four minutes while witnesses watched ashes fall from his head. In Georgia.
in 1984, it took nearly twenty minutes for Alpha Otis Stephens to die. At.
12:18 am on December 12, he was shocked with electricity for two minutes,.
and his body still showed signs of life. The doctors had to wait six.
minutes to examine his body because it was too hot to touch. Stephens was.
still alive, so he was electrocuted for another two minutes. Finally at.
12:37 am doctors pronounced him dead. .
When a person is executed in the gas chamber he is strapped to a chair in.
an airtight room. A cyanide pellet is dropped in sulfuric acid, which.
forms a lethal gas. The prisoner remains conscious for a few minutes.
while struggling to breath. These gas chambers are similar to the ones.
used by the Nazi's in World War II concentration camps. Fifty years ago,.
America was quick to condemn the Germans for persecuting Jew's, but,.
today, in 1996 Americans execute their own people the exact same way. .
Lethal injection is the newest form of execution in the United States. .
The person being executed is injected with a deadly dose of barbiturates.
through an intravenous tube in his arm. This method is considered the.
most humane and efficient way of execution, but a federal judge noted that.
"a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious.
but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own.
asphyxiation." Since 1985 there have been three botched injections in.
Texas alone. In one case it took 24 minutes to kill a criminal because.
the tube leaked and sprayed the chemicals towards the witnesses. In 1989,.
too weak a dosage of drugs caused Stephen McCoy to choke and heave for.
several minutes before he died. .
Hanging used to be the most common way to execute a person, but now it is.
only used in Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Washington. Hanging is.
not a very useful way of execution, because if the drop is too short the.
