Bring the Guillotine Back to Death Row

The Atlantic ^ | May 2, 2014 | Conor Friedersdorf

[grundle]

A quick, painless, gruesome way to carry out capital punishment

If I were governor of a state that executed prisoners I'd declare a moratorium for my entire tenure. I wish that the United States would stop imposing the death penalty. I nevertheless find myself nodding along to Sonny Bunch's case for reintroducing the guillotine, a response to the botched execution of a death-row inmate in Oklahoma.

He argues that America has made its executions bloodless to protect the sensibilities of those who support the death penalty, with less humane killings as a result. (The electric chair. The gas chamber. Lethal injections. All have had horrific problems.)

Bunch writes:

"The guillotine really seems to solve everyone’s problems: It was designed to deliver an efficient, quick, and painless death. It performs that task admirably. I understand the irony of a reactionary such as myself embracing the Terror’s preferred method of execution, but one must give credit where it’s due."

"If we’re going to do something—and a large number of Americans and American states are pretty committed to performing executions—we ought to do it right. And “right” in this case means a quick and painless death. I can’t really imagine any reasonable objections to a widespread adoption of the guillotine."

I can imagine one objection: that the guillotine is barbaric.

But to me, that's a point in its favor. Let's have no illusions about what we're doing when the state carries out the killing of captive prisoners. I imagine support for the death penalty would decline rather quickly once heads started rolling.

[Conan the Librarian]

Not Murat, but Ney. The legend is that all the men missed, he was spirited away by the Duke of Wellington (who had tried to save him from the execution all together) and went to live in North Carolina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Ney

Marat was killed in Italy after an abortive attempt to retake Naples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Murat

[Conan the Librarian]

Whoops...Your quote WAS from Murat, but, he wasn’t executed by the Bourbons, it was the Neapolitan King that had him killed.

Ney has a similar line, but, nothing about his face.

I beg pardon.

[TexasRepublic]

Boy, were those guys strict!

[ROCKLOBSTER]

he drank a ganja tea too

But they don't make rope out of ganja tea.

[Hot Tabasco]

there is evidence that the brain still functins for several minutes after decapatation.

But no reports of what its thinking about.......It certainly isn't pain since all nerve endings have been severed.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

It certainly isn't pain since all nerve endings have been severed.

It could be thinking about how beheading is a serious "pain in the neck".

-or-

Ouch, you dropped my damn head on the floor!

[MUDDOG]

As far as I can see from your link to wikipedia, what I said is consistent with it — Murat’s last words, and he was killed by the Bourbons (a branch that ruled Naples).

[Hot Tabasco]

Ouch, you dropped my damn head on the floor!

"""groannnnnn""""""""

[Conan the Librarian]

After the bloomer on my part, I wouldn’t argue.

Thanks for the kindness.

[MUDDOG]

No problem. I’ve always enjoyed reading your informative posts.