Why are people in the UK under the false presumption that we still use the eletric chair in the USA?

Question

We don't. We use lethal injection, painless and fast--
not what OUR criminals over here deserve...but that's how it's done now.

I personally think you should bring back the chopping block...
So many of your criminals deserve it...
like the three Muslim men who stabbed and burned that young scottish boy for nothing.
Think about how many throughout your history you tortured and put to death for the dumbest of reasons, now those evil scum who really deserve it get the kid gloves and some jail time--paroled too soon to attack in the future.....
Why do you people always go to extremes...
either way, you're not right.

it is generally not used, only in very rare circumstances.

99% of the time in 99% of states lethal injection or some other painless form of execution is used.

cfc: with the forensics and modern science we now have, there is no good reason NOT to kill the threats to our society

...especially the ones who confess outright! come on now!
you're not one of those spineless wussie PC liberals, are you?

April: you mean they feel a tiny pinch of pain during death? more than you could say for the suffering they inflicted on their victims right.

IF they do feel pain...
GOOD.

Martin, it's used so rarely that it's barely worth meationing, the point is, it's NOT the usual method of putting these beasts down.

No, we are not as bad as the brutal barbarians who rape torture and kill. We are the good guys. Our people are decent people and it's good to live here.
hey babe, if that wasn't true, WHY THE HELL DOES EVERYONE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH WANT TO LIVE HERE < HA!?
and um, WE slaughtered the native Americans, LOL, don't you mean YOU and your other Euro pals did? , or have you forgotten where we came from???! hahhaha funny.

Answer 1

Because we still do use the electric chair.

Virginia executes first inmate by electric chair in over two years
July 21, 2006

[JURIST] Virginia [JURIST news archive] executed a man Thursday night using the electric chair, the first execution by electrocution in the country in over two years. Brandon Wayne Hedrick, convicted of the rape and murder of a 23.... [more]

Here is the same article, but from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR2006072001852.html

EDIT: As of 2006, the only places in the world which still reserve the electric chair as an option for execution are the U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. (Oklahoma and Illinois laws provide for its use should lethal injection ever be held to be unconstitutional.) Except for Nebraska, where it remains the only method of execution, inmates in the other states must select it or lethal injection. In the state of Florida, on July 8, 1999, Allen Lee Davis convicted of murder was executed in the Florida electric chair "Old Sparky". Davis' face was bloodied and photographs taken, which were later posted on the internet. Lethal injection is now, as of 2006, the primary method of execution in the state of Florida.

Answer 2

I am a person from the UK.

I know that the electric chair is now the sole means of execution in only two states Alabama and Nebraska.

However, ten others allow it as an alternative to lethal injection.

I know that only about nine of the last 230 executions carried out have been electrocutions.

However with the soft power, the USA projects through Hollywood, who might not believe that every execution was carried out by the chair.

I would like to think that we could execute prisoners in the UK if only to reduce the expense of keeping them, but if the state gets it wrong there is no price it can pay to the innocent victim make it up.

Hopefully we will be able to come up with a better system in the future. Maybe something like your sci fi writer, Anthony Piers suggested in his book, `the Ring'.

Answer 3

People can only presume those things not in evidence. Many times whether the asker realizes it or not, to the answerer those things do have a bearing on how they respond to the question. Therefore they feel the need to assume that information the asker saw fit not to supply. This is one of the draw backs to this forum, unless one spends the time to investigate and possibly even contact the asker. This doesn't make the answerer anything except eager to help without having the required information. Does this make the asker a dope? No, no more than it makes the answerer a bigot or anything else.

Answer 4

You do still use the electric chair.

Now for your other points...

As we're talking about extremes, don't you think the electric chair is a rather barbarous method of execution? Torture - Guantanamo Bay? Senseless killing - Iraq, genocide of the native Americans? We have abolished the death penalty as uncivilised - you haven't. Incidentally, the murderers of that young boy were sent down for 25-30 years, not just "some" jail time.

YOU are not qualified to lecture US on these subjects.

