hanging

　 　 　

WordNet

1. decoration that is hung (as a tapestry) on a wall or over a window; "the cold castle walls were covered with hangings" (同)wall hanging
2. a form of capital punishment; victim is suspended by the neck from a gallows or gibbet until dead; "in those days the hanging of criminals was a public entertainment"
3. any of various mecopterous insects of the family Bittacidae
4. the upper wall of an inclined fault

PrepTutorEJDIC

1. 〈U〉〈C〉絞首刑 / 《複数形で》カーテン,幕;壁紙 / 絞首刑に値する / 掛かっている,ぶら下がった
2. (電車・バスなどで)つり革につかまって立つこと

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2013/12/13 09:14:25」(JST)

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"Death by hanging" redirects here. For the film, see Death by Hanging.

For other uses, see Hang (disambiguation).

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Hanging is the suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging". Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since medieval times, and is the official execution method in many countries and regions.

Hanging oneself is a method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness and then death by suspension. Partial suspension or partial weight-bearing on the ligature is sometimes used, particularly in prisons or other institutions, where full suspension support is difficult to devise.

Methods of judicial hanging

Detail from a painting by Pisanello, 1436–1438.

Execution of German war criminal Franz Strasser at Landsberg Prison on 2 January 1946

See also: Official Table of Drops

There are four ways of performing a judicial hanging: suspension hanging, the short drop, the standard drop, and the long drop. A mechanised form of hanging, the upright jerker, was also experimented with in the 18th century, with a variant of it used today in Iran.

Extrajudicial hangings, such as by a mob, are called lynchings, but the techniques are generally similar.

Suspension

Suspension, like the short drop, causes death by using the weight of the body to tighten the trachea with the noose. Prisoners are often reported to have little or no struggle before they go limp, because their jugular vein and carotid arteries are blocked and blood flow to the brain is reduced. The person slowly dies of strangulation, which typically takes between ten and twenty minutes, resulting in a considerably more protracted, grisly and painful death as compared to the standard or long drop hanging.

Short drop

The short drop is performed by placing the condemned prisoner on the back of a cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around the neck. The object is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope. A ladder was also commonly used with the condemned being forced to ascend, after which the noose was tied and the ladder pulled away or turned (hence the colloquial slang for hanging "to be turned off"), leaving the condemned hanging. Another method involves using a stool, which the condemned is required to stand on, being kicked away.

As with suspension hanging, the condemned prisoner slowly dies of strangulation, which typically takes between ten and twenty minutes, resulting in a considerably more protracted, grisly and painful death as compared to the standard or long drop hanging, which is intended to kill by using the shock of the initial drop to fracture the spinal column at the neck. Before 1850, the short drop was the standard method for hanging, and is still common in suicides and extrajudicial hangings (such as lynchings and summary executions) which do not benefit from the specialized equipment and drop-length calculation tables used by the newer methods.

A short drop variant is the Austro-Hungarian "pole" method, in which the following steps take place:

1. The condemned is made to stand before a specialized vertical pole or pillar, approximately 10 feet (3.0 m) in height
2. A rope is attached around the condemned's feet and routed through a pulley at the base of the pole
3. The condemned is hoisted to the top of pole by means of a sling running across the chest and under the armpits
4. A narrow diameter noose is looped around the prisoner's neck, then secured to a hook mounted at the top of the pole
5. The chest sling is released, and the prisoner is rapidly jerked downward by the assistant executioners via the foot rope.
6. The executioner stands on a stepped platform approximately 4 feet (1.2 m) high beside the condemned, and guides the head downward with his hand simultaneous to the efforts of his assistants.

Nazi war criminal Karl Hermann Frank was executed in this manner in 1946 in Prague.

Standard drop

The standard drop, which arrived as calculated in English units, involves a drop of between 4 and 6 feet (1.2 and 1.8 m) and came into use from 1866, when the scientific details were published by an Irish doctor, Samuel Haughton. Immediately its use spread to English-speaking countries and those where judicial systems had an English origin. It was considered a humane improvement on the short drop because it was intended to be enough to break the person's neck, causing immediate paralysis and immobilization (and probable immediate unconsciousness). This method was used to execute condemned Nazis under United States jurisdiction after the Nuremberg Trials including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. In the execution of Ribbentrop, historian Giles MacDonogh records that: "The hangman botched the execution and the rope throttled the former foreign minister for twenty minutes before he expired." An article in LIFE Magazine dated 28 October 1946, merely says of Ribbentrop's execution: "The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight."

Long drop

Sepia-tone photo from a contemporary 1901 postcard showing Tom Ketchum's decapitated body. Caption reads "Body of Black Jack after the hanging showing head snapped off."

This process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced to Britain in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advance on the standard drop. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's height and weight were used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken, but not so much that the person was decapitated. The careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose (so that the head was jerked back as the rope tightened) contributed to breaking the neck .

Prior to 1892, the drop was between four and ten feet (about one to three metres), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver a force of 1,260 lbf (5,600 newtons or 572 kgf), which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. However, this force resulted in some decapitations, such as the infamous case of Black Jack in New Mexico Territory in 1901. Between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account, and the force delivered was reduced to about 1,000 lbf (4,400 N or 450 kgf). The decapitation of Eva Dugan during a botched hanging in 1930 led the state of Arizona to switch to the gas chamber as its primary execution method, on the grounds that it was believed more humane. One of the more recent decapitations as a result of the long drop occurred when Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was hanged in Iraq in 2007. Accidental decapitation also occurred during the 1962 hanging of Arthur Lucas, one of the last two people to be put to death in Canada.

