Of course, if my understanding of past French execution protocol is inaccurate, this whole question is moot. Anyway…when France had the death penalty, the condemned never knew when his time would come. The prison staff even went to such lengths as to wear socks over their shoes so the prisoner couldn’t hear their approach. Like I said, this is what I read somewhere- no cite. Then there is the US, where the guy knows pretty far ahead of time, and has plenty of time to try to come to grips with the situation. Which way is preferable?
I’d rather know. Sure, you’re then able to count down the days, hours, seconds, etc, but it also allows you to plan out your time accordingly - if you don’t know when you’re being killed, should you start writing a letter or it it pointless? Plus, not knowing adds to the terror - any second it could come, any second that door could open.
Of course, I’d rather just not have the death penalty. But that’s another kettle of fish.
I’m OK with not knowing. It’s not like those of us outside prison walls know when we’re going to kick off.
IIRC, the Japanese do the “good morning. By the way, we’re killing you now” approach.
I believe it was Camus who wrote that for the punishment to truly fit the crime, the victim would have had to been given advance warning of his doom, been confined in a cage while awaiting it, and subjected to bouts of false hopes as appeals were lodged and denied.
That’s one of the reasons we don’t want the punishment to “fit the crime.” That reduces it to vengeance, and in an immature way. It doesn’t benefit society, but, rather, harms it. It produces long-lasting resentment among the families of both criminal and victim.
If something is harmful to society…it really needs to be questioned.
Meanwhile, personally, I’d rather know. I’ll watch the pages fall off the calendar, as in an old noir movie.
I recall reading somewhere that the soviets executed political prisoners in a similar manner. They had someone invite the prisoner to write a letter to Joseph Stalin. The prisoner was lead to a small room with a desk facing away from the door and some paper. When they started writing, the executioner opened the door and shot them in the head. If everything went right they never saw it coming. To me, this seems far better and waiting around for the day to come.
The random thing seems worse. I think “Kafkaesque” isn’t inappropriate. But why would they do an ugly “Superman’s underwear for your feet” thing when they could just carpet the hallway?
Aside from the no executions thing now, the French prison system is quite similar to the US one.
The Soviets did love execution by shooting (as opposed to by firing squad). A shot to the back of the head, but I am more familiar with (via media) the “line em up and shoot them one by one” method.
The Hyperion series had a method where IIRC a radioactive atom or something can randomly set off a poisonous gas within seconds, within year, or anything between. It’s random, thus they were not executed per se but died by chance and might instead die of old age.
Poison in the last meal sounds like a pretty sweet way to do it.
Japanese scholars have pointed out that the problem with their method is that each night becomes the last night before the excecution. They simply don’t know so they can never plan on living for at least another X time.
Is this a problem? I thought it was a somewhat sadistic feature. Why else would you do that?