Execution

'Executionstate authorities kill someone for having committed an extremely serious crime, usually treason or especially terrible murders. In most countries where the death penalty is still provided for by law, using it is an option available to the sentencing judge: even if the jury or judicial panel recommends the death penalty, the presiding judge still has the option to lock the convicted person in a prison for the rest of their life.

Lady Jane Grey, an innocent Queen of England is beheaded.

Beheading

Centuries ago, many countries used beheading as an execution for important people, including England. In England, some kings and queens have been beheaded. There, the prisoner would be led up the scaffold and usually say a speech. Then, he/she would be blindfolded and put his/her neck onto a block. Then, the executioner would lift up his axe and swing it down onto the victim's neck. If the executioner was skilled and the axe was sharp, then the axe would usually cut through the bone and organs of the victim in one stroke. But if the executioner was inexperienced, then it may take many strokes before the head would be cut off.

Other ways of execution

Many countries do not allow executions as punishment any more, because it is too violent. However, many states of the United States and some other foreign countries allow it. Even in the United States, less violent ways of execution have had to be used. Here are some other ways of execution other than hanging

• Lethal injection: Killing a person by placing several poisons in their blood. This is used as the choice of execution in most U.S. states that allow executions
• Gas chamber: A person is placed in area where the air is filled with bad gases until he cannot breathe and dies. This was used as an execution method in some U.S. states, and by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
• Electrocution: Killing a person by placing them in an electric chair and giving them a very high electric shock.
• Firing Squad: Several people (some who do not have real bullets) shoot and kill a person. This execution was used in the state of Utah until recently, and was also often used in the Army.

Old-Fashioned Ways of Execution

• Hanging: Using a rope to break someone's neck. Widely used around the world until the 20th century.
• Drawing and Quartering: A very violent form of execution common in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. It involved taking a person's organs out while he was still alive, then tying him to four horses going in different directions until his body is torn apart. A similar thing is "breaking on the wheel", when a wheel rather than horses is used to tear a person's body apart

Other pages

Decapitation