Nazis executed under British jurisdiction, including Josef Kramer, Fritz Klein, Irma Grese and Elisabeth Volkenrath, were hanged by Albert Pierrepoint using the variable drop method devised by Marwood.

As suicide

Main article: Suicide by hanging

See also: List of people who died by hanging

Suicide by hanging

Hanging is a common method for committing suicide. The materials necessary for suicide by hanging are easily available to the average person, compared with firearms or lethal poison. It is a very simple yet highly effective suicide method. Full suspension is not required, and for this reason hanging is especially commonplace among suicidal prisoners (see suicide watch). A type of hanging comparable to full suspension hanging may be obtained by self-strangulation using a ligature around the neck and the partial weight of the body (partial suspension) to tighten the ligature. When a suicidal hanging involves partial suspension, the victim is found to have both feet touching the ground e.g. they are kneeling, crouching or standing.

In Canada, hanging is the most common method of suicide, and in the U.S., hanging is the second most common method, after firearms. In the United Kingdom, where firearms are less easily available, as of 2001 hanging was the most common method among men and the second most commonplace among women (after poisoning).

Medical effects

A hanging may induce one or more of the following medical conditions, some leading to death:

• Closure of carotid arteries causing cerebral ischemia
• Closure of the jugular veins
• Induction of carotid sinus reflex death, which reduces heartbeat when the pressure in the carotid arteries is high, causing cardiac arrest
• Breaking of the neck (cervical fracture) causing traumatic spinal cord injury or even decapitation
• Closure of the airway
• Death erection

The cause of death in hanging depends on the conditions related to the event. When the body is released from a relatively high position, the major cause of death is severe trauma to the upper cervical spine. However, the injuries produced are highly variable. One study showed that only a small minority of a series of judicial hangings produced fractures to the cervical spine (6 out of 34 cases studied), with half of these fractures (3 out of 34) being the classic "hangman's fracture" (bilateral fractures of the pars interarticularis of the C2 vertebra). The location of the knot of the hanging rope is a major factor in determining the mechanics of cervical spine injury, with a submental knot (hangman's knot under the chin) being the only location capable of producing the sudden, straightforward hyperextension injury that causes the classic "hangman's fracture".

There is evidence suggesting that there might be superior alternatives if there were sufficient interest to support research into such matters. Consider in particular an event recounted in the biography of Albert Pierrepoint. Events followed a most unconventional sequence during the hanging of a particularly powerful and uncooperative German spy during World War II. Pierrepoint relates: "Just as I was crossing to the lever, he jumped with bound feet. The drop opened, and he plunged down, and I saw with horror that the noose was slipping. It would have come right over his head had it not caught roughly at a point halfway up the hood – it had in fact been stopped on his upper lip by the projection of his nose – and the body jerked down, then became absolutely still apart from the swinging of the rope. I went down into the pit with the prison medical officer. He examined the body and said to me: "A clean death. Instantaneous." He sounded surprised, and I did not blame him. I was surprised myself, and very relieved. On my next visit to Wandsworth the governor told me that the severance of the spinal cord had been perfect."

Not surprisingly in retrospect, it appears that such unconventional application of forces might be particularly efficient. There is at least some evidence that some of the countries with particularly active programs of judicial execution may have given the question of the design of efficient and reliable nooses practical attention. For example, photographs of nooses in a South African execution chamber opened to the public after abolishment of the death penalty, showed double nooses. Presumably the upper noose held the lower one in place to ensure a perfect hangman's fracture. The possibly more elegant, but probably more tricky English technique with a single running noose and a rope so arranged as to whip around into the ideal position, might well have been too error-prone to be satisfactorily reliable in any but highly skilled hands. If so, the likes of the double noose might have much merit.

The side, or subaural knot, has been shown to produce other, more complex injuries, with one thoroughly studied case producing only ligamentous injuries to the cervical spine and bilateral vertebral artery disruptions, but no major vertebral fractures or crush injuries to the spinal cord. Death from a "hangman's fracture" occurs mainly when the applied force is severe enough to also cause a severe subluxation of the C2 and C3 vertebra that crushes the spinal cord and/or disrupts the vertebral arteries. Hangman's fractures from other hyperextension injuries (the most common being unrestrained motor vehicle accidents and falls or diving injuries where the face or chin suddenly strike an immovable object) are frequently survivable if the applied force does not cause a severe subluxation of C2 on C3.

John Ogilvie, who in 1615 was hanged and disemboweled after torture for his refusal to give up the Catholic faith and convert to Protestantism.

Another process that has been suggested is carotid sinus reflex death. By this theory, the mechanical stimulation of the carotid sinus in the neck brings on terminal cardiac arrest.

In the absence of fracture and dislocation, occlusion of blood vessels becomes the major cause of death, rather than asphyxiation. Obstruction of venous drainage of the brain via occlusion of the internal jugular veins leads to cerebral edema and then cerebral ischemia. The face will typically become engorged and cyanotic (turned blue through lack of oxygen). There will be the classic sign of strangulation, petechiae, little blood marks on the face and in the eyes from burst blood capillaries. The tongue may protrude.

