primary pain being that of extreme thirst. He thought this degree of insensitivity was something peculiar to the Russian mentality.[129]
The Dutch in Suriname were also in the habit of hanging a slave from the ribs, a custom amongst the African tribes from whom they were originally purchased. John Gabriel Stedman stayed in South America from 1772 to 1777 and described the method as told by a witness:[130]
Not long ago, (continued he) I saw a black "man suspended alive from a gallows by the ribs, between which, with a knife, was first made an incision, and then clinched an iron hook with a chain: in this manner he kept alive three days, hanging with his head "and feet downwards, and catching with his tongue the "drops of water" (it being in the rainy season) that were "flowing down his bloated breast. Notwithstanding all this, he never complained, and even upbraided a negro "for crying while he was flogged below the gallows, by calling out to him: "You man?—Da boy fasy? Are you a man? you behave like a boy". Shortly after which he was knocked on the head by the commiserating sentry, who stood over him, with the butt end of his musket.
William Blake was specially commissioned to make illustrations to Stedman's narrative.[131]
Grammar
The standard past tense and past participle form of the verb "hang", in the sense of this article, is "hanged",[132][133][134] although some dictionaries give "hung" as an alternative.[135][136]
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom predates the formation of the UK, having been used in Britain and Ireland from ancient times until the second half of the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964; capital punishment for murder was suspended in 1965 and finally abolished in 1969. Although unused, the death penalty remained a legally defined punishment for certain offences such as treason until it was completely abolished in 1998; the last person to be executed for treason was William Joyce, in 1946. In 2004, Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom; it prohibits the restoration of the death penalty as long as the UK is a party to the convention.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Ohio, although all executions have been suspended indefinitely by Governor Mike DeWine until a replacement for lethal injection is chosen by the Ohio General Assembly. The last execution in the state was in July 2018, when Robert J. Van Hook was executed via lethal injection for murder.
The U.S. state of Washington enforced capital punishment until the state's capital punishment statute was declared null and void and abolished in practice by a state Supreme Court ruling on October 11, 2018. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional as applied due to racial bias; however, it did not render the wider institution of capital punishment unconstitutional and rather required the statute to be amended to eliminate racial biases. From 1904 to 2010, 78 people were executed by the state; the last was Cal Coburn Brown on September 10, 2010. In April 2023, Governor Jay Inslee signed SB5087 which formally abolished capital punishment in Washington State and removed provisions for capital punishment from state law.
Capital punishment was abolished via the legislative process on May 2, 2013, in the U.S. state of Maryland.
Billy Bailey was a convicted murderer who was hanged in Delaware in 1996. He became the third person to be hanged in the United States since 1965, and the first person hanged in Delaware in 50 years. As of 2024, he remains the last person to be lawfully executed by hanging in the United States.
Capital punishment in Canada dates to Canada's earliest history, including its period as first a French then a British colony. From 1867 to the elimination of the death penalty for murder on July 26, 1976, 1,481 people had been sentenced to death, and 710 had been executed. Of those executed, 697 were men and 13 women. The only method used in Canada for capital punishment of civilians after the end of the French regime was hanging. The last execution in Canada was the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin on December 11, 1962, at Toronto's Don Jail. The National Defence Act prescribed the death penalty for certain military offences until 1999, although no military executions had been carried out since 1946.
Capital punishment was abolished in 2019 in New Hampshire for persons convicted of capital murder. It remains a legal penalty for crimes committed prior to May 30, 2019.
Capital punishment – the process of sentencing convicted offenders to death for the most serious crimes and carrying out that sentence, as ordered by a legal system – first appeared in New Zealand in a codified form when New Zealand became a British colony in 1840. It was first carried out with a public hanging in Victoria Street, Auckland in 1842, while the last execution occurred in 1957 at Mount Eden Prison, also in Auckland. In total, 85 people have been lawfully executed in New Zealand.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Japan. The Penal Code of Japan and several laws list 14 capital crimes. In practice, though, it is applied only for aggravated murder. Executions are carried out by long drop hanging, and take place at one of the seven execution chambers located in major cities across the country. The only crime punishable by a mandatory death sentence is instigation of foreign aggression.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Iran. The list of crimes punishable by death includes murder; rape; child molestation; homosexuality; drug trafficking; armed robbery; kidnapping; terrorism; burglary; incest; fornication; adultery; sodomy; sexual misconduct; prostitution; plotting to overthrow the Islamic government; political dissidence; sabotage; arson; rebellion; apostasy; blasphemy; extortion; counterfeiting; smuggling; recidivist consumption of alcohol; producing or preparing food, drink, cosmetics, or sanitary items that lead to death when consumed or used; producing and publishing pornography; using pornographic materials to solicit sex; capital perjury; recidivist theft; certain military offences ; "waging war against God"; "spreading corruption on Earth"; espionage; and treason. Iran carried out at least 977 executions in 2015, at least 567 executions in 2016, and at least 507 executions in 2017. In 2018 there were at least 249 executions, at least 273 in 2019, at least 246 in 2020, at least 290 in 2021, at least 553 in 2022, at least 834 in 2023, and at least 226 so far in 2024. In 2023, Iran was responsible for 74% of all recorded executions in the world.
Capital punishment in Finland has been abolished de jure.
Capital punishment in Iraq is a legal penalty. It was commonly used by the government of Saddam Hussein, was temporarily halted after the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq that deposed Hussein, and has since been reinstated. Executions are carried out by hanging.
