Oklahoma's recent botched execution of Clayton Lockett has focused nationwide attention on capital punishment, and has evoked calls for its abolition. Death penalty opponents are correct when they say that botched executions violate the Constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Older methods like hanging and shooting are, when done properly, quick and humane. The kicker is the phrase "when done properly." The expert British hangman Albert Pierrepoint had to take over from the American hangman when the latter botched the executions of several Nazi war criminals. The electric chair was, meanwhile, the culmination of Thomas Edison's psychological warfare campaign against George Westinghouse's alternating current. Edison favored direct current, which is much safer, but also far more costly to distribute. Edison nonetheless supplied New York with an alternating current generator so it could "Westinghouse" condemned...(Read Full Article)