@gsmonks "Homicide" simply means the death was caused by another person, not that it was illegal. If a guy breaks into your house, tries to kill you and you kill him first, that's homicide, too. The law calls it "justified". In the context of an execution, one might call it "judicial" homicide. Still not 'illegal', though. (Sorry to nitpick. Former English teacher and all that.)
@lnn6785 I noticed that also right off. I don't think I've ever heard of a person executed in an electric chair that didn't have their head shaved. There are a few pics posted online of Allen Lee "tiny" Davis just after execution in the chair, he's still sitting in it. There are other pics also, all the ones I've seen depict a burned spot on top of a shaved head.
@lnn6785 Each state that used the electric chair was different. Some shaved the entire head, others shaved only a small spot and that could have been wither on the top, back or side above the temple. No two were the same.
Murder is illegal. Execution is murder, by definition. Says "homicide" on every execution death-certificate under "cause of death". The state should therefore execute itself.
@SaintLiam78 They were not convicted of treason. They were convicted of espionage under the 1917 act which carried the death penalty instead of the 1948 act which did'nt. Treason according to the Constitution must be an act carried out during times of war with at least 2 witnesses to the same overt act.
Did u know b4 they would give u the chair they would shove a plug up ur ass and put a diaper on u?? Because the shock sends poopy flailing from the ass at rocket speeds Lol.
@Cemflash1 On the contrary. Every muscle in the victims body would contract due to the severity of the current. It would virtually be impossible to make a sound.
Ethel Rosenberg never said anything like that in fact acording to the doc by their grand daughter a rabbi was concilings them to the day/night of the exucution
They also had to shock Ethel three more times for a total of five. Because she was tiny for the chair and that she didn't die on the first two shocks. Because the doctors felt a faint heart coming. Also before she went to the chair, she kissed the maiden and the maiden left the room. Because it was too emotional. This happened in real life.
Does anyone know where I could find photos of actual generators for electric chairs? There are thousands of photos available of the chairs themselves, but absolutely none of the generators, which is quite strange considering they are the parts of the equipment that do the actual 'job' - so to speak. How big in size would a generator have been back in the 1950s when the Rosenberg's were executed?
Espionage, I believe. Despite alot of prosecutorial misconduct, the case against Julius was solid. They went after Ethel believing it would cause Julius to talk in order to save her life. It didn't work. Neither said a thing.
@MichaelJGrant Specifically, they were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917(18 USC § 792 ) which carried the federal death penalty. In retrospect, the US Attorneys office may have been overzealous in the prosecution of the Rosenbergs(IMHO). While a case could be made against Julius, there was no case against Ethel, she was being used as leverage in order to force him to inform on other possible conspirators and dissedents-it was a cynical attempt which backfired and made them martyrs.
wouldn't it be alot more humain of just shooting them or a large needle hitting them in a way that they die instantly and painlessly? Plus be alot cheaper than the cost of injections and electricity
The amount of electricity used is around the same as boiling a kettle. The large needle idea seems to akin to a bolt-retaining cattle device.
The problem with these methods is that they are bloody, and bloody executions are apparently not what people want.
The quickest way would be to lay the executee on the floor and drop a huge weight on him from a great height, crushing him instantly to almost zero size. But it would never be done because it would be seen as a step backwards.
yeah but i think the needle stabed into a bone in the neck or in the brain would be easy and painless and if the think was small enough wouldnt be to bloody. There needs to be something better and a injection cause when you seen people die by injection you can tell they feel pain
They could give them a drink of pentobarbital, and say, "Drink that now or go to the electric chair". Pentobarbital drinks are given to those who wish to die due to terminal and/or painful illness by a Swiss charity, and it is the most painless and peaceful death one could wish for.
They could even inject them with enough barbiturate, of give them halothane, to kill them. The 2nd and 3rd drugs are the problem, and shouldn't be needed.
I've been put under with barbs, halothane and propofol.
The Swiss "cocktail" has its problems and isn't particularly reliable. Usually it is supplemented by a plastic bag over the person's head after they lose consciousness.
That's pretty naughty of a charity not to let paying members know of that. One would have thought pentobarbital would be lethal every time. Oh well, looks like I'll be looking for another one to join.
Alot of patients have painful illnesses that have been medicated in manner which increases their tolerance to hypnotics like pentobarbital. As the nervous system shuts down, the patient could vomit leaving only a sublethal dose which would result only in a coma and/or vegatative state. The plastic bag over the head provides the certainty. Death is often neither convenient nor pretty. That is the nature of death and a good reason to avoid dying.
Team Dignitas require your medical records and have a doctor of their own to calculate the barbiturate dosage. Tolerance to opioids and hypnotics (they tend to use midazolam in palliative care in the UK) should be taken into account, but it's never an exact science.
I suppose if one is unconscious, the plastic bag wouldn't matter, but it's not as peaceful a thought as it was without it.
