Execution chamber

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008)

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

Executions by the federal government are carried out at the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex. The picture is of a gurney that prisoners lie on during an execution by lethal injection.

An execution chamber, or death chamber, is a room or chamber in which a legal execution is carried out. Execution chambers are almost always inside the walls of a maximum-security prison, although not always at the same prison where the death row population is housed. Inside the chamber is the device used to carry out the death sentence.

United States

In the United States, an execution chamber will usually contain a lethal injection table. In most cases, a witness room is located adjacent to an execution chamber, where witnesses may watch the execution through glass windows. All except for one of the states which allow capital punishment are equipped with a death chamber, but many states rarely put them to use. The sole exception is New Hampshire, who has not had an inmate on death row since the 1940s. Kansas is the only state to have an execution chamber, which is equipped to execute an inmate by lethal injection, which has never been used, while the State of New York had its execution chamber closed under the David Paterson administration, following the 2004 New York Court of Appeals decision in People v. LaValle, which ruled the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional.^[1]

Locations of execution chambers in the United States

Notes :

(1) Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar is the only facility in the United States Department of Defense designated to house female Level III inmates.

(2) Last death sentence reversed on 2007

(3) Closed in 2008 under David Paterson administration [2]

(4) No clarified site for execution

(5) If an execution does occur, the state will use its parole board meeting room at the state prison

(6) Death penalty abolished in 2009; two prisoners remain on death row under sentences of death

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the execution chamber was part of a larger complex, often referred to as the "Execution Suite". The room, usually formed from two single prison cells, contained the large trapdoor, usually double-leaved, but in some older chambers such as at Oxford, single-leaved, and operating lever. The wooden beam from which the rope was suspended was usually set into the walls of the chamber above, with the floor removed. At Wandsworth Prison the floor was retained and holes allowed the rope and chains through. Oxford's chamber was of an old 19th century type, and the beam was simply set into the walls of the chamber just above head height. With newer chambers, a lobby area would usually separate the condemned cell from the gallows, significantly reducing the distance the prisoner would have to walk to the execution chamber, although again, Oxford's dated set-up meant a long walk down a corridor from the condemned cell, and then a left turn into the chamber.

Such rooms were almost always built into one of the wings of a prison, however following the recommendation of prison governors during the 1948 Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, further execution chambers were housed in purpose-built blocks, separate from the main prison. The last gallows to be constructed in Britain, at HMP Aberdeen, was built in 1962, and was used one year later for the hanging of Henry John Burnett, the last person to be executed in Scotland.

The last officially operational gallows in the United Kingdom (as several remained unofficially in other prisons), at Wandsworth Prison, was removed in 1994. Salvaged parts from it are currently in the possession of the National Galleries of Justice, having previously been at the HM Prison Service museum.

References

1. ^ Scott, Brendan (2008-07-24). "GOV PULLS SWITCH ON DEATH CELL". New York Post. http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242008/news/regionalnews/gov_pulls_switch_on_death_cell_121295.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-03. 

See also

• Capital punishment
• Prison

Lethal Injection Chambers

In United States (last used models)

• en:Image:Terrehaute gurney.jpg Federal (used for Timothy McVeigh)

• Alabama

• Arkansas

• Arizona

• California

• Colorado (used only once for Gary Lee Davis)

• Connecticut (used only once for Michael Bruce Ross, volunteer)

• Delaware

• Florida (recently renewed)

• Georgia

• Idaho (used only once for Keith Wells, volunteer)

• Indiana

• Illinois

• Kansas (never used)

• Kentucky

• Louisiana

• Maryland

• Missouri

• Mississippi

• Montana

• Nevada

• North Carolina

• New Mexico (used only once for Terry D. Clark, volunteer)

• Ohio

• Oklahoma

• Oregon

• Pennsylvania

• South Dakota (used only once for Elijah Page, volunteer)

• Texas today Texas in 1982

• Tennessee

• Utah

• Virginia

• Washington

Other countries

• China (execution van)

• Thailand

• Guatemala

• Philippina