Editing Hanging (section)

===United States===
{{Main|Capital punishment in the United States}}
[[File:Execution Lincoln assassins.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|The execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, who were all convicted by a [[military tribunal]] for being involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 7 July 1865]]

Hanging was one means by which [[Puritans]] of the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] enforced religious and intellectual conformity on the whole community.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Merrill |first1=Louis Taylor |title=The Puritan Policeman |journal=American Sociological Review |publisher=American Sociological Association |date=1945 |volume=10 |issue=6 |pages=766–776 |doi=10.2307/2085847 |jstor=2085847 }}</ref> The best known hanging carried out by the Puritans, [[Mary Dyer]], was one of the four executed [[Quakers]] known as the [[Boston martyrs]].<ref>Rogers, Horatio (2009). [https://books.google.com/books?id=L5_5yIgpa-YC&q=Among+the+most+pathetic+chapters+ ''Mary Dyer of Rhode Island: The Quaker Martyr That Was Hanged on Boston'']. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115151223/https://books.google.com/books?id=L5_5yIgpa-YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mary+dyer+1660&hl=en&ei=8p99TMePDpGO4QayguXHBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA |date=15 January 2016 }}. pp. 1–2. BiblioBazaar.</ref>

Capital punishment in the U.S. varies from state to state; it is outlawed in some states but used in most others. However, the death penalty under federal law is applicable in every state. Hanging is no longer used as a method of execution; the last state to allow hanging as a method of execution, New Hampshire, abolished the death penalty in 2019.

When [[African American|Black]] pastor [[Denmark Vesey]] of the [[Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church]] was suspected of plotting to launch a [[slave rebellion]] in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, 35 people, including Vesey, were judged guilty by a city-appointed court and were subsequently hanged, and the church was burned down.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150617/PC16/150619408|title=Nine dead after 'hate crime' shooting at Emanuel AME |first1=Glenn |last1=Smith |first2=Melissa |last2=Boughton |first3=Robert |last3=Behre<!--Source incorrectly fails to distinguish between the last two – other articles by them are clearer that they are different people--> |newspaper=[[The Post and Courier]]|date=June 17, 2015|access-date=May 17, 2022|archive-date=28 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160728072115/http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150617/PC16/150619408}}</ref>

The [[Dakota War of 1862]], also known as the Dakota uprising, led to the largest mass execution in the United States when 38 Sioux Indians, who were facing starvation and displacement, attacked white settlers, for which they were sentenced to death via hanging in [[Mankato, Minnesota]] in December 1862.<ref name="Dakota"/> Originally, 303 had been sentenced to hang, but the convictions were reviewed by President [[Abraham Lincoln]] and the sentences of all but 38 were commuted.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Kenneth |last=Carley |title=The Dakota War of 1862 |date=2001 |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society Press |isbn=0-87351-392-4 |oclc=46685050}}</ref> In 2019, Governor [[Tim Walz]] issued an historic apology to the Dakota people for the mass hanging and the "trauma inflicted on [[Native Americans in the United States|Native]] people at the hands of state government".<ref name="Dakota">{{cite press release|url=https://ictnews.org/the-press-pool/governor-walz-makes-historic-apology-for-1862-mass-hanging-in-mankato|title=Governor Walz makes historic apology for 1862 mass hanging in Mankato|work=Indian Country Today|agency=Office of Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan|date=January 7, 2020|access-date=December 1, 2023 }}</ref>

A total of 40 suspected [[Unionists (American)|Unionists]] were hanged in [[Gainesville, Texas]], in October 1862.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jig01|last=McCaslin |first=Richard B.|date=2010-06-15|title=Great Hanging at Gainesville|website=Handbook of Texas Online |publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=30 May 2014|archive-date=8 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180808172409/https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jig01|url-status=live}}</ref> On 7 July 1865, four people involved in the [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|assassination of President Abraham Lincoln]]—[[Mary Surratt]], [[Lewis Powell (assassin)|Lewis Powell]], [[David Herold]], and [[George Atzerodt]]—were hanged at [[Fort McNair]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]

