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19 November 2010

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Execution by Beheading

 

Associated with the French Revolution,

the guillotine is predated by earlier devices

invented for the same grisly purpose

 

The Halifax Gibbet (left) was a device used to remove the heads of criminals in West Yorkshire, England.

 

The website yorkshirehistory.com says its first recorded use was in 1286 when the unfortunate John of Dalton was decapitated. The blade was a heavy axe-shaped edge that dropped from a height onto the victim’s neck.

A variant farther to the north was known as the Scottish Maiden.

 

French Revolution Searches

for Humane Execution Device

Prior to the French Revolution, the country’s practice had been to inflict as much pain as possible on the condemned person before dispatching them.

 

Beheading was reserved for the nobility, although its painlessness depended largely on the accuracy of the axe-man, something that could not always be guaranteed if he had fortified himself with drink before carrying out his duties.

 

The revolutionaries took a different view of the execution process and wanted to find a way of getting it over with as quickly and humanely as possible.

 

Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin Calls for Compassion

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a medical doctor and professor of anatomy. He was also an opponent of capital punishment. As a member of the National Assembly he spoke in October 1789 about the need to find a humane method of carrying out executions.

 

A couple of years later, Dr. Guillotin was a member of a committee that was given the job of finding this more compassionate method. The committee decided to follow the example of the Halifax Gibbet and the Scottish Maiden.

 

According to crimemuseum.org, Dr. Guillotin “drew a rendering of a machine that would behead a victim when a large blade was dropped quickly over the condemned person’s neck… His suggestion was rejected.”

 

Reign of Terror

However, public demand for painless executions saw the plans sent off to engineers for construction. The device was tested on cadavers before, on April 25, 1792, Nicholas-Jacques Pelletier, a highwayman, earned the distinction of being the first person executed by guillotine.

 

Then, the guillotine was put to use killing off the French aristocracy. For a nine-month period from September 1793, the French revolutionary government embarked on a campaign of terror designed to snuff out any hint of opposition to its policies.

 

Accurate records were not kept, but upwards of 16,000 people are believed to have had a date with the guillotine during this period, including, depicted here, the Queen of France Marie-Antoinette. While many were nobles, thousands of ordinary people also came to a premature end.

 

Is the Guillotine Humane?

Aside from the debate about whether capital punishment itself is humane, the guillotine is said to be swift and painless, although that latter claim can never be proven.

 

Capitalpunishmentuk.org says “The person guillotined becomes unconscious very quickly and dies from shock and anoxia due to hemorrhage and loss of blood pressure within less than 60 seconds. It has often been reported that the eyes and mouths of people beheaded have shown signs of movement.”

 

Doctors say the victim is unconscious within two to five seconds.

 

Beheading still Employed today

The last execution by guillotine in France took place in 1977, but beheading is still used as a means of execution elsewhere.

 

In 2006, 35 men and four women were beheaded in Saudi Arabia, most of them in public. According to capitalpunishmentuk.org “2007 was the record year for executions with 153 men and three women executed...[while] 67 people were beheaded in 2009, including two women.”
 

Those about to face this horrible ordeal are given tranquilizers before being taken to a public square where a sheet is laid out on the ground. Capitalpunishmentuk.org writes that the condemned are “barefoot, with shackled feet and hands cuffed behind their back, the prisoner is led by a police officer to the centre of the sheet where they are made to kneel facing Mecca.”

 

The executioner loosens his muscles with a few practice swings of his sword before jabbing the prisoner “in the back with the tip of the blade, causing the person to raise their head. Then, with a single swing of the sword, the prisoner is decapitated.”
 

A doctor then sews the head back onto the body, which is wrapped in the sheet before burial in an unmarked grave.

 

In addition to murder and rape, executions in Saudi Arabia are carried out for homosexuality and denying the Muslim faith, among other things.

 

A Westerner who watched one of seven beheadings in Jeddah in April 1995 said: “With a flick of the wrist, the executioner chopped off the head of the first guy with a long sword. It was very quick.”

 

Another witness said “I thought it would be like a scene from public executions in medieval Europe, but it wasn’t. It was respectful and the crowd was silent. They were not there to humiliate the criminals.”

 

© Canada and the World, November 2010

All rights reserved

 

IT MAY NOT

BE THAT QUICK

 

In 1905, a French doctor decided to try to establish how quickly death occurred in someone who was guillotined.

 

A convicted murderer, Henri Languille was executed in the early morning of June 28. Dr. Jacques Beaurieux then performed some experiments on the severed head.

 

"Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds...

 

"I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. The face relaxed, the lids half closed on the eyeballs...It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: ‘Languille!’ I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions...but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.

 

“Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me.

 

"After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.

 

"It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. There was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was one further movement - and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.

 

"I have just recounted to you with rigorous exactness what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted twenty-five to thirty seconds."

 

 

The guillotine has been used Algeria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Tunisia, and Vietnam.

 

The Swedish government bought a guillotine from France in 1903, but it used only once to execute Johan Ander in November 1910. He was the last person executed in Sweden.

 

It is not used anywhere today.

 

 

Saudi executioners get plenty of practice and so are skilled and able to do their job with a minimum of distress to the condemned person.

It was not so in England in the Middle Ages, when the job was usually done by the regular hangman. Beheading being reserved for the nobility, English executioners got little experience in wielding the axe, which often led to unfortunate outcomes.

 

It took three blows to remove Mary Queen of Scot’s head at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.