h penalty was born with the hanging of George Kendall in Jamestown County, Virgina in 1608; its legality was not even brought into question until about two- hundred and fifty years later. In the beginning there were quite a few different methods of carrying out the death penalty. The different ways of executing an individual were, lethal injection, electrocution, poisonous gas, hanging, and being placed in front of a firing squad. Seven hundred and seventy-seven individuals have been killed since the death of Gary Gillmore in 1977. Killing eighty-five inmates ranked us 3rd behind Saudi Arabia and China in 2000 (Trollinger 24). The lethal injection bill was passed in 1977 in Oklahoma. Republican representative William J. Wiseman Jr. was the architect behind getting the necessary support for the bill. This bill made Oklahoma the first governmental body ever to adopt lethal injection as a method of executing capital offenders (Wiseman 6). The last public hanging in the United States took place in 1936 at Owensboro, Kentucky; 20,000 people traveled to Owensboro to watch the gruesome hanging (Sheppard 42). In the days of Socrates around 200 B.C., executions were much different. If you were caught committing arson they were burned alive, suspected witches were beaten to death, and slaves were strangled. Around A.D. 426 people were dumped into cold water, crushed under rocks forced to battled trained soldiers or thrown into fires. Once the 19th century approached the guillotine became rather popular. The inventor of the guillotine was Dr. Joseph Ignance Guillotine described it as A cool breath on the back of the neck.
             Hanging is surprisingly still lingering around. Charles Campbell was sent to jail for rape. Years later after he got out of prison he murdered the same woman he raped. He was hung for the crime in 1994. In Louisiana if a child under the age of twelve is raped their perpetrator can be sentenced to death. In 19...