What we might call more progressive nations have over the years introduced less brutal
forms of execution.
Gone are the days of crucifixion, being squashed to death and burning people at the stake,
but in some countries today you’ll still find stoning and decapitation, something most
of us would call barbaric.
For that matter, many advocates of human rights will tell you that taking someone’s life
for a crime is always barbaric and we should put an end to this bloody chapter in human
history.
Others might just tell you that capital punishment is a necessary evil, but if you kill them
then try do it humanely.
That usually means death by lethal injection, the most widespread mode of execution after
the topic of today’s show, the firing squad.
Ok, so first let’s talk a bit more about methods of execution around the world.
We know we told you that people no longer get crucified, but we should say that Saudi
Arabia still has a kind of post-mortem form of crucifixion.
That means beheading someone, say for practicing that age-old thing called witchcraft, and
then sewing the head to the body and crucifying the accused wrongdoer.
We could call this a modern iteration of a practice that goes back more than 2,000 years.
You can still be hanged, and in countries such as India, Japan, Singapore, Syria and
South Korea it’s still legal recourse for severe criminality.
You can also still be strapped to a chair and be shocked to Kingdom come, but only in
the Philippines and the USA.
The former has never even used the no doubt dusty chair and the law regarding the death
penalty is still under review there, while the in the U.S. for most states it’s a “cruel
and unusual punishment.”
In the U.S. if it is legal, you’ll have to request it.
The last time someone was electrified until death by the state without having a choice
was in Alabama in 2002.
The last person that chose it was electrocuted in 2018 in Tennessee.
His last words before the chair came to life was, “Let’s Rock.”
It’s similar in the U.S. for the gas chamber, in seven states at the moment it is on the
menu of dying options.
The last time someone was gassed to death in the USA was in 2010, but reading articles
about how long and how painful this looked you can understand that many people in the
U.S. want it abolished completely.
So, now we come to the firing squad.
What we mean by that of course is being shot to death.
In some nations this is simply called “shooting”, in that you can take the squad part out of
the equation and replace it with a singular person.
Like a gangland execution, this can be more or less someone walking up behind a prisoner
and popping one off in the back of his head.
In the Soviet era this kind of execution was sometimes referred to as getting “nine grams
of lead.”
Though it seems antiquated, a shot to the back of the head is still performed in some
nations.
In China this happens, but is veiled in secrecy.
One U.S news report in 2018 described it like this after seeing a video, “Surrounded by
dozens of security personnel, he is forced to kneel — and is then shot in the back
of the head.”
Just so you know, according to Amnesty International in 2018 the countries with the most executions,
from fifth to first were: Iraq (52+), Vietnam (85+), Saudi Arabia (142), Iran (253+) and
in first place China with a 1,000+.
The USA was seventh with 25.
Death by firing squad might still happen in many nations, too many to mention, but like
the USA it might be a secondary choice behind the default method of lethal injection.
Saying that, some inmates might think it is at least fast.
Maybe the authorities don’t like the blood and the public doesn’t like the sound of
it, but news reports in 2018 told us that four Tennessee death row inmates had requested
the firing squad.
It’s not legal there, but the inmates filed a lawsuit saying under the Eighth Amendment
they had the right to challenge electrocution.
Right now in the U.S. only three states still offer death by bullet as an option and they
are Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah.
As we said, not all death by firing squads are the same.
You might have seen the movie about Thailand’s trigger man for many years called “The Last
Executioner,” which showed one man honing his trade over the years and for the prisoner’s
sake trying to get the job done quickly.
In Thailand prisoners took a machine gun round to the back, but the country has since adopted
lethal injection.
But when we say squad we usually mean a group of people of course.
This might at least ensure that a few bullets secure a death, but you can find many instances
in which the prisoner did not die, or at least needed quite a few more bullets.
These days it’s unlikely this would happen because men aren’t just lined up against
a wall and soldiers fire at random from a distance.
