The deprivation of a person's life in itself cannot be called a particularly humane act. It is always associated with a panic fear of death, horror of the upcoming suffering, physical torment itself and the very fact of parting with life. At the same time, the death penalty in many countries is still considered an acceptable method of punishment for the most terrible crimes.
The days of the Inquisition, when people tried to invent the most severe punishments as possible, are long gone. Now the authorities of countries where the death penalty is still practiced are trying to use the most humane methods of killing, so that punishment does not turn into cruel torture. There are several more or less humane methods of execution.
Guillotining
The creation of the guillotine was one of the first attempts to make the death penalty as humane and even democratic as possible. Before that, it was practiced to cut off the head with a sword or ax. Only a true master of his craft could quickly and painlessly kill in this way. If the executioner was skillful and perfectly wielded a sword (ax), the condemned would die almost instantly. Such an easy death was considered the prerogative of the nobility. Commoners and inveterate repeat offenders were hanged.
But if desired, even such an "elite" execution as beheading could be turned into torture worse than quartering. This is exactly what happened to Queen Mary Stuart of Scots in 1587. She was executed by an inexperienced executioner, who only with the third blow was able to chop off the head of the royal person. How she suffered all this time, it is even impossible to imagine.
There have been plenty of similar cases in history, so the French physician Joseph Guillotin proposed using a Scottish invention for a quick beheading. Subsequently, it was named in his honor by the guillotine. Since the suicide bomber's head was clearly fixed, and a sharply sharpened blade fell on his neck from a height, death was almost instantaneous. Duration - a few seconds.
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Firing squad
Guillotining was a common practice in many countries until the 1930s. Then it was replaced by firing squad. It is also used in many modern prisons. In the Soviet Union they were shot with one shot in the back of the head. It was carried out from a short distance by an experienced employee, so that a mistake was practically excluded. Death in this case occurred instantly, in a second or two.
Similar to this type of execution was the so-called "devil's wind", which was practiced in 1857-1859 by the British military in India. With the help of the "devil's wind", the white colonialists executed thousands of rebellious sepoys. The Indians were tied with their backs close to the muzzle of the cannon, after which a shot was fired. A person was literally torn apart in a second. The execution was quick, but shameful by Hindu standards: not a single sepoy wanted to appear before God in an indecent form.
Fictitiously humane
For a long time, execution by electric chair and lethal injection were considered humane. These 2 types of capital punishment are still practiced in some states of the United States and several other countries. But they only seem humane to an uninitiated person.
In fact, execution by electric chair can only ideally last 0.5 minutes, as it is "prescribed" by the regulations. Some unfortunate people do not die immediately, so a current of 2700 V has to be passed through their body several times. During these painful minutes, a person's eyes crawl out of their orbits and the brain literally fuses.
The same is the case with lethal injection. The sentenced person is injected with a "cocktail" of three drugs: sodium thiopental, pavulone and potassium chloride. The first acts as a sedative. The other two paralyze breathing and stop the heart. For a long time it was believed that this is the most painless method of execution. In reality, however, the dosage of drugs was often violated, which led to the terrible agony of death row. So both types of execution cannot be considered humane.