Doctor explains sick thing that happens to the body in electric chair executions

17 February 2024 , 07:00

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A doctor has shared gruesome details of what happens during execution by electric chair (Image: Getty Images)

As South Carolina lawmakers debate whether to bring back execution by electric chair, one physician has shared the gruesome details of what happens to the human body during electrocution.

It's been almost 13 years since the electric chair was used in South Carolina, with lawmakers now contemplating bringing it back, along with death by firing squad. As people argue about the ethics of executions, a doctor has explained the horrible state the human body is forced into during electrocution.

Dr Joel Zivot, a doctor and teacher at Emory University School of Medicine, explained to the Mirror how "an enormous amount of electricity is used", that shocks the body in a very dramatic way. Adding: "The skin ignites and catches fire and there's smoke and it's pretty horrible."

READ MORE: 'I saw Alabama killer's eyes bulge as he took 22 minutes to die in first nitrogen execution'

'Theres no benign, gentle method to kill people. You really have to disrupt the physiology which resists being killed' (No credit)

He also said: "Electrocution is just theatre. The way it's done, and how [the prisoners] are positioned, and the hood over the face. It's all very theatrical in the worst kind of the 'theatre of the absurd'."

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All this drama is because, as Dr Zivot explained, "killing someone can be challenging," no matter how it's done. The doctor said: "The body doesn't want to necessarily die. So there's no benign, gentle method to kill people. You really have to disrupt the physiology which resists being killed."

As executions continue to be carried out across the US, Dr Zivot suggests the only reason the methods of electrocution and death by firing squad have been abandoned, and replaced by lethal injection in recent years, is their visually disturbing nature. He explained: "It's the visual aspect that alarms the public - no one cares seemingly about the experience of the prisoners as they die."

Dr Zivot has carried out extensive research into the lethal injection finding that it "burns the lungs and causes this frothy fluid to accumulate in the lungs as a person dies and they drown in their own bloody secretions". He added: "So eight out of 10 times you are drowning in your own blood.

"It's not at all like it appears visually, which is that a person seems to close their eyes, cough and move and then they're dead. So that's why lethal injection has kept on so long," he added.

The debate over execution methods has been reignited recently following the death of Kenneth Smith in Alabama. Smith was the first prisoner to be executed by inhaling nitrogen gas, which caused him to suffocate.

Witnesses described how Smith, who had previously survived a botched lethal injection, struggled and shook for over 20 minutes during his execution, in a horrifying ordeal.

Kenneth Eugene Smith was executed by asphyxiation with nitrogen gas on January 25, 2024 (Alabama Department of Correction/UPI/REX/Shutterstock)

States that still use the death penalty are trying to find new ways to execute people. This is because there have been problems with botched lethal injection executions, and drug companies have denounced and objected to the use of medicine for executions.

South Carolina has a shield law that keeps all details about executions secret. Lawyers and people who fight for prisoners' rights say this is wrong. Talking about the new rules in South Carolina, attempting to reinstate historic execution methods, Dr Zivot said: "America loves its punishment. In certain places, it's not everywhere. - it's in very specific locations.

"The places that wanna kill they really wanna kill, they really do. It's almost like some kind of 'caricature of evil' that South Carolina needs to shroud what it does in secrecy. The secrecy part of this is so absurdly comically evil.

"Some kind of bizarre childish activity to say that we need to protect the privacy of the people we kill. What is that about? We are supposed to be an open society and justice is supposed to be seen to be done. How are you supposed to mount a proper defence when you can't even know what it is that you're being punished with? It's so antithetical to any kind of reasonable justice system."

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Advocates against the death penalty are also speaking out. Maya Foa, joint executive director at Reprieve, told The Mirror: "South Carolina has introduced the most sweeping secrecy law in the nation - why? Because it knows that the death penalty cannot withstand public scrutiny.

"Whether it's hours-long botched lethal injections, electric chairs, or firing squads, none of these methods of execution are the clean, quick, painless processes the state wants us to believe.

"Knowing that public approval for capital punishment decreases when methods like the electric chair or firing squad are used, South Carolina has been searching for a way to use lethal injection again, despite the unanimous opposition of drug manufacturers at this misuse of their medicines and clear evidence of the problems with the method."

A wooden electric chair sits in the death chamber of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility August 29, 2001 in Lucasville, Ohio (Getty Images)

And Abe Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, also told The Mirror: "Method of execution is the wrong debate. The real question should be why we are allowing executions when the capital punishment system is as broken as it is.

"'Equal Justice Under Law' are the words carved into the face of the US Supreme Court building. If that is the bedrock foundation of our legal system, we don't have it."

"The mental torture of the death penalty starts from the moment a prisoner is threatened with execution, and that cruelty goes on for every minute of the wait, regardless of the method used to kill him or her."

He added: "The mechanism used to kill prisoners is the wrong debate. The fact is that the system is broken in many ways, and the unusual nature of capital punishment is best illustrated in the fact that fewer than one per cent of defendants eligible for the death penalty actually end up being executed.

"The number one determining factor for which murderers get executed has nothing to do with the crime, and everything to do with the geography and politics of county lines and elected prosecutors and judges. Fewer than 2% of more than 3,000 counties in the United States account for the vast majority death sentences and executions. If that is not unusual, I don't know what is."

Vassia Barba