re: What Should Tennessee do with Christa Pike if She Lives?

FWIW, in the old days a firing squad was considered more "honorable" than hanging.

Pvt Eddie Slovik, the only US soldier executed for desertion in WWII, was shot.

The Hangman: John C. Woods. Credited w/34 hangings during WWII. He later hanged some of the Nuremberg defendants

quote:

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When in autumn of 1944 military executions by hanging were scheduled in France, the Army looked for a volunteer enlisted hangman and found Woods, who falsely claimed previous experience as assistant hangman in two cases in Texas and two in Oklahoma. He later told newspaper reporters that his career as an executioner had started when he "attended a hanging as a witness, and the hangman asked me if I wouldn't mind helping."

There is no evidence that the U.S. Army made any attempt to verify Woods's claims—if they had checked, it would have been easy to prove that he was lying; the states of Texas and Oklahoma had both switched to electrocution during the period he claimed to be a hangman. The last hanging in Texas took place in August 1923 when Woods would have been twelve. Oklahoma did not carry out hangings during the relevant period, the last one taking place three months before Woods was born.

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I guess he wanted that job bad