Compromise of the cerebral blood flow may occur by obstruction of the carotid arteries, even though their obstruction requires far more force than the obstruction of jugular veins, since they are seated deeper and they contain blood in much higher pressure compared to the jugular veins. Only 31 newtons (7 lbf or 3.2 kgf) of force may be enough to constrict the carotid arteries to the point of rapid unconsciousness.^{[citation needed]} Where death has occurred through carotid artery obstruction or cervical fracture, the face will typically be pale in color and not show petechiae. Many reports and pictures exist of actual short-drop hangings that seem to show that the person died quickly, while others indicate a slow and agonizing death by strangulation.

When cerebral circulation is severely compromised by any mechanism, arterial or venous, death occurs over four or more minutes from cerebral hypoxia, although the heart may continue to beat for some period after the brain can no longer be resuscitated. The time of death in such cases is a matter of convention. In judicial hangings, death is pronounced at cardiac arrest, which may occur at times from several minutes up to 15 minutes or longer after hanging. During suspension, once the prisoner has lapsed into unconsciousness, rippling movements of the body and limbs may occur for some time which are usually attributed to nervous and muscular reflexes. In Britain, it was normal to leave the body suspended for an hour to ensure death.

After death, the body typically shows marks of suspension: bruising and rope marks on the neck. Moreover, sphincters will relax spontaneously and urine and faeces will be evacuated. Forensic experts may often be able to tell if hanging is suicide or homicide, as each leaves a distinctive ligature mark. One of the hints they use is the hyoid bone. If broken, it often means the person has been murdered by manual choking.

Notable references by country (political)

La Pendaison (The Hanging), a plate from French artist Jacques Callot's 1633 series The Great Miseries of War.

Hanging has been a method of capital punishment in many countries.

Australia

Main article: Capital punishment in Australia

Capital punishment was a part of the legal system of Australia from its early days as a penal colony for the British Empire, until 1967. During the 19th century, crimes that could carry a death sentence included burglary, sheep stealing, forgery, sexual assaults, murder and manslaughter. During the 19th century, there were about 80 people hanged each year throughout Australia for these crimes.

Australia abolished the death penalty in all states by 1985. The last man executed by hanging (or any other means) in Australia was Ronald Ryan on 3 February 1967, in Victoria.

Brazil

Main article: Capital punishment in Brazil

Death by hanging was the customary method of capital punishment in Brazil throughout its history. Some important national heroes like Tiradentes (1792) were killed by hanging. The last man executed in Brazil was the slave Francisco, in 1876. The death penalty was abolished for all crimes, except for those committed under extraordinary circumstances such as war or military law, in 1890.

Bulgaria

Main article: Capital punishment in Bulgaria

Bulgaria's national hero, Vasil Levski, was executed by hanging by the Ottoman court in Sofia in 1873. Every year since Bulgaria's liberation, thousands come with flowers on the date of his death, February 19, to his monument where the gallows stood.

The last execution was in 1989, and the death penalty was abolished for all crimes in 1998.

Canada

Main article: Capital punishment in Canada

Historically, hanging was the only method of execution used in Canada and was in use as punishment for all murders until 1961, when murders were reclassified into capital and non-capital offences. The death penalty was restricted to only apply for certain offences to the National Defence Act in 1976 and was completely abolished in 1998.

The last hangings in Canada took place on December 11, 1962.

Egypt

Main article: Capital punishment in Egypt

In 1955, Egypt hanged three Israelis on charges of spying. In 2004, Egypt hanged five militants on charges of trying to kill the Prime Minister.

Germany

Main article: Capital punishment in Germany

Public execution of Polish civilians by the Nazi Germans in Kraków in 1942.

Soviet partisans hanged by German forces in January 1943.

In the territories occupied by Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945, strangulation hanging was a preferred means of public execution, although more criminal executions were performed by guillotine than hanging. The most commonly sentenced were partisans and black marketeers, whose bodies were usually left hanging for long periods of time. There are also numerous reports of concentration camp inmates being hanged. Hanging was continued in post-war Germany in the British and US Occupation Zones under their jurisdiction, and for Nazi war criminals, until well after (western) Germany itself had abolished the death penalty by the German constitution as adopted in 1949. West Berlin was not subject to the "Grundgesetz" (Basic Law) and abolished the death penalty in 1951. The German Democratic Republic did not abolish the death penalty until 1987. The last execution ordered by a West German court was carried out by guillotine in Moabit prison in 1949. The last hanging in Germany was the one ordered of several war criminals in Landsberg am Lech on June 7, 1951. The last known execution in East Germany was in 1981 by a pistol shot to the neck.

Hungary

Main article: Capital punishment in Hungary

Austro-Hungarian soldiers executing Serb civilians during the occupation of Mačva in 1914.

The prime minister of Hungary, during the 1956 Revolution, Imre Nagy, was secretly tried, executed by hanging, and buried unceremoniously by the new Soviet-backed Hungarian government, in 1958. Nagy was later publicly exonerated by Hungary.

Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1990.

India

Main article: Capital punishment in India

The hanging of two participants in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

All executions in India are carried out by hanging. In 1949, Nathuram Godse, Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin, was the first person to be executed by hanging in independent India.

The Supreme Court of India has suggested that capital punishment should be given only in the "rarest of rare cases".

