Exam 6: Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Death Row, and Methods of Execution

Eyewitnesses reported that the first person executed by electrocution died "instantaneously."

The laws in all death penalty states stipulate that the medical techniques used in lethal injection executions are not medical techniques, and the medical personnel who participate in them are not medical personnel for the purpose of executing prison inmates.

Which of the following states uses electrocution as the sole method of execution?

The electric chair is an American invention.

The electric chair is an unintended product of a corporate battle between the Westinghouse and Edison companies.

What was the significance of the "gibbet" in colonial America?

What method was employed to execute the first American following the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976?

In which of the following cases did the Supreme Court emphasize that "the limits of civilized standards . . . draws its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

In which of the following cases did the Supreme Court abandon its fixed or historical meaning of the concept of "cruel and unusual punishment" and created a new one?

What were the last words uttered by the first American executed following the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976?

The Supreme Court has held that the Food and Drug Administration is required to exercise its enforcement power to ensure that states only use drugs in lethal injections that are "safe and effective" for human execution.

Who is generally considered the "father of electrocution"?

The Supreme Court has held that a second electrocution, conducted after first has failed to kill defendant, is in violation of 8th Amendment cruel and unusual punishment clause.

Death penalty "enhancements," along with burning the body, were especially terrifying to most colonial Americans and, thus, presumably effective deterrents to crime, because, according to Christian theology, if the integrity of a person's corpse has been violated and the corpse has not been properly buried, that person will be denied resurrection at the final judgment.

Following the first execution by electrocution, experts on electricity, such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, publicly debated whether electrocution was so horrible that it should never have been invented.

Which of the following occurred during the execution of Clayton Lockett?

The is no uniform policy for conducting lethal injections in all executing jurisdictions in the US.

Between about 1930 and 1972, which of the following execution methods was employed by the majority of states that executed?

Which of the following does the Supreme Court consider cruel and unusual punishment?

Medical doctors, and especially anesthesiologists, are frequently opposed to lethal injection as an execution method because, among other things, no assurances can be given that the barbiturates will not wear off before death occurs, causing the condemned inmate to wake up and slowly suffocate to death.