@electroexecutee You can't induce suicide as a means of execution. In addition, you might run into the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause in the Constituiton. My question is this: How can an artificial entity (the State) which does not create life, derive the authority to end life? The purpose of the State, is to be an instrument that preserves unalienable rights of people, if indeed life is one of these rights and unalienable, how do we take it away?
The so-called modern protocol calls for only 250 volts at or around an ampere or so after an initial high voltage for a few seconds to burn through poorly conducting epidermis. A similar current is used in ECT who alot of experts allege produces no brain damage whatsoever. In fact, more current is most likely passed through the brain with ECT than the electric chair as the ECT current passes directly through the brain while the electric chair current passes around it.
@electroexecutee You should check out Nitrogen induced hypoxia, there is a documentary about the best ways to kill people. They don't want to do it because there is no pain...us humans, we need our revenge.
Yes I have heard that nitrogen and helium cause no 'air hunger' like carbon dioxide, but helium is expensive being an inert gas. In fact, helium is used, sort of illegally, in voluntary euthanasia teams because it leaves no trace.
The thing about gas is that some people find it sinister and creepy, and think of hissing sounds (which needn't be the case).
There are many ways to kill painlessly, and the reasons why we don't use them are strange, steeped in tradition rather than logic.
Although I am very much opposed to capital punishment in general, and as an electrical engineer, electrocution in particular, electrocution could provide an essentially instantaneous death. I don't mean the electric chair which essentially cooks the condemned over a period of several minutes even if done right which is often isn't. I mean enough power to cause disintegration. It wouldn't be pretty, but then neither is taking a human like. We seem to want to disguise that fact.
I was thinking along the lines of discharging a huge capacitor through the body, but then thought that most lightning strike victims actually survive, so the use of electricity to kill humanely might be difficult, and need as much energy as a lightning strike over several seconds to cause disintegration. A Tesla coil, perhaps, would do the job. The brain and heart may need to be targeted separately.
The Philippines used to knock the executee out with drugs before electrocuting him.
During judicial electrocution, the resistance between the head and calf electrodes drops to around 200 ohms. No matter what one used to improve the contact using a harmless ohmmeter, one could never achieve this value. The initial high voltage is to cause enough current to flow to burn through the high resistance epidermis to down the saline rich living tissue. Once this is achieved, a much lower voltage can sustained the current. Modern chairs use a constant current saturable reactor.
As Tesla himself would demonstrate, a high frequency current can pass harmlessly through the human body. As a strange quirk of nature, a 60 hertz AC current is most dangerous as throws the heart in fibrillation. DC may cease the heart, but the heart can restart itself from a complete stop. It cannot from ventricular fibrillation. So Edison was somewhat right in that AC was more hazardous than DC although I doubt he ever knew why or cared.
You don't need something great as a lightning stike. Ordinary 12.5kV distribution power would be more than up to the task as any lineman can attest. I remember a case where a workman fell up against an exposed 12,000 volt alternator bus in a power plant. He literally exploded. A grusome but near instantaneous death. Most of us will no doubt meet our end with far more pain than those receiving capital punishment no matter what the means. That isn't the real source of toture on death row.
One problem with the chair in its current (sorry) state is that nobody knows what route the current takes; some have suggested that most of it flows along the skin.
One would have to literally explode the executee with such high voltages as in the alternator bus, because in similar accidents, even in the old days, victims of such accidents have recovered using techniques such as working the arms up and down some time later.
DC in indeed used to restart the heart from deliberate AC fib.
Lineman have only survived such voltages because of poor contact and the current path was not through any vital organs. It is somewhat known what the current path in judicial electrocutions is. The current burns the flesh and coagulates the blood. There is a characteristic "halo" of such tissue around the head electrode. This is good evidence the majority of the current flows through scalp, over but not through, the boney skull into the brain.
I think they used the 'halo' in court cases opposing electrocution. They would probably have to drill through the skull if they wanted the brain to get sufficient current to physically destroy it.
There are conflicting autopsy results concerning the amount of damage done to the brain. Some report the brain is normal, others say "cooked", and still others say charred. In ECT, approximately 100-250 volts at approximately 1-2 amperes is passed directly through the brain, the frontal lobes to be exact, just by application across the temples. Supposedly, that does not even damage the brain, let alone instantly destroy it.
This would suggest that the autopsy pictures on the gadbuddhaa executionpictues (the misspelling is on their site in the URL) are fake, compared to the Allen Lee Davis photos, which exhibit none of these round shiny discs of Ted Bundy, William Darden, Aubrey Adams and Anthony Bertolottu, though Bundy's head does look like water has run down the head and left scars.
Yes, Tiny's head seemed to have come through the ordeal in remarkably good shape (aside from the fact that he died, of course). It looks like he had second-degree burns on his forehead and the side of his head, probably due to steam from the sponge. The crown of his head, which I assume had the best contact, seems unaffected.
Do you think those autopsy images on the site which comes up first if you Google "gadbuddhaa executionpictues" (they spelled the name wrong on the site) right at the bottom of the page are real or fake? YouTube won't let me post a direct link.
