Electric chair

The first electric chair, which was used to execute William Kemmler in 1890

The electric chair is an execution method in which the person being killed is strapped to a chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body. This execution method is used mostly in the United States of America and has become a symbol of the death penalty there, although its use is now in decline, with Nebraska the last state using solely this method.

History

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Electric chair history and laws in the United States
Color key: ██ Only electric chair ██ Secondary method only ██ Once used electric chair, but does not today ██ Has never used electric chair (includes Alaska and Hawaii)

Alfred P. Southwick developed the idea of using electric current as a method of execution after having witnessed an intoxicated man die after having touched an exposed terminal on a live generator.

The first practical electric chair was made by Harold P. Brown. Brown was an employee of Thomas Edison, hired for the purpose of researching electrocution and for the development of the electric chair. Since Brown worked for Edison, and Edison promoted Brown's work, the development of the electric chair is often erroneously credited to Edison himself. Brown's design was based on George Westinghouse's alternating current (AC), which was then just emerging as the rival to Edison's less transport-efficient direct current (DC), which was further along in commercial development. The decision to use AC was entirely driven by Edison's attempt to claim that AC was more lethal than DC. Edison proposed that the process of execution by electricity be called not "electrocution," but "Westinghousing."

In 1886 New York State established a committee to determine a new, more humane system of execution to replace hanging. Neither Edison nor Westinghouse as part of the War of Currents wanted their electrical system to be chosen because they feared that consumers would not want in their homes the same type of electricity used to kill criminals.

In order to prove that AC electricity was dangerous and therefore better for executions, Brown and Edison, who promoted DC electricity, publicly killed many animals with AC. They held executions of animals for the press in order to ensure that AC current was associated with electrocution. It was at these events that the term "electrocution" was coined. Edison introduced the verb "to westinghouse" for denoting the art of executing persons with AC current. Most of their experiments were conducted at Edison's West Orange, New Jersey, laboratory in 1888.

The demonstrations apparently had their intended effects, and the AC electric chair was adopted by the committee in 1889. The first person to be executed via the electric chair was William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the 'state electrician' was Edwin Davis. The Westinghouse company refused to sell an AC generator for the purpose of execution, so Edison and Brown used subterfuge in order to acquire the AC generator. They pretended that the Westinghouse AC generator was for use in a university.

The first woman to be executed in the electric chair was Martha M. Place, executed at Sing Sing Prison on March 20, 1899. It was adopted by Ohio (1897), Massachusetts (1900), New Jersey (1906) and Virginia (1908), and soon became the prevalent method of execution in the U.S., replacing hanging. It remained so until the mid-1980s, when lethal injection became widely accepted as an easier method for conducting judicial executions.

In 1900, Charles Justice was a prison inmate at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. While performing cleaning detail duties in the death chamber, he devised an idea to improve the efficiency of the restraints on the electric chair. Justice designed metal clamps to replace the leather straps, thus allowing for the inmate to be secured more tautly and minimize the problem of burnt flesh. These revisions were incorporated into the chair and Justice was subsequently paroled from prison. Ironically, he was convicted in a robbery/murder and returned to prison 13 years later under a death sentence. On November 9, 1911, he died in the same electric chair that he had helped to improve.

A record was set on July 13, 1928 when seven men were executed, one after another, in the electric chair at Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville. In 1942, six Germans convicted of espionage in the Quirin Case were put to death in the District of Columbia jail electric chair.

On May 25, 1979, John Arthur Spenkelink became the first electrocuted person after the Gregg v. Georgia decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in U.S. in 1976. He was the first person to be executed in this manner since 1966.

A number of states still allow the condemned person to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. In all, seven inmates nationwide, 4 in Virginia, 2 in South Carolina and 1 in Arkansas have opted for electrocution over lethal injection. The last use of the chair (as of 2006) was on July 20, 2006, when Brandon Hedrick was electrocuted in Virginia. He elected this method. Before that, it had not been used since May 2004, when James Neil Tucker was electrocuted in South Carolina. He refused to elect his execution method.

Method

The head and legs of the condemned person are shaved and the prisoner is strapped into the chair. A moist sponge is placed on the head to aid conductivity. One electrode is attached to the head and a second attached to the leg to provide a closed circuit. At least two jolts of an electrical current are applied with the time and current depending on the physical state of the condemed person. Typically an initial voltage of around 2,000 volts is applied for up to 15 seconds to attempt both to induce unconsciousness and to stop the heart. The voltage is then lowered to reduce current flow to approximately 8 amps. The body of the person may heat up to approximately 138°F (59°C), and the electric current will generally cause severe damage to internal organs.

In theory, unconsciousness occurs in a fraction of a second. However, there are multiple reports of things going wrong during the process. There have been incidents of a person's head on fire; of burning transformers, and of a chair breaking down after the initial jolt and letting the condemned wait in pain on the floor of the execution room while the chair was fixed. In 1946, the electric chair failed to execute Willie Francis, who reportedly shrieked "Stop it! Let me breathe!" as he was being executed. It turned out that the portable electric chair had been improperly set up by an intoxicated trustee. A case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court (Francis v. Resweber), with lawyers for the condemned arguing that although Francis did not die, he had, in fact, been executed. The argument was rejected on the basis that re-execution did not violate the double jeopardy clause of the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution, and Francis was returned to the electric chair and successfully executed the following year.

