There are five methods of execution used in the United States: hanging, the firing squad, electrocution, lethal gas, and lethal injection. All of these methods of execution are remedies for the death penalty. Hanging was the primary method of execution that was used in the US until the 1890's. The latest hanging took place in Delaware on January 25, 1996. The inmate is weighed the day before the execution and a rehearsal is done using sandbags the same weight of the inmate. The rope, which is anywhere between ¾ inch and 1 ¼ inch in diameter, is boiled and stretched to eliminate spring or coiling. The knot is lubricated with wax, soap, or clear oil to ensure that the rope slides smoothly through the knot. Right before the inmate is hung, his or her limbs are bound, they are blindfolded, and the noose is placed around their neck with the knot behind the left ear, which will cause the inmate's neck to break. The trap door underneath the prisoner's feet gives way and the inmate drops, causing a fracture-dislocation of the neck. If the inmate's neck muscles are strong, is very light, the drop is too short, or the noose is positioned wrong, the fracture-dislocation is not quick and the inmate dies of slow asphyxiation.
             In a firing squad execution, the inmate is strapped into a chair in front of an oval canvas wall by leather straps across the waist and head. This chair is surrounded by sandbags to sop up the inmate's blood. After pulling a black hood over the prisoner's head, a doctor locates the inmate's hear and pins a white circle cloth target for the shooters to aim at. There are five shooters who stand approximately 20 feet away. These shooters are armed with .30 caliber rifles with one single round. Only one of the shooters is given a blank round. Each of the shooters aims at the inmate through a slot in the canvas and shoots. In Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death (page 239), Mark Essig describes the first w...