They have Bundy, Bertolotti, Adams and Darden, all with a burn disc as opposed to the burn crown like Bundy. Could it be possible that the burning of the top of the head could worsen with time and only show later?
It's hard to tell if they're real or not, but I'm inclined to think they are. It looks like the current burned through the skin right down to the skull, which isn't surprising. But I would think that burning so much flesh would have created a *lot* of thick, black smoke, and that surely would have been noted in the press reports. But as far as I've seen, there was no mention of smoke in those cases.
It's interesting that the photos are all from an angle that prevents us seeing their faces, so it's impossible to ID them. Then there's whatever they do in the autopsy room, such as removing the brain, but if they are real, the sponges weren't doing their job very well.
Then again, Florida is noted for its sponge-bungling.
Yes, the stuff they did with the sponges was completely backward. Their procedure was to use two sponges, one on top of the other. One was wet and one was, inexplicably, dry. Even that wet sponge was barely wet - they squeezed it almost dry. Not only that, they used a weak salt solution. An engineer told them to wet both sponges, soak them thoroughly, and use a saturated salt solution.
And the 'wet' sponge was placed UNDERNEATH the dry one, so it's not as though the wet one would wet the dry one. It made no sense whatsoever.
As you say, they used 0.9% saline solution, probably based the salinity of our bodies, but this has no relevance to use in electric chair sponges.
I somewhat resent Florida in being so stupid as to have played a major part in dispensing with every Felon's Favourite Furniture, when all it needed was some common sense from some schoolboy science.
Very true - Florida has set us back to the "They could have done better with an axe" days. While the spotlight has been on that state's misadventures for some time, Virginia, Alabama and Tennessee have all conducted electrocutions which achieved the intended result with a minimum of unwanted drama.
There was sort of a botch in Alabama with Horace Dunkins, when they tried to electrocute him but were in fact just sending current through the test resistors. "I believe we've got the jacks on wrong", said one of the operators.
As it turned out, the executee had fainted anyway, so when they connected the current to the executee, he was unconscious anyway.
I never have found a picture of the probe's testing unit, which was alongside the receptacles on the back wall until they were sealed off.
@CondemnedGirl The problem was they didn't use natural sea sponges, they used polyester ones. For some reason, the sponge wasnt able to be totally saturated and dried out very quickly. Some people used a gel called "Electrocreme" but I guess that goes under "your mileage may vary"
@DAngelo136 Sponge-bungling Florida do use Electrocreme, but it didn't stop them setting fire to Jesse Tafero and Pedro Medina. I don't think it's really designed for such high voltages.
the very first time they used this..it was a botched execution...from what i hear they made a real mess of things but somewhere on the line somebody liked the smell of burning flesh,or likes seeing a man be cooked to death with 2300,volts.cause they did'nt shut it down.naw just make it better..well more botch executions came and still nobody shut it down..and they say this was more humaine then hanging.nothing is humaine about knowing the excat time date and manner of your death....
The Kemmler execution was the first. It used a head and spinal electrode. The original charge was on 17 secs. When he appeared to still have vital signs, the current was intentionally left on until he was not only certainly dead but thoroughly cooked as well. The exact voltage was never reported. A 750-lamp Westinghouse alternator was used. The rated output voltage was only 1050 volts with normal excitation. The coupling belt was not adequately run-in and slipped as well.
Right, I don't think they used a voltmeter. Also, I read somewhere that the test lamps were accidentally left in series with the condemned man, so he had to share the generator's meager output with a bunch of light bulbs!
The IEEE did a writeup on this subject. The State of New York purchased a voltage meter. The problem was in all the excitement, nobody read it or it said something they didn't want known. In many states, it was illegal to report any details of an execution. The reason was obvious. In addition, electrocution was considered uncertain. Similarly, an immediate autopsy was a legal requirement. As someone once observed no one has ever shown signs of life after an autopsy.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
The Americans are killers, less than shit, not only for your love for executions, but also for the uranio in Kossovo and Irak, for their crimes in Amazzonia, etc.
I wish you one million of Twin Towers, people of shit!! You have to die all togheter!!!! I hate you because you are the new Nazists !!!!
I didn't think the UK even had a death penalty anymore. The U.S. had the electric chair. Centuries before, the U.K. perfected hanging down to a science which is used today in states like Washington.
In Robert Elliot's book, I thought he mentioned Sing Sing had went to using commercial power through a variable transformer instead of a dedicated generator. Elliot preceded Frankel who did the Rosenberg executions. Early AC systems were 25 rather than 60 hertz which required less rotational speed from the prime mover. The generator whine sound more like the commutator noise of a DC generator. As I recall, Ethel Rosenberg's execution was a protracted affair with smoke and burning.
This scene was shot in 1981 in Sing Sing's actual execution chamber. The layout is exactly as it was during the chamber's years of use (1924-1963). The actual chair was removed in 1971 and installed at Green Haven prison (where it was never used) and was loaned to the film makers for this scene. The sounds of the generator are taken from a recording of Sing Sing's actual generator. I got all this info from an old article about Sidney Lumet, who directed the film.