Regardless of how the execution is performed, cleaning up afterwards is unpleasant. Skin is inevitably burned and prison workers have to separate the burnt skin from the seat belts. The initial flow of electric current may cause the person to lose control over many bodily functions, including muscle movement, urination and defecation. To mitigate this, alterations to modern electric chairs include padding and inertia style retractable seat belts.

Notable executions by electrocution

• William Kemmler (1890, New York, first electrocution ever)
• Martha M. Place (1899 New York, first woman put to death by chair)
• Leon Czolgosz (1901, New York)
• Chester Gilette (1908, New York)
• Arthur Hodges (1914, Arkansas)
• Sacco and Vanzetti (1927, Massachusetts)
• Ruth Snyder (1928, New York)
• Giuseppe Zangara (1933, Florida)
• Albert Fish (1936, New York)
• Bruno Hauptmann (1936, New Jersey)
• Anna Marie Hahn (1938, Ohio)
• Herman and Paul Petrillo (1941, Pennsylvania)
• Nazi agents (1942, Washington, D.C.)
• Louis Lepke (1944, New York)
• Willie Francis (1947, Louisiana, see: Francis v. Resweber)
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1953, New York)
• Rhonda Belle Martin (1957, Alabama, last woman executed by this manner in pre-Furman period, see: Furman v. Georgia)
• Charles Starkweather (1959, Nebraska)
• James French (1966, Oklahoma, last pre-Furman execution via electric chair)
• John Spenkelink (1979, Florida, first post-Furman electrocution)
• John Louis Evans (1983, Alabama)
• Ted Bundy (1989, Florida)
• Pedro Medina (1997, Florida)
• Judias V. Buenoano (1998, Florida, first post-"Furman" electrocution of a woman )
• Allen Lee Davis (1999, Florida)
• Earl Conrad Bramblett (2003, Virginia)
• James Neil Tucker (2004, South Carolina)
• Brandon Hedrick (2006, Virginia)

Electric Chair Today

It is currently an optional form of execution in the U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Virginia, and the sole method of execution in Nebraska (the former four states allow the prisoner to choose lethal injection as an alternative method). In the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, the electric chair has been retired except for those whose capital crimes were committed prior to legislated dates in 1998. [Kentucky 31 March 1998, Tennessee 31 December 1998]. In both Kentucky and Tennessee, the method of execution authorized for crimes committed after these dates is lethal injection. The electric chair is an alternate form of execution approved for potential use in Illinois and Oklahoma if other forms of execution are found unconstitutional in the state at the time of execution. In Florida, the condemned may choose death by electrocution, but the default is lethal injection.

In the United States, most death sentences handed down are the result of persons being convicted of a statutory capital offense (i.e., an offense violating the laws of a particular U.S. state and punishable in that state by death). For such statutory capital offenses, state legislatures are the authorizing bodies for death penalty allowance and any approved death penalty methods.

The electric chair was first used in 1890. It was used by more than 25 states throughout the 20th century, acquiring nicknames such as Sizzlin' Sally, Old Smokey, Old Sparky, Yellow Mama, and Gruesome Gertie. From 1924 to 1976, the electric chair was used as method of capital punishment in the Philippines. In the late 20th century, the electric chair was removed as a form of execution in many U.S. states, and its use in the 21st century is very infrequent.

Decline

The use of the electric chair has declined as legislators sought what they believed to be more humane methods of execution. Lethal injection became the most popular method, helped by newspaper accounts of botched electrocutions in the early 1980s.

In the state of Florida, on July 8 1999, Allen Lee Davis convicted of murder was executed in the Florida electric chair "Old Sparky." Davis' face was bloodied and photographs taken, which were later posted on the internet. The 1997 execution of Pedro Medina created controversy when flames burst from the inmate's head. Lethal injection is now, as of 2006, the primary method of execution in the state of Florida.

The electric chair has also been criticized because of several instances in which the subjects were not instantly killed, but had to be subjected to multiple electric shocks. This led to a call for ending of the practice because many see it as cruel and unusual punishment. Trying to address such concerns, Nebraska's new electrocution protocol calls for administration of a 15-second-long jolt of 2,450 volts of electricity; after a 15-minute wait, a coroner then checks for signs of life (previously, an initial eight-second jolt of 2,450 volts was administered, followed by a one-second pause, then a 22-second jolt at 480 volts. After a 20-second break, the cycle was repeated three more times).

External links

• Instruction manual for an electric chair purchased by the state of Tennessee Retrieved April 21, 2007.
• History of the electric chair Retrieved April 21, 2007.
• Another electric chair history from "Before the Needles." Includes photos of almost all the chairs Retrieved April 21, 2007.

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