The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, October 21, 1983 Page: 5 of 8
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Friday, October 21,1983
Quick and painless vs. cruel and unusual
■y'‘y
The tortuous history of execution
By DEBRA McGUIRE
Daily Reporter
A United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last
Friday that the Food and Drug Administration must
determine whether drugs used in executions are “quick
and painless.’’
If such drugs are found not to be quick and pain-
less, the District of Columbia Appeals Court ruled,
those drugs constitute cruel and unusual punishment,
and the FDA must prevent their use.
Texas is the only state to have used drug injection
as a means of executing a condemned prisoner, al-
though 11 states have approved that form of capital
punishment.
Concern for the comfort of people facing execution
is a relatively recent phenomenon. Earlier societies
were intent on devising the most excruciating means
of killing the condemned.
PEOPLE WERE killed by boiling, burning, chok-
ing, beheading, h ging—often accompanied by
disembowelment, impalement, crucifying, burying
alive, and dismemberment.
The form of an execution was often determined by
the condemned’s social status. In England, nobles
were beheaded, but peasants often died by being
hung or drawn and quartered.
In England in 1780, 241 offenses ranging from
pickpocketing to treason were punishable by death.
With the 18th-century Enlightenment came a general
questioning of authority and a more “humane’’
attitude toward executions. The guillotine was de-
veloped in France as a remedy for the mutilation
and agony that often resulted from the misplaced
swing of a headsman’s axe.
The use of a hanging machine also came into prac-
tice to offset the capriciousness of nooses, which
often broke, requiring that a person be hanged sev-
eral times before he died.
"Even in the United States,
in the West, hangings were
held on Saturdays so that
people could come into town
and watch the proceedings."
—Richard Johnson
political science faculty
The electric chair, first used in 1880, was hailed
as a further refinement in the art of legal killing.
THE FIRST USES of the chair were, necessari-
ly, experimental in nature. Rumors circulated that
autopsies performed next door to the room housing
the chair were actually backup measures in case the
chair failed to perform its function and merely rendered
its victims unconscious.
In 1924, Nevada became the first state to use poi-
sonous gas in executions. Gas was supposed to be
an improvement on the electric chair because pris-
oners inhaling the lethal fumes were said to drift
off to sleep, and because the gas did not disfigure the
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© 1983 Ccfvecfia Moctetuma S
The North 1 exas Daily—Page 5
bodies of those it killed. Wardens strapping the
condemned into the death chamber advised them to
“breath deeply” when the gas was released, to has-
ten the onset of unconsciousness.
Historically, the purpose of capital punishment has
been to teach a lesson.
“Even in the United States, in the West, hang-
ings were held on Saturdays so that people could
come into town and watch the proceedings," Richard
Johnson of the political science faculty said.
Fathers would hold their children up to sec what
was going on and would say to them, ‘That’s what
will happen to you if you don’t behave,”’ he said.
“MOST MODERN Americans, even those who
support the death penalty, have come to the conclu-
sion that the penalty ought to be quick and painless.
“I don’t know the purpose of capital punishment
today. We make it quick and painless. We don’t put
it on TV as an example to others. We don’t let peo-
ple come in and watch, as they used to, ” he said.
Today, France, Spain and the United States are
the only Western nations which still permit capital
punishment, although the practice is common through-
out the Mideast and parts of Asia.
Recent Supreme Court decisions have made the
future of capital punishment uncertain in this country.
“The ,vay the Supreme Court is working now, 1
feel they should either outlaw capital punishment or
make definite guidelines for us to work with,” Lee
Gabriel, Denton county assistant criminal district at-
torney, said Tuesday.
“These last-minute stays and reprieves have the
effect of undermining the whole system.”
Women's group
elects officers,
hosts activities
The League of Professional Women
elected new officers last Friday.
The new chairwoman of the league
is Dr. Elizabeth Aimquist of the so-
ciology faculty. The vice chairwoman
is Dr. Fondra Ferstl of the Research
and Academic Grant Office. Judy
Stewart of the Equal Opportunities and
Employment Office remains the
secretary-treasurer.
“The aim of the league is to help
contribute to the quality of the uni-
versity by advancing the career of pro-
fessional women on campus,”
Aimquist said.
The league is sponsoring Profes-
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The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, October 21, 1983, newspaper, October 21, 1983; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth722893/m1/5/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.