Since 2010, two people have been executed in India. Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the 2008 Mumbai attacks was executed on 21 November 2012 in Yerwada Central Jail, Pune at 07:32 am IST. The Supreme Court of India had previously rejected his mercy plea, which was then rejected by the President of India. He was hanged one week later. Afzal Guru, a terrorist found guilty of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament was executed by hanging in Tihar Jail, Delhi on 9 February 2013.

Iran

Main article: Capital punishment in Iran

Death by hanging is the primary means of capital punishment in Iran. It is legal for murder, rape, and drug trafficking unless the criminal pays diyya to the victim's family, thus attaining their forgiveness (see Sharia law). If the presiding judge deems the case to be "causing public outrage," he can order the hanging to take place in public at the spot where the crime was committed, typically from a mobile telescoping crane which hoists the condemned high into the air. On July 19, 2005, two boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, aged 15 and 17 respectively, who had been convicted of the rape of a 13-year-old boy, were hanged at Edalat (Justice) Square in Mashhad, on charges of homosexuality and rape. On August 15, 2004, a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Sahaaleh (a.k.a. Atefeh Rajabi), was executed for having committed "acts incompatible with chastity."

At dawn on July 27, 2008, the Iranian Government executed 29 people at Evin Prison in Tehran. On December 2, 2008, an unnamed man was hanged for murder at Kazeroun Prison, just moments after he was pardoned by the murder victim's family. He was quickly cut down and rushed to a hospital, where he was successfully revived.

Iraq

Main article: Capital punishment in Iraq

See also: Execution of Saddam Hussein

Hanging was used under the regime of Saddam Hussein, but was suspended along with capital punishment on June 10, 2003, when the United States invaded and overthrew the previous regime. The death penalty was reinstated on August 8, 2004.

In September 2005, three murderers were the first people to be executed since the restoration. Then on March 9, 2006, an official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council confirmed that Iraqi authorities had executed the first insurgents by hanging.

Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity on November 5, 2006, and was executed on December 30, 2006 at approximately 6:00 a.m. local time. During the drop, there was an audible crack indicating that his neck was broken, a successful example of a long drop hanging. A week later, another video surfaced on the Internet, which showed Saddam's body with a large neck wound, creating speculation that the execution had been carried out incorrectly.

By contrast, Barzan Ibrahim, the head of the Mukhabarat, Saddam's security agency, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge, were executed on January 15, 2007, also by the long drop method, but Barzan was decapitated by the rope at the end of his fall indicating that the drop was too long.

Also, former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan had been sentenced to life in prison on November 5, 2006, but the sentence was changed to death by hanging on February 12, 2007. He was the fourth and final man to be executed for the 1982 crimes against humanity on March 20, 2007. This time, the execution went smoothly and without obvious mistake or problem.

At the Anfal genocide trial, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (aka Chemical Ali), former defence minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay, and former deputy Hussein Rashid Mohammed were sentenced to hang for their role in the Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds on June 24, 2007. Al-Majid was sentenced to death three more times: once for the 1991 suppression of a Shi'a uprising along with Abdul-Ghani Abdul Ghafur on December 2, 2008; once for the 1999 crackdown in the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr on March 2, 2009; and once on January 17, 2010 for the gassing of the Kurds in 1988; he was hanged over a week later on January 25.

On October 26, 2010, Saddam's top minister Tariq Aziz was sentenced to hang for persecuting the members of rival Shi'a political parties.

On July 14, 2011, Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay and two of Saddam's half-brothers – Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Watban Ibrahim al-Tikriti (both condemned to death on March 11, 2009 for the role in the executions of 42 traders who were accused of manipulating food prices – were handed over to the Iraqi authorities for execution.

It is alleged that Iraq's government keeps the execution rate secret, and hundreds may be carried out every year. In 2007, Amnesty International stated that 900 people were at "imminent risk" of execution in Iraq.

Israel

Main article: Capital punishment in Israel

Although Israel has provisions in its criminal law to use the death penalty for extraordinary crimes, it has only been used once. On May 31, 1962, Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was executed by hanging.

Japan

Main article: Capital punishment in Japan

On December 23, 1948, Hideki Tojo, Kenji Doihara, Akira Mutō, Iwane Matsui, Seishirō Itagaki, Kōki Hirota, and Heitaro Kimura were hanged at Sugamo Prison by the U.S. occupation authorities in Ikebukuro in Allied-occupied Japan for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace during the Asia-Pacific theater of World War II.

On February 27, 2004, the mastermind of the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Shoko Asahara, was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. On December 25, 2006, serial killer Hiroaki Hidaka and three others were hanged in Japan. Hanging is the common method of execution in capital punishment cases in Japan, as in the cases of Norio Nagayama, Mamoru Takuma, and Tsutomu Miyazaki.

Jordan

Death by hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment in Jordan. In 1993, Jordan hanged two Jordanians convicted of spying for Israel.

Lebanon

Main article: Capital punishment in Lebanon

Lebanon hanged two men in 1998 for murdering a man and his sister.

Malaysia

Main article: Capital punishment in Malaysia

Hanging is the traditional way of capital punishment in Malaysia.

Portugal

Main article: Capital punishment in Portugal

The last person executed by hanging in Portugal was Francisco Matos Lobos on April 16, 1842. Before, it had been a common death penalty.

Pakistan

Main article: Capital punishment in Pakistan

In Pakistan, hanging is the most common form of execution.

