US3 min(s) read
Horrific reason that electric chair victims wear blindfolds
Throughout history, electrocutions have shown prisoners' eyes covered as currents of electricity torpedo through them, but this happens for reasons outside of the obvious.
Death row criminals sit in their cells for weeks, months, and years as they await their fate.
Depending on the state they live in, their sentence could end with lethal injection, which is facing major controversy right now because of the failed attempt to kill Christa Pike on September 30.
Or, it could be death by firing squad, or via the electric chair.
Hanging was once a favored method around the world, but that was thrown out in 1996, per The New York Times.
While none of them seem like the best option, electrocution has been chosen by prisoners in the past, and it is supposed to be a humane way to die.
.jpg_ZZfxDb?tr=f-webp,q-70,w-1024)
But when you look back through films, TV shows, drawings, stories and historical documents, there’s something that stands out during the executions that make it look that much torturous.
It’s the blindfold.
Social media has been rife with theories about the reason for this in the last decade, and mostly, forums on Reddit or users on X believe it’s due to a scary ‘eye popping’ situation.
However, while that has been known to actually happen in electrocution situations, per the Death Penalty Information Center, that’s not the reason for the coverings.
According to The Fortress’s YouTube video on the topic, ‘prisoners were strapped tightly into the wooden chair, electrodes were attached to their bodies, and powerful electrical currents were passed through them’ before their eyes or faces were covered in an attempt to do a number of things.
- Protect their dignity in their final moment
- Stop witnesses from seeing the involuntary expressions on their faces
- Prevents the prisoner from having to see the execution team setting up
It also creates ‘a degree of separation between the condemned prisoner and the witnesses,’ explained the video.
Online, people have reacted to the reasoning, with one person stating: “Most executed people have a mask over their face. Can you imagine the expressions a person makes when they are executed.”
Another said: “The electric chair is super scary and a dreadful way to die — that's what makes it so valuable as a deterrent!”
Someone else wrote: “Long drop hanging is the most humane. I don’t understand why these things have to be made more complicated.”
Similarly, the hood or blindfold is also used when dying by firing squad, and for what appears to be reasons in that nature.
Per Death and Violence: “The hood depersonalizes and thus sanitizes the gruesome spectacle of public execution and torture by shielding the audience and executioners from the pain, fear, possible defiance, and humanity revealed on the prisoner’s face.”
.webp_SmgFsc?tr=cr-292.0.1244.952,f-webp,q-70,w-100)
.jpg_I4Ebof?tr=cr-0.338.2730.3068,f-webp,q-70,w-100)
.webp_SmgFsc?tr=cr-292.0.1244.952,f-webp,q-70,w-1024)
.jpg_I4Ebof?tr=cr-0.338.2730.3068,f-webp,q-70,w-1024)