Now it’s a precision operation.
Back in the bad old days indeed it might not be quick at all.
We are told the first types of firing squads could be found in ancient cultures, but as
guns weren’t invented the weapon of choice was a crossbow.
The Romans and Vikings did this, and we might consider that it was probably a Godsend for
the prisoner given that death might have come from being boiled alive or something even
more grisly as seen in our shows on punishments of the past.
In Europe once guns were invented you might find people being executed with a bullet,
and later the firing squad.
This was used quite a lot in the early 20th century, sometimes for acts of treason or
soldiers turning away from battle.
One of the most controversial cases is the Brits in the first world war who ordered the
execution by firing squad of 346 of its own soldiers and own imperial troops.
These men were put up against the wall and shot for matters of desertion and cowardice,
although it’s now thought they were not surprisingly suffering from PTSD and depression.
During the American Civil war many enemies met with the firing squad, but we can only
find one case in which an American man was shot for desertion and that was in the second
world war.
His name was Eddie Slovik, and even though it’s said he was “too scared” to carry
on fighting, on a cold January morning in France in 1945 12 of his fellows soldiers
fired 11 bullets into various parts of his body.
It took 15 minutes for him to die.
You might now be thinking, hmm, so one man must have had quite a poor shot or perhaps
was a compassionate soul.
That’s not the case at all.
The reason he was hit with only 11 bullets by 12 men was because during execution from
firing squad one man is given blank rounds.
No one knows who gets the blank rounds, and in the melee you can’t really work out if
you hit the prisoner.
The reasoning behind this is to diminish responsibility, to let you off the hook if you like.
This way no one soldier knows if he actually had the blank.
The squad perhaps can at least sleep better at night with their plausible deniability.
Live Science tells us these days the firing squad for inmates on death row is a little
bit different.
The website writes of one execution, “The five executioners, certified police officers
who remain anonymous, stood about 25 feet (7.6 meters) away and shot from behind a black
curtain and through a brick wall cut with a gun port, or a special opening for the firearms.”
The bullet that did the business fired from a .30-caliber Winchester rifle was one through
the heart.
No one knew who had delivered that fatal shot as again one of the guns fired blanks.
We say no one knew, but you’ll find people who don’t believe that and say most marksmen
will know if they had the blanks because of the lack of recoil.
The prisoner in this case had chosen firing squad over lethal injection.
He explained why.
“I like the firing squad.
It's so much easier…and there's no mistakes,” he said in an interview, sounding like an
expert.
Utah’s menu of executions in the past had consisted of hanging and also mafia-style
garroting, so maybe in relative terms firing squad was a walk in the park.
Does anyone ever survive the firing squad is probably what you want to know now?
Well, as we told you, there are lots of cases in which a man took a hail of bullets and
just wouldn’t die.
But actually walk away?
As it’s quite a tall order to evade death with a bunch of men firing at you, and then
firing at you some more when they see your ears twitch, and then some more as you blow
a blood bubble out of your mouth, we can barely find a single case.
That’s because if you survive all the rounds what would usually come in the past was what’s
called the “coup de gras” the death blow, which means a close-up bullet to the head.
There is one famous case of a man that went through all that and eventually came out standing,
and that is the story of a Mexican revolutionary called Wenseslao Moguel, aka, El Fusilado.
That means “the executed one.”
In 1915 during the Mexican Revolution he was sentenced to death by firing squad and took
nine bullets.
He wasn’t quite dead, though, and it’s said an officer walked right up to him and
shot him in the face.
He actually appeared on Ripley’s and so you can see what he looked like after some
surgery.
It’s said he went on to live a full life, but you can also see he literally took a few
on the chin as his new face looks like it was modeled with putty by a child.
You can see that bullet hole under the eye and after seeing Mr. Moguel you might wonder
how he ever survived his ordeal.
So, that’s the story of the firing squad.
What do you think about this topic?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video How Does The Lethal Injection Work.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.