Russia

Main article: Capital punishment in Russia

Hanging was commonly practiced in the Russian Empire during the rule of the Romanov Dynasty as an alternative to impalement, which was used in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Hanging was eliminated in 1868 by Alexander II after serfdom, but was restored by the time of his death and his assassins were hanged. While those sentenced to death for murder were usually pardoned and sentences commuted to life imprisonment, those guilty of high treason were usually executed. This also included the Grand Duchy of Finland and Kingdom of Poland under the Russian crown. Taavetti Lukkarinen became the last Finn to be executed this way. He was hanged for espionage and high treason in 1916.

The hanging was usually performed by short drop and in public. The gallows was usually either a stout nearby tree branch, as in case of Lukkarinen, or a makeshift gallows constructed for the purpose.

After the October Revolution in 1917, capital punishment was, on paper, abolished, but continued to be used unabated against people perceived to be enemies of the regime. Under the Bolsheviks, most executions were performed by shooting, either by firing squad or by a single firearm. The last to be hanged were Andrey Vlasov and his companions in 1946.

Singapore

Main article: Capital punishment in Singapore

In Singapore, hanging using the long-drop method is currently used as mandatory punishment for various crimes, such as drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, and unauthorized possession of firearms.

Syria

Main article: Capital punishment in Syria

Eli Cohen, publicly hanged by Syria on May 18, 1965.

Syria has publicly hanged people, such as two Jews in 1952, Israeli spy Eli Cohen in 1965, and a number of Jews accused of spying in 1969.

According to a 19th-century report, members of the Alawite sect centered around Lattakia in Syria had a particular aversion towards being hanged, and the family of the condemned was willing to pay "considerable sums" to ensure their relation was impaled, instead of being hanged. As far as Burckhardt could make out, this attitude was based upon the Alawites' idea that the soul ought to leave the body through the mouth, rather than leave it in any other fashion.

United Kingdom

Main article: Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

As a form of judicial execution in England, hanging is thought to date from the Anglo-Saxon period. Records of the names of British hangmen begin with Thomas de Warblynton in the 1360s;^{[citation needed]} complete records extend from the 16th century to the last hangmen, Robert Leslie Stewart and Harry Allen, who conducted the last British executions in 1964.

At the beginning of the 19th century, children in Britain were punished in the same way as adults. They were even sentenced to death for petty theft. In 1814 five child criminals under the age of fourteen were hanged at the Old Bailey, the youngest being only eight years old. Until 1868 hangings were performed in public. In London, the traditional site was at Tyburn, a settlement west of the City on the main road to Oxford, which was used on eight hanging days a year, though before 1865, executions had been transferred to the street outside Newgate Prison, Old Bailey, now the site of the Central Criminal Court.

In 1957, in an attempt to prevent the abolition of capital punishment completely, two levels of murder were defined: First Degree murder and Second Degree with only First Degree murder carrying the death penalty.

In 1965, Parliament passed the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, temporarily abolishing capital punishment for murder for 5 years. The Act was renewed in 1969, making the abolition permanent. And with the passage of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998, the death penalty was officially abolished for all crimes in both civilian and military cases. Following its complete abolition, the gallows were removed from Wandsworth Prison, where they remained in full working order until that year.

The last woman to be hanged was Ruth Ellis on July 13, 1955, by Albert Pierrepoint who was a prominent hangman in the 20th century in England. The last hanging in Britain took place in 1964, when Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester were executed for the murder of John Alan West.

Silken rope

In the UK, some felons were traditionally executed by hanging with a silken rope:

• poachers who killed the "King's royal deer",^{[citation needed]} as in the Child ballad Geordie.
• hereditary peers who committed capital offences, as anticipated by the fictional Duke of Denver, brother of Lord Peter Wimsey. The Duke was accused of murder in the novel Clouds of Witness, and if convicted, this execution would have been his fate, after conviction by his peers in a trial in the House of Lords. However, it has been claimed that the execution of Earl Ferrers in 1760 – the only time a peer was hanged after trial by the House of Lords – was carried out with the normal hempen rope instead of a silk one. The writ of execution does not specify a silk rope be used, and The Newgate Calendar makes no mention of the use of such an item – an unusual omission given its highly sensationalist nature.
• Those who have the Freedom of the City of London.

• An image of suspected witches being hanged in England, published in 1655.

• Balvenie Pillar, also known as Tom na Croiche (Hangman's Knoll). The pillar was erected in 1755 to commemorate "the last public hanging", in Scotland in 1630. In this case the definition of "last" is unclear as the last public hanging in Scotland is well documented as being held in Glasgow in 1865.

• Hanging noose used at public executions outside Lancaster Castle, c. 1820–1830.

United States

Main article: Capital punishment in the United States

The execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, who were all convicted by a military tribunal for being involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

At present, capital punishment varies from state to state; it is outlawed in some states but used in most others. However, the death penalty under federal law is applicable in every state.

The largest mass execution in the United States, of 38 Sioux Indians sentenced to death for engaging in massacres of white settlers, was carried out by hanging in Mankato, Minnesota in 1862. On July 7, 1865, four people involved in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln—Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt—were hanged at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.

The last public hanging in the United States took place on August 14, 1936, in Owensboro, Kentucky. Rainey Bethea was executed for the rape and murder of 70-year-old Lischa Edwards. The execution was presided over by the first female sheriff in Kentucky, Florence Shoemaker Thompson.