Thanks very much. Perhaps the alternating current used had a higher frequency than the 60Hz used by the mains, which is quite possible given that they used their own generator.
I would have thought that the higher the frequency, the less tendency there would be for the executee to wobble around, due to the inertia of the body.
They are using a dummy of some sort (perhaps a CPR model torso) in the chair. It's movements are controlled by some sort of motor beneath it. It is an approximation of what happens during an electrocution, but is filmed from a distance so as not to give it away.
Very interesting indeed. I had wondered about that, the dimensions of the room resembled what I have seen in photographs of the Sing Sing facility. I'm surprised the NYDOCS was willing to accomodate the film makers to that extent though.
As I recall, the Ethel Rosenberg execution was a protacted affair with multiple attempts (at least four) with more than a few wiffs of steam as shown. Ethel did have the top of head shaved for the electrode. To my understanding, New York only shaved the actual area where the electrode was placed. I believe with one woman (Place?) they didn't do anything. However, in the South, in states like Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, they shave even women's heads entirely clean.
Yes, the New York Times has free access to a lot of electrocution reports which are quite detailed, and I think "Five Currents Killed Her" was the headline for this particular executee.
A 3" circular patch of hair was required to be shaved by some states; leaving the hair would probably make no difference if saturated NaCl solution is used except for a possible fire.
Sponge-bungling Florida also use conductive gel on the head, but I doubt it has much effect in the grand scheme of things.
Nice leather straps and electrodes on that chair. The headgear is pretty awesome, but not quite realistic for the NY chair, I think. I like the way the guards took their time getting her properly secured and connected. But I couldn't be as brave as she was - I'd probably make quite a scene in my last moments! Not that it would change the outcome, of course.
My complaint is that we didn't see the other 4 jolts! Someone below says that they used the real chair and the real generator for the film. A close look would have been nice, too.
Why on earth they had to get another person to lower the flap over her eyes I'll never know.
I think she flopped around a bit unrealistically as well. The calf electrode looked like lead, but at least they got the basics right.
The sound of the generator (or fan) starting must have been a nightmare for the executee.
@electroexecutee I saw the movie, if they had showed the additional jolts it would'nt have had the same dramatic statement that Rachel Isaacson's moral strength was greater than the ability of the chair to kill her with one jolt. They used a wide shot in order to dramatize the starkness and medieval atmosphere of the death chamber. Most victims in the chair appear to stiffen as if lifting a heavy weight with very little movement, again this is done for dramatic purposes.
@electroexecutee for the most part, the generator is rather quiet, if there is any noise heard by the victim it would probably be extremely short because the 1st application would follow a split second after. The fan would be started probably after the straps and electrodes are in place, if anything the victim would not notice much due to his anxiety and natural 'fight or flight" reflex kicking in due to his/her impending death. Just my speculation.
@gsmonks "Homicide" simply means the death was caused by another person, not that it was illegal. If a guy breaks into your house, tries to kill you and you kill him first, that's homicide, too. The law calls it "justified". In the context of an execution, one might call it "judicial" homicide. Still not 'illegal', though. (Sorry to nitpick. Former English teacher and all that.)
mindfulpessimist 6 days ago
Thats odd. Her head wasnt even shaved in this video. Any thoughts from you guys about this?
lnn6785 2 months ago
@lnn6785 I noticed that also right off. I don't think I've ever heard of a person executed in an electric chair that didn't have their head shaved. There are a few pics posted online of Allen Lee "tiny" Davis just after execution in the chair, he's still sitting in it. There are other pics also, all the ones I've seen depict a burned spot on top of a shaved head.
clintonearlwalker 1 month ago
@lnn6785 Each state that used the electric chair was different. Some shaved the entire head, others shaved only a small spot and that could have been wither on the top, back or side above the temple. No two were the same.
carsmasher 1 month ago in playlist More videos from CollapsedCrockery
They should have made them suffer
ohwnou 9 months ago
Murder is illegal. Execution is murder, by definition. Says "homicide" on every execution death-certificate under "cause of death". The state should therefore execute itself.
gsmonks 9 months ago 3
@gsmonks How do you pull that one off!
bingobongo445 5 months ago
Innocent? Bullshit! Venona.
1polonium210 11 months ago
Wow - three bad lines in three bad cuts in 19 seconds. I'm out!
GaySingleMulatto 1 year ago
Hey,they didn't ask nothing about last words?
MisterMarcoX 1 year ago
this is too good a death for traitors.
SaintLiam78 1 year ago
@SaintLiam78 They were not convicted of treason. They were convicted of espionage under the 1917 act which carried the death penalty instead of the 1948 act which did'nt. Treason according to the Constitution must be an act carried out during times of war with at least 2 witnesses to the same overt act.
