QuestionAfter Saddam's execution, I read that the heart can continue to beat for up to twenty-five minutes after the neck breaks. Does that leave open the possibility of prolonged physical or mental suffering? I am not asking this question out of morbid curiosity. I have serious problems with capital punishment (except for crimes against humanity), and I want to know whether hanging is an especially brutal form of it.
Answerthere are a lot of functions that continue well past "death" which I would define (humbly) as irreparable loss of brain function. Someone who is hanged and their brain has no blood supply for 30 seconds or less cannot sense anything... now the heart has back up mechanisms to beat, so even without blood supply, the muscles will be commanded to contract by backup pacemaker functions in the heart, so yes, that would occur, but, the person cannot sense that.... now, whether that is brutal, appropriate, or other, I would leave to ethicists....