In California, Clinton Duffy, who served as warden of San Quentin State Prison between 1940 and 1952, presided over ninety executions. He began to oppose the death penalty and after his retirement he wrote a memoir entitled Eighty-Eight Men and Two Women in support of the movement to abolish the death penalty. The book documents several hangings gone wrong and describes how they led his predecessor, Warden James B. Holohan, to persuade the California Legislature to replace hanging with the gas chamber in 1937.

Various methods of capital punishment have been replaced by lethal injection in most states and the federal government. Many states that offered hanging as an option have since eliminated the method. Condemned murderer Victor Feguer became the last inmate to be executed by hanging in the state of Iowa on March 15, 1963. Hanging was the preferred method of execution for capital murder cases in Iowa until 1965, when the death penalty was abolished and replaced with life imprisonment without parole. Barton Kay Kirkham was the last person to be hanged in Utah, preferring it over execution by firing squad. No subsequent inmate in Utah had been hanged by the time the option was replaced with lethal injection in 1980^{[citation needed]}. Laws in Delaware were changed in 1986 to specify lethal injection, except for those convicted before 1986 (who were still allowed to choose hanging). If a choice was not made, or the convict refused to choose injection, then hanging would become the default method. This was the case in the 1996 execution of Billy Bailey, the most recent hanging in American history. Since the hanging of Bailey, no Delaware prisoner fit into this category, thus the practice ended there de facto, and the state's gallows were dismantled.

Only the states of Washington and New Hampshire presently retain hanging as an option. In New Hampshire, if it is found to be "impractical" to carry out the execution by lethal injection, then the condemned will be hanged, and in Washington the condemned still has an outright choice between hanging and lethal injection.

The United States also has an extensive history of extrajudicial hangings, known as lynching. This was especially common during the Jim Crow era.

Inverted hanging, the "Jewish" punishment

Woodcut by Johann Stumpf, who witnessed this type of execution in 1553

A completely different principle of hanging is to hang the convicted person from his legs, rather than from his neck, either as a form of torture, or as an execution method. In late medieval Germany, this came to be primarily associated with Jews, called the "Judenstrafe". The jurist Ulrich Tengler, in his highly influential "Layenspiegel" from 1509, describes the procedure as follows, in the section "Von Juden straff":

About dragging the Jew to the ordinary execution place between two mad or biting dogs. After dragging, to hang him from his feet by rope or chain at a designated gallows between the dogs, and in such inverted manner to be executed, from life to death

Guido Kisch, however, showed that originally, this type of inverted hanging between two dogs was not a punishment specifically for Jews. Esther Cohen writes:

The inverted hanging with the accompaniment of two dogs, originally reserved for traitors, was identified from the fourteenth century as the "Jewish execution", being practiced in the later middle ages throughout both northern and Mediterrenean Europe. The Jewish execution in Germany has been thoroughly studied by G. Kisch, who has argued convincingly that neither the inverted hanging nor the stringing up of dogs or wolves beside the victim were particularly Jewish punishments during the High Middle Ages. They first appeared as Jewish punishments in Germany only towards the end of the thirteenth century, never being recognized as exclusively Jewish penalties.

In France the inverted, animal-associated hanging came to be connected with Jews by the later Middle Ages. The inverted hanging of Jews is specifically mentioned in the old customs of Burgundy in the context of animal hanging. The custom, dogs and all, was still in force in Paris shortly before the final expulsion of the Jews in 1394

Some historical examples of this type of hanging are two Jews hanged in Frankfurt 1444, 1 in Halle in 1462, 1 in Dortmund 1486, 1 in Hanau 1499, 1 in Breslau 1505, 1 in Württemberg 1553, 1 in Bergen 1588, 1 in Frankfurt 1615 and again in 1661, and 1 condemned to this punishment in Prussia in 1637.

The details of the cases vary widely: In the 1444 Frankfurt cases and the 1499 Hanau case, the dogs were dead prior to be hanged, and in the late 1615 and 1661 cases in Frankfurt, the Jews (and dogs) were merely kept in this torture for half an hour, before being garrotted from below. In the 1588 Bergen case, however, all three victims were left hanging till they were dead, ranging from 6 to 8 days after being hung up. In the Dortmund 1486 case, the dogs bit the Jew to death while hanging. In the 1553 Württemberg case, the Jew chose to convert to Christianity after hanging like this for 24 hours; he was then given the mercy to be hanged in the ordinary manner, from the neck, and without the dogs beside him.

In the 1462 Halle case, the Jew Abraham also converted after 24 hours hanging upside down, and a priest went up on a ladder and baptized him. For two more days, Abraham was left hanging, while the priest argued with the city council that a true Christian should not be punished in this way. On the third day, Abraham was granted a reprieve, and was taken down, but died 20 days later in the local hospital having meanwhile suffered in extreme pain. In the 1637 case, where the Jew had murdered a Christian jeweller, the appeal to the empress was successful, and out of mercy, the Jew was condemned to be merely pinched with glowing pincers, have hot lead dripped into his wounds, and then be broken alive on the wheel.

