January 25th, 2010
Headsman
On this date in 1996, Billy Bailey was hanged for murdering an elderly couple in Delaware.
Bailey was condemned in 1980, which was before Texas debuted the lethal injection trend that would sweep the nation; therefore, he was sentenced to hang. When Delaware switched to injection in 1986, Bailey had the choice between his original hempen-necktie sentence or the newfangled gurney.
Authorities wanted him to get with the times. Warden Robert Snyder, who would also serve as hangman, told the press, “Our gallows is pretty primitive here. We’ve made some improvement, but hopefully this will be the last hanging in Delaware.”
Billy Bailey wasn’t interested.
“I’m not a dog,” he said to one visitor. “I’m not going to let them put me to sleep.”
For all the worry that a state out of practice with its gallows technique would botch the job, Delaware carried it off without embarrassment.
Though Bailey’s pretty certain to be the last man hanged in the Blue Hen State — Delaware has gone and dismantled that primitive gallows — he is no lock to keep his place as the last hanged anywhere in the U.S.
Washington state, which hanged two people in the early 1990’s and did some consulting on the procedure for Delaware officials, still allows the condemned a choice between lethal injection and hanging. Executions there aren’t common — it’s been over eight years as of this writing — but they’re not unheard-of. Between the prospect of a lethal injection botch and the morbid appeal of notching milestone status, it’s only a matter of time before someone else opts to hang.
(New Hampshire, which is even more out of practice with the art, also still retains hanging as a backup option.)
Part of the Daily Double: Throwback Executions.
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Entry Filed under: 20th Century, Capital Punishment, Common Criminals, Crime, Death Penalty, Delaware, Execution, Hanged, Milestones, Murder, USA
Tags: 1990s, 1996, billy bailey, january 25, robert snyder
January 25th, 2009
Headsman
On this date in 1795, a Balzac story La Comedie humaine reaches its climax as the tumbrils of the Thermidorian Reaction wind their way to the scaffold.
In “An Episode Under the Terror”, a mysterious man appears to a priest in hiding and prevails upon him to say a secret mass for the recently executed Louis XVI.
It transpires in an exchange between the two that the stranger’s own conscience is somehow troubled.
“Remember, my son, [said the abbe] that it is not enough to have taken no active part in the great crime; that fact does not absolve you. The men who might have defended the King and left their swords in their scabbards, will have a very heavy account to render to the King of Heaven — Ah! yes,” he added, with an eloquent shake of the head, “heavy indeed! — for by doing nothing they became accomplices in the awful wickedness—-”
“But do you think that an indirect participation will be punished?” the stranger asked with a bewildered look. “There is the private soldier commanded to fall into line — is he actually responsible?”
We have no more answer in the text than we have in life.
Spoiler (That You Saw Coming) Alert
The stranger returns on the anniversary of the king’s martyrdom, but he remains enigmatic, until the abbe is caught up in a crowd watching the procession to the guillotine.
“What is the matter?” [the abbe] asked Madame Ragon.
“Nothing,” she said; “it is only the tumbril cart and the executioner going to the Place Louis XV. Ah! we used to see it often enough last year; but to-day, four days after the anniversary of the twenty-first of January, one does not feel sorry to see the ghastly procession.”
“Why not?” asked the abbe. “That is not said like a Christian.”
“Eh! but it is the execution of Robespierre’s accomplices. They defended themselves as long as they could, but now it is their turn to go where they sent so many innocent people.”
The crowd poured by like a flood. The abbe, yielding to an impulse of curiosity, looked up above the heads, and there in the tumbril stood the man who had heard mass in the garret three days ago.
“Who is it?” he asked; “who is the man with—-”
“That is the headsman,” answered M. Ragon.
Meaning (though unnamed as such by Balzac), the phenomenally prolific Sanson.
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Entry Filed under: 18th Century, Arts and Literature, Beheaded, Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Execution, Fictional, France, Guillotine, Known But To God, Mass Executions, Notable Participants, Politicians, Power, Public Executions, Revolutionaries
Tags: 1790s, 1795, balzac, catholicism, famous executioners, French Revolution, honore de balzac, january 25, maximilien robespierre, paris, robespierre, sanson, thermidorian reaction
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