DAngelo136 1 year ago
@electroexecutoid haha do you have any final words? "yeah these guards brutalised my but hole with loads of cotton the bastards!"
Terminator860 1 year ago
Did u know b4 they would give u the chair they would shove a plug up ur ass and put a diaper on u?? Because the shock sends poopy flailing from the ass at rocket speeds Lol.
lamiac2411 1 year ago
Nice quality leather straps and headgear - pretty erotic!
CondemnedGirl 1 year ago
@electroexecutoid lol
Cemflash1 1 year ago
that was so unrealistic, she would at least have screamed
Cemflash1 1 year ago
@Cemflash1 there is a strap to close the jaw tight.
itkapatanka 1 year ago
@Cemflash1 On the contrary. Every muscle in the victims body would contract due to the severity of the current. It would virtually be impossible to make a sound.
Highlander01 1 year ago
Ethel Rosenberg never said anything like that in fact acording to the doc by their grand daughter a rabbi was concilings them to the day/night of the exucution
LeighMet 1 year ago
They also had to shock Ethel three more times for a total of five. Because she was tiny for the chair and that she didn't die on the first two shocks. Because the doctors felt a faint heart coming. Also before she went to the chair, she kissed the maiden and the maiden left the room. Because it was too emotional. This happened in real life.
JPPT1974 2 years ago
Does anyone know where I could find photos of actual generators for electric chairs? There are thousands of photos available of the chairs themselves, but absolutely none of the generators, which is quite strange considering they are the parts of the equipment that do the actual 'job' - so to speak. How big in size would a generator have been back in the 1950s when the Rosenberg's were executed?
magpuss 2 years ago
@magpuss I have one of the Mississippi portable electric chair generator.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
executed for what?
justindustin88 2 years ago
Google "Rosenberg".
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Espionage, I believe. Despite alot of prosecutorial misconduct, the case against Julius was solid. They went after Ethel believing it would cause Julius to talk in order to save her life. It didn't work. Neither said a thing.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
@MichaelJGrant Specifically, they were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917(18 USC § 792 ) which carried the federal death penalty. In retrospect, the US Attorneys office may have been overzealous in the prosecution of the Rosenbergs(IMHO). While a case could be made against Julius, there was no case against Ethel, she was being used as leverage in order to force him to inform on other possible conspirators and dissedents-it was a cynical attempt which backfired and made them martyrs.
DAngelo136 1 year ago
wouldn't it be alot more humain of just shooting them or a large needle hitting them in a way that they die instantly and painlessly? Plus be alot cheaper than the cost of injections and electricity
jimbo734 2 years ago
The amount of electricity used is around the same as boiling a kettle. The large needle idea seems to akin to a bolt-retaining cattle device.
The problem with these methods is that they are bloody, and bloody executions are apparently not what people want.
The quickest way would be to lay the executee on the floor and drop a huge weight on him from a great height, crushing him instantly to almost zero size. But it would never be done because it would be seen as a step backwards.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
yeah but i think the needle stabed into a bone in the neck or in the brain would be easy and painless and if the think was small enough wouldnt be to bloody. There needs to be something better and a injection cause when you seen people die by injection you can tell they feel pain
jimbo734 2 years ago
They could give them a drink of pentobarbital, and say, "Drink that now or go to the electric chair". Pentobarbital drinks are given to those who wish to die due to terminal and/or painful illness by a Swiss charity, and it is the most painless and peaceful death one could wish for.
They could even inject them with enough barbiturate, of give them halothane, to kill them. The 2nd and 3rd drugs are the problem, and shouldn't be needed.
I've been put under with barbs, halothane and propofol.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
The Swiss "cocktail" has its problems and isn't particularly reliable. Usually it is supplemented by a plastic bag over the person's head after they lose consciousness.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
That's pretty naughty of a charity not to let paying members know of that. One would have thought pentobarbital would be lethal every time. Oh well, looks like I'll be looking for another one to join.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Alot of patients have painful illnesses that have been medicated in manner which increases their tolerance to hypnotics like pentobarbital. As the nervous system shuts down, the patient could vomit leaving only a sublethal dose which would result only in a coma and/or vegatative state. The plastic bag over the head provides the certainty. Death is often neither convenient nor pretty. That is the nature of death and a good reason to avoid dying.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
Team Dignitas require your medical records and have a doctor of their own to calculate the barbiturate dosage. Tolerance to opioids and hypnotics (they tend to use midazolam in palliative care in the UK) should be taken into account, but it's never an exact science.
I suppose if one is unconscious, the plastic bag wouldn't matter, but it's not as peaceful a thought as it was without it.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
@electroexecutee You can't induce suicide as a means of execution. In addition, you might run into the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause in the Constituiton. My question is this: How can an artificial entity (the State) which does not create life, derive the authority to end life? The purpose of the State, is to be an instrument that preserves unalienable rights of people, if indeed life is one of these rights and unalienable, how do we take it away?