Capital punishment in Australia has been abolished in all jurisdictions since 1985. Queensland abolished the death penalty in 1922. Tasmania did the same in 1968. The Commonwealth abolished the death penalty in 1973, with application also in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Victoria did so in 1975, South Australia in 1976, and Western Australia in 1984. New South Wales abolished the death penalty for murder in 1955, and for all crimes in 1985. In 2010, the Commonwealth Parliament passed legislation prohibiting the re-establishment of capital punishment by any state or territory. Australian law prohibits the extradition or deportation of a prisoner to another jurisdiction if they could be sentenced to death for any crime.
The execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein took place on 30 December 2006. Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the Dujail massacre—the killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in the town of Dujail—in 1982, in retaliation for an assassination attempt against him.
The upright jerker was an execution method and device intermittently used in the United States during the 19th and early 20th century. Intended to replace hangings, the upright jerker did not see widespread use and was withdrawn from use by the 1930s.
Capital punishment remained in Polish law until September 1, 1998, but from 1989 executions were suspended, the last one taking place one year earlier. No death penalty is envisaged in the current Polish penal law.
Capital punishment was abolished in Turkey in 2004, and no prisoners have been executed since October 1984. Before that, over 500 convicts sentenced to death were executed. The method of execution was hanging.
Hanging has been practiced legally in the United States of America from before the nation's birth, up to 1972 when the United States Supreme Court found capital punishment to be in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Four years later, the Supreme Court overturned its previous ruling, and in 1976, capital punishment was again legalized in the United States. Currently, only New Hampshire has a law specifying hanging as an available secondary method of execution, now only applicable to one person, who was sentenced to capital punishment by the state prior to its repeal in 2019.
Reactions to the execution of Saddam Hussein were varied. Some strongly supported the execution, particularly those personally affected by Saddam's actions as leader. Some of these victims wished to see him brought to trial for his other actions, alleged to have resulted in a much greater number of deaths than those for which he was convicted. Some believed the execution would boost morale in Iraq, while others feared it would incite further violence. Many in the international community supported Saddam being brought to justice but objected in particular to the use of capital punishment. Saddam's supporters condemned the action as unjust.
Capital punishmentin Kuwait is legal. Hanging is the method of choice for civilian executions. However, shooting is a legal form of execution in certain circumstances.
References
1 2 3 4 Mahmoud Rayes; Monika Mittal; Setti S. Rengachary; Sandeep Mittal (February 2011). "Hangman's fracture: a historical and biomechanical perspective"(PDF). Journal of Neurosurgery. Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 27 August 2016. It was not until the introduction of the standard drop by Dr. Samuel Haughton in 1866, and the so-called long drop by William Marwood in 1872 that hanging became a standard, humane means to achieve instantaneous death.
↑ Hughes, Robert (11 January 2012). The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's founding. Knopf Doubleday. pp.33ff. ISBN978-0-307-81560-6. Archived from the original on 6 May 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2014. Before the invention of the hinged trapdoor through which the victim was dropped, he or she was 'turned off' or 'twisted' by the hangman who pulled the ladder away.
↑ Potter, John Deane (1965). The Art of Hanging. A. S. Barnes. p.23. ISBN9780498073878. Archived from the original on 26 April 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2014. ...condemned persons still mounted a ladder which was turned round, leaving them dangling. This led to the phrase 'turned off'—they were literally turned off the ladder.
↑ Sauvageau, Anny; Racette, Stéphanie (2007). "Agonal Sequences in a Filmed Suicidal Hanging: Analysis of Respiratory and Movement Responses to Asphyxia by Hanging". Journal of Forensic Sciences. 52 (4): 957–959. doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00459.x. PMID17524058. S2CID32188375.
↑ Glob, P (2004). The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved. New York: New York Review of Books. p.304. ISBN978-1-59017-090-8.
↑ James R, Nasmyth-Jones R., "The occurrence of cervical fractures in victims of judicial hanging", Forensic Science International, April 1992; 54(1):81–91.
↑ Wallace SK, Cohen WA, Stern EJ, Reay DT, "Judicial hanging: postmortem radiographic, CT, and MR imaging features with autopsy confirmation", Radiology, October 1994; 193(1):263–7.
↑ McCaslin, Richard B. (15 June 2010). "Great Hamging at Gainesville". Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
↑ Original German text: Den Juden zwischen zweyen wütenden oder beissenden hunde zu der gewonlichen gerichtstatt zu ziehen. vel schlieffen, mit dem strang oder ketten bey seinen füssen an eynen besondern galgen zwischen die hund nach verkerter mass hencken damit er also von leben zom tod gericht wird
↑ Müller, Jörg R. (2008). Beziehungsnetze aschkenasischer Juden während des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit. Hahnsche Buchhandlung. pp.81, footnote 31. ISBN9783775256292.
↑ The author regards this as probably the last case in which a Jew (although in this case dead) was hanged up by the feet in Germany. Schnitzler, Norbert (2002). "Juden vor Gericht: Soziale Ausgrenzung durch Sanktionen". In Schlosser, Hans; Sprandel, Rolf; Willoweit, Daniel (eds.). Herrschaftliches Strafen seit dem Hochmittelalter: Formen und Entwicklungsstufen (in German). Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau. p.292. ISBN9783412086015.
↑ On Kisch's assessment, see for example: Kisch, Guido (1943). Historia Judaica: A Journal of Studies in Jewish History, Especially in Legal and Economic History of the Jews. Vol.5–6. Historia Judaica. p.119. On locus in Adam of Bremen's text, see Adam of Bremen (2013). History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen. Translated by Tschan, Francis J.; Reuter, Timothy. New York: Columbia University Press. p.120. ISBN9780231500852. Archived from the original on 13 May 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
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