ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area electric chair voltage

England has its own infamous "hanging judge" from history as well, in the form of Judge Jeffries.

BJ,
It's all right for you guys in California anyway -- I remember an old Bob Hope comedy where he's led to the gas chamber and quips "Haven't even got electricity out here yet, eh?" I wonder why the chair never gained favor in the far West?

Trumpy,
I have days sometimes when it seems that the only time I open my mouth is to exchange feet!

You may not realize this, but the majority of states in the U.S. have been changing over to lethal injection in recent years.
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods.html

Some still provide electrocution as an option, but the days of the chair are certainly numbered. It may even be that the last such execution in Alabama last year marks its final use.

R.I.P. Electric Chair, 1890 - 2002 ?



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 03-11-2003).]

What state still uses the 'firing squad ' as an option ? Didnt Gary Gilmore choose that back in the late 70s ?
Then there was one state that still uses hanging too.

WOC

I hadn't realized that the human body is extremely capacitive. In the movie "The Green Mile," every time they closed the {3-pole / at least 400 amp?} knife switch, all the lights got real bright and exploded.

Did anyone else notice this? What’s up with that?

Bjarney,
"Hollywood Sensationalism"

Maybe because or state government likes to pay 10 times the going rate for electricity! To expensive to fry ‘em.

I thought Texas fried more inmates than chicken?

LOL at sparky.
We have a system that incarcerates approximately 150,000 offenders with a 2.5 billion dollar annual budget.

From the time of Independence from Mexico until 1924, hanging was the lawful method of execution in Texas.

Texas "Fried 361 prisoners between 1924 and 1964.

448 Offenders are Currently on Death Row

IMO....We feed them way too much fried chicken before executing them.We have 1 inmate thats been on death row since 1980


[This message has been edited by txsparky (edited 03-12-2003).]

Why keep people alive if they are going to be killed anyway?

(I hear the police in Thailand has started with on-the-spot-executions. That'll save tax payers money...)

C-H,
Once someone has been sentenced to death,they have an automatic appeal right to the sentence(regardless of how incriminating the evidence is.) Then is up to the judge that presided in the case to set an execution date after he feels all appeals have been exhausted.
Why it takes some cases 23 yrs and counting is ridiculous.
At an average cost of $28 per day per inmate (and probably more for 1 on death row) it would seem that the state would want an execution date ASAP.

WOC,
According the site on the link I posted above, the firing squad is still an option in UT and ID, and hanging is still available as an option in DE, NH, and WA.

From the same site:
Maybe I'm missing something here, but could somebody explain why an autopsy is necessary????