[[Image:duluth-lynching-postcard.jpg|thumb|left|Men pose for a photograph of the [[1920 Duluth lynchings|1920 Duluth, Minnesota lynchings]]. Two of the black victims are still hanging while the third is on the ground.]]
While relatively uncommon, [[gibbeting|hanging in chains]] has also been practiced (mainly during the colonial era), the first being a slave after the [[New York Slave Revolt of 1712]]. The last hanging in chains was in 1913, of John Marshall in [[West Virginia]] for murder.<ref>{{Cite web |title=DeathPenaltyUSA, the database of executions in the United States |url=https://deathpenaltyusa.org/usa1/other.htm |access-date=2022-05-09 |website=deathpenaltyusa.org}}</ref> The last public hanging in the United States (not including [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]], one of the last of which was [[Lynching of Michael Donald|Michael Donald in 1981]]) took place on 14 August 1936, in [[Owensboro, Kentucky]]. [[Rainey Bethea]] was executed for the rape and murder of 70-year-old Lischa Edwards. The execution was presided over by the first female [[sheriff]] in Kentucky, [[Florence Shoemaker Thompson]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2001/apr/010430.execution.html |title=The Last Public Execution in America |work=NPR |access-date=20 June 2012 |archive-date=8 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808204951/https://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2001/apr/010430.execution.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/July-August-08/On-this-Day--Kentucky-Holds-Final-Public-Execution-in-the-U-S-.html |title=On This Day: Kentucky Holds Final Public Execution in the US |date=14 August 2011 |work=findingDulcinea |access-date=20 June 2012 |archive-date=11 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120311201258/http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/July-August-08/On-this-Day--Kentucky-Holds-Final-Public-Execution-in-the-U-S-.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In California, [[Clinton Duffy]], who served as warden of [[San Quentin State Prison]] between 1940 and 1952, presided over ninety executions.<ref>{{cite news |first=Gene |last=Blake |title=Famed warden Duffy of San Quentin dead at 84 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=14 October 1982}}</ref> He began to oppose the death penalty, and after his retirement, wrote a memoir entitled ''Eighty-Eight Men and Two Women'' in support of the movement to abolish the death penalty. The book documents several hangings gone wrong and describes how they led his predecessor, Warden [[James B. Holohan]], to persuade the California Legislature to replace hanging with the [[gas chamber]] in 1937.<ref>{{cite book |last=Duffy |first=Clinton |year=1962 |title=Eighty-Eight Men and Two Women |publisher=Doubleday |location=Garden City, New York |oclc=1317754}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Fimrite |first=Peter |date=20 November 2005 |title=Inside death row. At San Quentin, 647 condemned killers wait to die in the most populous execution antechamber in the United States |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/20/INGFUFHCFL56.DTL |work=San Francisco Chronicle |access-date=12 January 2009 |archive-date=2 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090702063038/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2005%2F11%2F20%2FINGFUFHCFL56.DTL |url-status=live }}</ref>

Various methods of capital punishment have been replaced by [[lethal injection]] in most states and the federal government. Many states that offered hanging as an option have since eliminated the method. Condemned murderer [[Victor Feguer]] became the last inmate to be executed by hanging in the state of [[Iowa]] on 15 March 1963. Hanging was the preferred method of execution for capital murder cases in Iowa until 1965, when the death penalty was abolished and replaced with [[life imprisonment]] without [[parole]]. [[Barton Kay Kirkham]] was the last person to be hanged in Utah, preferring it over [[execution by firing squad]]. Laws in [[Delaware]] were changed in 1986 to specify lethal injection, except for those convicted before 1986 (who were still allowed to choose hanging). If a choice was not made, or the convict refused to choose injection, then hanging would become the default method. This was the case in the 1996 execution of [[Billy Bailey]], the most recent hanging in American history; since then, no Delaware prisoner fit the category, and the state's gallows were later dismantled.

====Upright jerker====
{{Main|Upright jerker}}
The upright jerker is a method of hanging that originated in the United States in the late 19th century. The person to be hanged is jerked into the air by weights and pulleys. It proved to be ineffective at breaking the neck of the condemned, and death by asphyxiation often occurred. In the United States, use of the method ceased in the late 1930s. However, [[Iran]] continues to intermittently employ a variant of this method, using a [[Crane (machine)|crane]] rather than a specially-designed mechanism of pulleys. The method has received heavy criticism from human rights organizations and the European Union.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-12-12 |title=Iran execution: Man publicly hanged from crane amid protests |url=https://apnews.com/article/iran-crime-government-and-politics-da53071412f8c3da9cd51945b7870780 |access-date=2023-11-02 |website=AP News |language=en}}</ref>