Answer 5

I don't really care how you do it, it is wrong for a state to kill its own citizens as a matter of judicial process. You, or we, will, and do, get it wrong. We no longer kill in the name of law, and thank God for that, because people have been proved to be innocent years after their conviction. If you kill a guy/gal believing him/her, in all sincerity, to be guilty, and, later. find out he/she wasn't, what do you do? Do you say "sorry", and who do you say "sorry" to? Do you do it in person? Would you, a prospective executioner, face and apologise to the family of the person that the state got it wrong about? Would you go to the grave and apologise to the corpse? What do you do? Is it not a better bet to keep those people in jail, at no matter what cost, than to risk that you might get it wrong, and find out (as has happened all too often, years later) that the dead guy/gal was innocent?

As to the second part of you question.
"Everyone on God's green earth" does not want to live in the US. If that were so, how do you account for the thousands of millions who are quite content to live elsewhere? Don't be too naive. America is a basically good country, but, in the eyes of many people around the world, white, black, brown, yellow , whatever, is deeply flawed, and they really don't envy you. Most are quite happy where they are, and would be happy if you didn't assume they want to be Americans.

Answer 6

Firstly, because a few states still use the chair, even if not yours, we do think of it as an American thing. Secondly, execution by lethal injection is a lot different to putting a sick pet down. They could do it quickly and painlessly, with a massive dose of heroin or Valium, but they don't, first they paralyse, then they kill with a lingering poison. Then, half the time, 3 years later you find out that the poor guy was framed. We've hanged innocent men on our side of the sea in past times, too, but we had the decency to say "Never again" in the end.
Holding other peoples' lives to be very cheap is The American Way - you take your patriotic (or something-iotic) pride in it, but we are just as happy to let it set you apart from us as you are.

Answer 7

well it could be all the American movies we see ....know you use more humane forms of execution now adays but us poor Europeans have been there done it wore the T shirt and have decided that 2 wrongs don't make a right mate ..don't think prison in USA is a holiday camp but are the films you lot produce wrong again ..have a word with your media moguls before you start slagging us euros we only go with the info supplied ....am I right

Answer 8

Just so you know there has been evidence showing and some controversy regarding that some prisoners experience at least some intense pain from the injections. Often they feel the medicine in their veins before the tranquilizer kicks in.

ACTUALLY, the argument is that they feel EXCRUCIATING pain for the duration of the time it takes for the drugs to actually kill them. Like the other guy said, it doesn't matter HOW they are put down. The fact that they are being put down so they don't have a chance to hurt some else is what matters. Smartass...

Answer 9

well i knew that u used lethal injection, but let me ask u another question, what if they are wrongly convicted and it does happen!
YOU JUST KILLED SOMEONE WHO WAS NOT GUILTY!

OOPS , not like u can just undo what you did

Thats why we got rid of the death sentance, a case back in the 60's where a man with a gun shot a bobby(thats a cop) and at the time of the shoot out his accomplis said "LET IM AVE IT!" - now did he mean Let him have the gun , or did he mean let him have it as in the bullet, shoot him?

Well our crown court system debated this and found both people guilty, they were hung. Turns out that the guy who fired the gun wasnt a really really bad criminal and didnt mean to kill him, yet he got hung for murder instead of manslaughter.

I still think death sentance is good in some cases, but with out 100% conclusive evidence it should not be used!

oh and by the way people in the UK are under the false presumption that americans are an intelligent. Wether or not u use an electric chair is meaningless, ure still killing them

Answer 10

Gee now that's really being sensitive ..... you asked a legitimate question, but you ruined it with the little diatribe after it.

People in other countries believe the US still uses the electric chair because of movies and tv programs . They also hear news reports where places like Texas have the highest rate of people on death row and they see the protestors for and against the death penalty so from the information Us tv and media has put out they assume the electric chair is still in use.

Frankly lethal injection doesn't do it for me , but in Canada we don't have the death penalty. I'd let em rot in prison with no parole, no cojugal visits, no education and maybe a little exercise once in a blue moon. I sure wouldn't be given them smoking privileges and tuck shop privileges and having better tvs and movies and entertainers than the regular population gets but that's just me.

I think if prison was just a tiny bit nastier to be in we wouldn't the number of re-offendors, but then that takes judges who aren't quite so lenient. Just my two cents.