“This series explores the social history of Capital Punishment in Britain, America and France with a unique perspective through the often-overlooked and shadowy figures of the executioners themselves. Who were these men? What did they do? And what did it do to them?”

The American Way of Death

In Britain it was the rope. In France; the guillotine. But in its short history the United States of America has experimented with a bewildering array of execution methods….And continues to do so.

This programme examines the history of the five principal methods: Hanging, Firing Squad, Electric Chair, Gas Chamber and Lethal Injection. The reasons behind their development have often been as shocking as the results, from corporate wars to so-called ‘religious’ sensibilities.

But perhaps the most overlooked aspect of American execution protocols has been the role of the executioner. Whereas British and French executioners were invariably well-known and truly responsible for the execution, even to the extent of supporting the condemned in their final moments, American executioners (with a few notable exceptions) have been altogether more shadowy figures.

The increasingly mechanistic approach to the death penalty seem to have been devised as much to shield the executioner from the consequences of his actions as they were to deliver a speedy and ‘humane’ death for the condemned. Some methods of execution effectively turned the condemned into the executioner. Were they successful? Why bother? If a society deems it appropriate to kill, why should there be any stigma?

This is the American Way of Death; the story of those who devised, delivered and suffered the ultimate punishment. With harrowing archive footage and dramatic re-enactments, it will examine the following:

Hanging

Amongst the many customs the early British settlers brought to the colonies was death by hanging. The problem was, the Americans never mastered it the same way the British eventually did. Clumsy slip-knots produced grisly results, such as the photographed decapitation of outlaw Black Jack Ketchum. Hanging was cheap and easy, and more people died by the rope than any other method (some 16,000). But despite this, hanging was considered a particularly revolting and barbarous way of putting felons to death, even by supporters of the death penalty.

Electric Chair

In the late 1800’s, the search for a more scientific method led to the most macabre corporate battle in history. Westinghouse and Edison, with their respective AC and DC currents, were vying to become the country’s favoured power suppliers. A direct consequence of this was the invention of the Electric Chair…

But the first attempt in 1890 was a gruesome affair (as were many until this day). What had gone wrong? It is through the legends of ‘Old Sparky’ that we meet some of America’s most famous executioners; Edwin Davis and Robert Greene Elliott, who survived a bomb attack on his home.

Firing Squad

America has always been synonymous with guns. It’s perhaps surprising then that only one state really championed death by firing squad. Utah. Since legislators were mainly Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, they believed in the Old Testament doctrine of blood atonement: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”.

Where other states were squeamish about bloodletting, Utah wanted nothing less, offering the condemned a choice of beheading or firing squad. But despite efforts to assuage the conscience of the riflemen, such as loading a blank round into one of the guns, an experienced marksman knows the barrel is cool when it hasn’t discharged a live round.

Gas Chamber

In the early part of the 20th century, Nevada offered the choice of rope or gun. They wanted a more effective alternative but thought the scenes reported at many electrocutions were horrifying to behold. Major D A Turner of the U.S. Army medical corps had been studying the effects of gas attacks during World War I. He believed it was possible to rid such a death of its repulsive and painful features and induce a quick painless death. He probably drew on the fact that domestic suicides with gas ovens were very much in vogue.

Nevada was persuaded to try this method. An appealing feature of the original plan (or so it was thought) was that the condemned would be housed in a special airtight cell with a series of valves leading to the outside. The unfortunate prisoner wouldn’t even know the time of his execution – lethal gas would be pumped into the cell whilst he was sleeping. He would simply never wake up.