DAngelo136 1 year ago
PPrrroottt : you are only a piece of shit and you have to die, like all the Americans, bastard and bastards!!!!
teverona 2 years ago
The so-called modern protocol calls for only 250 volts at or around an ampere or so after an initial high voltage for a few seconds to burn through poorly conducting epidermis. A similar current is used in ECT who alot of experts allege produces no brain damage whatsoever. In fact, more current is most likely passed through the brain with ECT than the electric chair as the ECT current passes directly through the brain while the electric chair current passes around it.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
@electroexecutee You should check out Nitrogen induced hypoxia, there is a documentary about the best ways to kill people. They don't want to do it because there is no pain...us humans, we need our revenge.
fangjangler 2 years ago
Yes I have heard that nitrogen and helium cause no 'air hunger' like carbon dioxide, but helium is expensive being an inert gas. In fact, helium is used, sort of illegally, in voluntary euthanasia teams because it leaves no trace.
The thing about gas is that some people find it sinister and creepy, and think of hissing sounds (which needn't be the case).
There are many ways to kill painlessly, and the reasons why we don't use them are strange, steeped in tradition rather than logic.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Although I am very much opposed to capital punishment in general, and as an electrical engineer, electrocution in particular, electrocution could provide an essentially instantaneous death. I don't mean the electric chair which essentially cooks the condemned over a period of several minutes even if done right which is often isn't. I mean enough power to cause disintegration. It wouldn't be pretty, but then neither is taking a human like. We seem to want to disguise that fact.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
I was thinking along the lines of discharging a huge capacitor through the body, but then thought that most lightning strike victims actually survive, so the use of electricity to kill humanely might be difficult, and need as much energy as a lightning strike over several seconds to cause disintegration. A Tesla coil, perhaps, would do the job. The brain and heart may need to be targeted separately.
The Philippines used to knock the executee out with drugs before electrocuting him.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
During judicial electrocution, the resistance between the head and calf electrodes drops to around 200 ohms. No matter what one used to improve the contact using a harmless ohmmeter, one could never achieve this value. The initial high voltage is to cause enough current to flow to burn through the high resistance epidermis to down the saline rich living tissue. Once this is achieved, a much lower voltage can sustained the current. Modern chairs use a constant current saturable reactor.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
As Tesla himself would demonstrate, a high frequency current can pass harmlessly through the human body. As a strange quirk of nature, a 60 hertz AC current is most dangerous as throws the heart in fibrillation. DC may cease the heart, but the heart can restart itself from a complete stop. It cannot from ventricular fibrillation. So Edison was somewhat right in that AC was more hazardous than DC although I doubt he ever knew why or cared.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
You don't need something great as a lightning stike. Ordinary 12.5kV distribution power would be more than up to the task as any lineman can attest. I remember a case where a workman fell up against an exposed 12,000 volt alternator bus in a power plant. He literally exploded. A grusome but near instantaneous death. Most of us will no doubt meet our end with far more pain than those receiving capital punishment no matter what the means. That isn't the real source of toture on death row.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
One problem with the chair in its current (sorry) state is that nobody knows what route the current takes; some have suggested that most of it flows along the skin.
One would have to literally explode the executee with such high voltages as in the alternator bus, because in similar accidents, even in the old days, victims of such accidents have recovered using techniques such as working the arms up and down some time later.
DC in indeed used to restart the heart from deliberate AC fib.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Lineman have only survived such voltages because of poor contact and the current path was not through any vital organs. It is somewhat known what the current path in judicial electrocutions is. The current burns the flesh and coagulates the blood. There is a characteristic "halo" of such tissue around the head electrode. This is good evidence the majority of the current flows through scalp, over but not through, the boney skull into the brain.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
I think they used the 'halo' in court cases opposing electrocution. They would probably have to drill through the skull if they wanted the brain to get sufficient current to physically destroy it.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
There are conflicting autopsy results concerning the amount of damage done to the brain. Some report the brain is normal, others say "cooked", and still others say charred. In ECT, approximately 100-250 volts at approximately 1-2 amperes is passed directly through the brain, the frontal lobes to be exact, just by application across the temples. Supposedly, that does not even damage the brain, let alone instantly destroy it.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
This would suggest that the autopsy pictures on the gadbuddhaa executionpictues (the misspelling is on their site in the URL) are fake, compared to the Allen Lee Davis photos, which exhibit none of these round shiny discs of Ted Bundy, William Darden, Aubrey Adams and Anthony Bertolottu, though Bundy's head does look like water has run down the head and left scars.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Yes, Tiny's head seemed to have come through the ordeal in remarkably good shape (aside from the fact that he died, of course). It looks like he had second-degree burns on his forehead and the side of his head, probably due to steam from the sponge. The crown of his head, which I assume had the best contact, seems unaffected.
CondemnedGirl 2 years ago
Do you think those autopsy images on the site which comes up first if you Google "gadbuddhaa executionpictues" (they spelled the name wrong on the site) right at the bottom of the page are real or fake? YouTube won't let me post a direct link.