The punishment for traitors

As an example of a non-Jew who suffered this punishment as a torture, in 1196 Richard, Count of Acerra, was one of those executed by Henry VI in the suppression of the rebelling Sicilians:

He [Henry VI] held a general court in Capua, at which he ordered that the count first be drawn behind a horse through the squares of Capua, and then hanged alive head downwards. The latter was still alive after two days when a certain German jester called Leather-Bag [Follis], hoping to please the emperor, tied a large stone to his neck and shamefully put him to death

A couple of centuries earlier, in France 991, a viscount Walter nominally owing his allegiance to the French King Hugh Capet chose, on instigation of his wife, to join the rebellion under Odo I, Count of Blois. When Odo found out he had to abandon Melun after all, Walter was duly hanged before the gates, whereas his wife, the fomentor of treason, was hanged by her feet, causing much merriment and jeers from Hugh's soldiers as her clothes fell downwards revealing her naked body.

Elizabethan maritime law

During Queen Elizabeth I's reign, the following was written concerning those who stole a ship from the Royal Navy:

If anye one practysed to steale awaye anye of her Majesty’s shippes, the captaine was to cause him to be hanged by the heels untill his braines were beaten out against the shippe’s sides, and then to be cutt down and lett fall intoe the sea.

Hanged by the ribs

"A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows," by William Blake. Originally published in Stedman's Narrative.

In 1713, Juraj Jánošík, a legendary Slovak outlaw and folk hero, was sentenced to be hanged from his left rib. He was left to slowly die.

The German physician Gottlob Schober (1670-1739), who worked in Russia from 1712, notes that a person could hang from the ribs for about three days prior to expiring, his primary pain being that of extreme thirst. He thought this degree of insensitivity was something peculiar to the Russian mentality.

The Dutch overlords in Suriname also were in habit to hang a slave from the ribs. John Gabriel Stedman stayed in South America from 1772–77 and described the method as told by a witness:

Not long ago, (continued he) I saw a black "man suspended alive from a gallows by the ribs, between which, with a knife, was first made an incision, and then clinched an iron hook with a chain: in this manner he kept alive three days, hanging with his head "and feet downwards, and catching with his tongue the "drops of water (it being in the rainy season) that were "flowing down his bloated breast. Notwithstanding all this, he never complained, and even upbraided a negro "for crying while he was flogged below the gallows, by calling out to him: "You man ?—Da boy fasy? Are you a man? you behave like a boy". Shortly after which he was knocked on the head by the commiserating sentry, who stood over him, with the butt end of his musket.

William Blake was specially commissioned to make illustrations to Stedman's narrative.

Grammar

The proper, traditional past tense and past participle form of the verb "hang", in this sense, is (to be) "hanged" and not "hung". Some dictionaries list only "hanged," whereas others show both forms.

See also

• Autoerotic asphyxiation
• Capital punishment
• Death erection
• Dule Tree
• Executioner
• Gallows
• Hand of Glory
• Hanging judge
• Hangman (game)
• Hangman's knot
• Jack Ketch
• List of people who died by hanging
• List of suicides
• Lynching
• Official Table of Drops

References

External links

• Hanging injuries and strangulation
• A Case Of Strangulation Fabricated As Hanging
• Obliquity vs. Discontinuity of ligature mark in diagnosis of hanging – a comparative study
• Death Penalty Worldwide Free database from the Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University Law School

UpToDate Contents

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• 1. 成人における頸部脊柱損傷の評価および急性管理 evaluation and acute management of cervical spinal column injuries in adults
• 2. 小児および思春期における”窒息ゲーム”およびその他の首絞め行動 the choking game and other strangulation activities in children and adolescents
• 3. 鈍的脳血管損傷：機序、検査、および診断的評価 blunt cerebrovascular injury mechanisms screening and diagnostic evaluation
• 4. 成人における自殺念慮および自殺行動 suicidal ideation and behavior in adults
• 5. 小児における口腔咽頭外傷 oropharyngeal trauma in children

English Journal

• LSI-based amperometric sensor for real-time monitoring of embryoid bodies.

• Sen M, Ino K, Inoue KY, Arai T, Nishijo T, Suda A, Kunikata R, Shiku H, Matsue T.SourceGraduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan.
• Biosensors & bioelectronics.Biosens Bioelectron.2013 Oct 15;48:12-8. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2013.03.069. Epub 2013 Apr 4.
• A large scale integration (LSI)-based amperometric sensor is used for electrochemical evaluation and real-time monitoring of the alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity of mouse embryoid bodies (EBs). EBs were prepared by the hanging drop culture of embryonic stem (ES) cells. The ALP activity of EBs wit
• PMID 23644006

• Bead assembly magnetorotation as a signal transduction method for protein detection.

• Hecht A, Commiskey P, Shah N, Kopelman R.SourceDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2200 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, 930 N University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
• Biosensors & bioelectronics.Biosens Bioelectron.2013 Oct 15;48:26-32. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2013.03.073. Epub 2013 Apr 6.
• This paper demonstrates a proof-of-principle for a new signal transduction method for protein detection called Bead Assembly Magnetorotation (BAM). BAM is based on using the target protein to mediate the formation of aptamer-coated 1μm magnetic beads into a bead assembly, formed at the bottom of a
• PMID 23639345

• Human stem cell-based three-dimensional microtissues for advanced cardiac cell therapies.