They have Bundy, Bertolotti, Adams and Darden, all with a burn disc as opposed to the burn crown like Bundy. Could it be possible that the burning of the top of the head could worsen with time and only show later?
Does Bundy's head show water trails?
electroexecutee 2 years ago
It's hard to tell if they're real or not, but I'm inclined to think they are. It looks like the current burned through the skin right down to the skull, which isn't surprising. But I would think that burning so much flesh would have created a *lot* of thick, black smoke, and that surely would have been noted in the press reports. But as far as I've seen, there was no mention of smoke in those cases.
CondemnedGirl 2 years ago
It's interesting that the photos are all from an angle that prevents us seeing their faces, so it's impossible to ID them. Then there's whatever they do in the autopsy room, such as removing the brain, but if they are real, the sponges weren't doing their job very well.
Then again, Florida is noted for its sponge-bungling.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Yes, the stuff they did with the sponges was completely backward. Their procedure was to use two sponges, one on top of the other. One was wet and one was, inexplicably, dry. Even that wet sponge was barely wet - they squeezed it almost dry. Not only that, they used a weak salt solution. An engineer told them to wet both sponges, soak them thoroughly, and use a saturated salt solution.
CondemnedGirl 2 years ago
And the 'wet' sponge was placed UNDERNEATH the dry one, so it's not as though the wet one would wet the dry one. It made no sense whatsoever.
As you say, they used 0.9% saline solution, probably based the salinity of our bodies, but this has no relevance to use in electric chair sponges.
I somewhat resent Florida in being so stupid as to have played a major part in dispensing with every Felon's Favourite Furniture, when all it needed was some common sense from some schoolboy science.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Very true - Florida has set us back to the "They could have done better with an axe" days. While the spotlight has been on that state's misadventures for some time, Virginia, Alabama and Tennessee have all conducted electrocutions which achieved the intended result with a minimum of unwanted drama.
CondemnedGirl 2 years ago
There was sort of a botch in Alabama with Horace Dunkins, when they tried to electrocute him but were in fact just sending current through the test resistors. "I believe we've got the jacks on wrong", said one of the operators.
As it turned out, the executee had fainted anyway, so when they connected the current to the executee, he was unconscious anyway.
I never have found a picture of the probe's testing unit, which was alongside the receptacles on the back wall until they were sealed off.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
@CondemnedGirl The problem was they didn't use natural sea sponges, they used polyester ones. For some reason, the sponge wasnt able to be totally saturated and dried out very quickly. Some people used a gel called "Electrocreme" but I guess that goes under "your mileage may vary"
DAngelo136 1 year ago
@DAngelo136 Sponge-bungling Florida do use Electrocreme, but it didn't stop them setting fire to Jesse Tafero and Pedro Medina. I don't think it's really designed for such high voltages.
electroexecutoide 1 year ago
the eletcric chair
skatering42 2 years ago
No it wasn't. The first electric chair execution was that of William Kemmler in 1890, some 63 years earlier.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
the very first time they used this..it was a botched execution...from what i hear they made a real mess of things but somewhere on the line somebody liked the smell of burning flesh,or likes seeing a man be cooked to death with 2300,volts.cause they did'nt shut it down.naw just make it better..well more botch executions came and still nobody shut it down..and they say this was more humaine then hanging.nothing is humaine about knowing the excat time date and manner of your death....
skatering42 2 years ago
It was the first time they used what?
electroexecutee 2 years ago
The Kemmler execution was the first. It used a head and spinal electrode. The original charge was on 17 secs. When he appeared to still have vital signs, the current was intentionally left on until he was not only certainly dead but thoroughly cooked as well. The exact voltage was never reported. A 750-lamp Westinghouse alternator was used. The rated output voltage was only 1050 volts with normal excitation. The coupling belt was not adequately run-in and slipped as well.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
Right, I don't think they used a voltmeter. Also, I read somewhere that the test lamps were accidentally left in series with the condemned man, so he had to share the generator's meager output with a bunch of light bulbs!
CondemnedGirl 2 years ago
The IEEE did a writeup on this subject. The State of New York purchased a voltage meter. The problem was in all the excitement, nobody read it or it said something they didn't want known. In many states, it was illegal to report any details of an execution. The reason was obvious. In addition, electrocution was considered uncertain. Similarly, an immediate autopsy was a legal requirement. As someone once observed no one has ever shown signs of life after an autopsy.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
The Americans are killers, less than shit, not only for your love for executions, but also for the uranio in Kossovo and Irak, for their crimes in Amazzonia, etc.
I wish you one million of Twin Towers, people of shit!! You have to die all togheter!!!! I hate you because you are the new Nazists !!!!
teverona 2 years ago
So I'm guessing you don't like Americans that much?
electroexecutee 2 years ago
hope you and itally fucking burn the same you fucker. not all american are assholes like you think.
jimbo734 2 years ago
the USA should still use the electric chair instead of the more "humain" easy way out (lethal injection). Wish Britain would too!!!
bo88y1234 2 years ago
I didn't think the UK even had a death penalty anymore. The U.S. had the electric chair. Centuries before, the U.K. perfected hanging down to a science which is used today in states like Washington.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
The law has been built apon the foundations of justice, and in the vast majority of nations that has been true!
America on the other hand has proven again and again it deserves not to be considered a civilised nation amongst the nations of the world.
The law of the country is dictated by political ambition, from the local sherrif to the governor to the president of the united states!!!
Double standards all the way to the White house.
Its not so much a democracy but a theocracy,
Hypocricy!
errindoores 2 years ago
In Robert Elliot's book, I thought he mentioned Sing Sing had went to using commercial power through a variable transformer instead of a dedicated generator. Elliot preceded Frankel who did the Rosenberg executions. Early AC systems were 25 rather than 60 hertz which required less rotational speed from the prime mover. The generator whine sound more like the commutator noise of a DC generator. As I recall, Ethel Rosenberg's execution was a protracted affair with smoke and burning.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
Americans, you are a people of killers : fuck off!! You are less than shit!!!!
teverona 2 years ago
all right teverona you think we are less then shit well let me tell you something you prick i hate executions so think be for you speek
omegaroad 2 years ago
This scene was shot in 1981 in Sing Sing's actual execution chamber. The layout is exactly as it was during the chamber's years of use (1924-1963). The actual chair was removed in 1971 and installed at Green Haven prison (where it was never used) and was loaned to the film makers for this scene. The sounds of the generator are taken from a recording of Sing Sing's actual generator. I got all this info from an old article about Sidney Lumet, who directed the film.
magpuss 2 years ago
Thanks very much. Perhaps the alternating current used had a higher frequency than the 60Hz used by the mains, which is quite possible given that they used their own generator.
I would have thought that the higher the frequency, the less tendency there would be for the executee to wobble around, due to the inertia of the body.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
They are using a dummy of some sort (perhaps a CPR model torso) in the chair. It's movements are controlled by some sort of motor beneath it. It is an approximation of what happens during an electrocution, but is filmed from a distance so as not to give it away.
nicspic 2 years ago
Very interesting indeed. I had wondered about that, the dimensions of the room resembled what I have seen in photographs of the Sing Sing facility. I'm surprised the NYDOCS was willing to accomodate the film makers to that extent though.
nicspic 2 years ago
I thought she was a five-jolter? And didn't the first jolt last 57 seconds, not 14?
Her hair should have been clipped on top, and the sound of the electricity should have been lower pitched that that.
Good effort though, and the chair looks like the real thing.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
As I recall, the Ethel Rosenberg execution was a protacted affair with multiple attempts (at least four) with more than a few wiffs of steam as shown. Ethel did have the top of head shaved for the electrode. To my understanding, New York only shaved the actual area where the electrode was placed. I believe with one woman (Place?) they didn't do anything. However, in the South, in states like Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, they shave even women's heads entirely clean.
MichaelJGrant 2 years ago
Yes, the New York Times has free access to a lot of electrocution reports which are quite detailed, and I think "Five Currents Killed Her" was the headline for this particular executee.
A 3" circular patch of hair was required to be shaved by some states; leaving the hair would probably make no difference if saturated NaCl solution is used except for a possible fire.
Sponge-bungling Florida also use conductive gel on the head, but I doubt it has much effect in the grand scheme of things.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
Nice leather straps and electrodes on that chair. The headgear is pretty awesome, but not quite realistic for the NY chair, I think. I like the way the guards took their time getting her properly secured and connected. But I couldn't be as brave as she was - I'd probably make quite a scene in my last moments! Not that it would change the outcome, of course.
CondemnedGirl 2 years ago
My complaint is that we didn't see the other 4 jolts! Someone below says that they used the real chair and the real generator for the film. A close look would have been nice, too.
Why on earth they had to get another person to lower the flap over her eyes I'll never know.
I think she flopped around a bit unrealistically as well. The calf electrode looked like lead, but at least they got the basics right.
The sound of the generator (or fan) starting must have been a nightmare for the executee.
electroexecutee 2 years ago
@electroexecutee I saw the movie, if they had showed the additional jolts it would'nt have had the same dramatic statement that Rachel Isaacson's moral strength was greater than the ability of the chair to kill her with one jolt. They used a wide shot in order to dramatize the starkness and medieval atmosphere of the death chamber. Most victims in the chair appear to stiffen as if lifting a heavy weight with very little movement, again this is done for dramatic purposes.
DAngelo136 1 year ago
@electroexecutee for the most part, the generator is rather quiet, if there is any noise heard by the victim it would probably be extremely short because the 1st application would follow a split second after. The fan would be started probably after the straps and electrodes are in place, if anything the victim would not notice much due to his anxiety and natural 'fight or flight" reflex kicking in due to his/her impending death. Just my speculation.
DAngelo136 1 year ago
What movie is this called?
BaBiiLoOn 3 years ago
daniel (1983)
osp80 3 years ago