• Emmert MY, Wolint P, Wickboldt N, Gemayel G, Weber B, Brokopp CE, Boni A, Falk V, Bosman A, Jaconi ME, Hoerstrup SP.SourceSwiss Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland; Division of Surgical Research, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: maximilian.emmert@usz.ch.
• Biomaterials.Biomaterials.2013 Sep;34(27):6339-54. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2013.04.034. Epub 2013 May 30.
• Cardiac stem cell therapy has been proposed as a therapy option to treat the diseased myocardium. However, the low retention rate of transplanted single-cell suspensions remains a major issue of current therapy strategies. Therefore, the concept of scaffold-free cellular self-assembly into three-dim
• PMID 23727259

Japanese Journal

• Effects of hanging drop culture conditions on embryoid body formation and neuronal cell differentiation using mouse embryonic stem cells : Optimization of culture conditions for the formation of well-controlled embryoid bodies(CELL AND TISSUE ENGINEERING)

• Ohnuki Yoshitsugu,Kurosawa Hiroshi
• Journal of bioscience and bioengineering 115(5), 571-574, 2013-05-00
• … Hanging drop (HD) cultures were carried out with a drop volume of either 20 or 30 μl. …
• NAID 110009611466

• チョーサーの詩行におけるトーンの醸成 : チョーサーの情緒的言語研究試論

• 隈元 貞広,クマモト サダヒロ,Kumamoto Sadahiro
• 文学部論叢 104, 41-60, 2013-03-10
• … These emphatic elements (called 'tone-elevatiors' here) may be linguistically extra or additional ones in Chaucer's poetic lines, but they are definitely contributing to the creation of the emotive or emotional atmosphere that is hanging over the lines. …
• NAID 110009555166

• 暗雲が世界を覆う時代のジャーナリズム : 迫られている言論報道メディアの制度的復権

• 桂 敬一,Katsura Kiichi
• 社会志林 59(4), 39-56, 2013-03-00
• NAID 120005255305

• Latent adrenal Ewing sarcoma family of tumors: A case report

• Yamamoto Takuma,Takasu Kosho,Emoto Yuko,Umehara Takahiro,Ikematsu Kazuya,Shikata Nobuaki,Iino Morio,Matoba Ryoji
• Legal Medicine 15(2), 96-98, 2013-03-00
• … We report an autopsy case of suicidal hanging, in which adrenal ESFT was incidentally revealed. …
• NAID 120005230841

Related Links

• Hanging - definition of hanging by The Free Dictionary

hang·ing (hăng′ĭng) n. 1. A method of execution whereby the person is dropped and suspended from a rope around the neck, resulting in death from severing of ... A FOX, seeing some sour grapes hanging within an inch of his nose ...

• "hanging"の意味・用例｜英辞郎 on the WEB：アルク

hanging 【名】 〔物を〕つるす[つり下げる]こと 〔絞首台での〕絞首刑、首つ... - アルクがお届けする進化するオンライン英和・和英辞書データベース。一般的な単語や連語から、イディオム、専門用語、スラングまで幅広く収録。

• Hanging | Define Hanging at Dictionary.com

Hanging definition, the act, an instance, or the form of capital punishment carried out by suspending one by the neck from a gallows, gibbet, or the like, until dead. See more. Dictionary.com Word of the Day Translate Games Blog ...

Related Pictures

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★リンクテーブル★

リンク元	「窒息」「縊頚」「絞頚」「縊死」
拡張検索	「unchanging」「direction-changing nystagmus」

「窒息」

　　[★]

英

asphyxia, suffocation

関

低酸素血症 hypoxemia、choking、asphyxiation、asphyxiate

関

仮死、気道閉塞、息詰まり

頚部圧迫による窒息

手段による分類

• 縊頚 hanging
• 絞頚 ligature strangulation
• 扼頚 manual strangulation

頚部圧迫による窒息の機序

• 気道閉鎖：15kgの加重で起こる

• 舌根挙上　→　咽頭鼻部・口部閉鎖
• 舌背挙上　→　口腔閉鎖

• 頚部血管の閉鎖

• 頚静脈(2kg)
• 頚動脈(3.5-7kg)
• 椎骨動脈(13-16.6kg)

• 神経反射

• 頸動脈洞・迷走神経圧迫によって突然の心停止をきたす。

脳組織の酸素欠乏に対する抵抗性

• 末梢神経＞脊髄＞延髄＞脳幹核＞脳幹神経節＞大脳皮質

「縊頚」

　　[★]

法医学では縊首より縊頚を使っているらしい

日

いっけい

英

hanging

同

縊首 いっしゅ、縊頸

関

縊死

定義

• 頚部に索状物を巻き、その端を固定した状態で、体を懸垂し、自己の体重で頸部を圧迫すること

分類

• 縊頚 hanging
• 絞頚 ligature strangulation
• 扼頚 manual strangulation

頸部の圧迫の状態により分類

• 定型的縊頚
• 非定型的縊頚

「絞頚」

　　[★]

ligature strangulation

英

ligature strangulation, strangulation

同

絞頸

関

絞死

分類

• 縊頚 hanging
• 絞頚 ligature strangulation
• 扼頚 manual strangulation

「縊死」

　　[★]

日

いし

英

death by hanging, death from hanging, hanging

関

縊頚

• 縊頚による死亡

分類

• 定型的縊死
• 非定型的縊死

「unchanging」

　　[★]

• 不変の

関

eternal、immutable、invariable、invariant、standing、unabated、unaltered、unchanged

　 　

「direction-changing nystagmus」

　　[★] 方向交代性頭位眼振