Editing Electric chair (section)

== Background ==
===Invention===
In the late 1870s to early 1880s, the spread of [[Arc lamp|arc lighting]], a type of outdoor street lighting that required high voltages in the range of 3000–6000 volts, was followed by one story after another in newspapers about how the high voltages used were killing people, usually unwary linemen; it was a strange new phenomenon that seemed to instantaneously strike a victim dead without leaving a mark.<ref>Randall E. Stross, The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World, Crown/Archetype – 2007, page 171–173</ref> One of these accidents, in Buffalo, New York, on August 7, 1881, led to the inception of the electric chair.<ref name="Brandon The Electric Chair page 12">Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 12</ref> That evening a drunken dock worker named George Lemuel Smith, looking for the thrill of a tingling sensation he had noticed when grabbing the [[guard rail]] in a [[Brush Electrical Machines|Brush Electric Company]] arc lighting power house, managed to sneak his way back into the plant at night and grabbed the [[Brush (electric)|brush]] and [[Ground (electricity)|ground]] of a large electric dynamo.<ref>Mike Winchell, The Electric War: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Light the World, Henry Holt and Company – 2019, page 10</ref> He died instantly. The coroner who investigated the case brought it up that year at a local Buffalo scientific society. Another member attending that lecture, [[Alfred P. Southwick]], a dentist who had a technical background, thought some application could be found for the curious phenomenon.<ref>Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 14</ref>

Southwick joined physician [[George Fell|George E. Fell]] and the head of the Buffalo ASPCA in a series of experiments electrocuting hundreds of stray dogs. They ran trials with the dog in water and out of water, and varied the electrode type and placement until they came up with a repeatable method to euthanize animals using electricity.<ref>Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 21</ref> Southwick went on in the early 1880s to advocate that this method be used as a more humane replacement for hanging in capital cases, coming to national attention when he published his ideas in scientific journals in 1882 and 1883. He worked out calculations based on the dog experiments, trying to develop a scaled-up method that would work on humans. Early on in his designs he adopted a modified version of the dental chair as a way to restrain the condemned, a device that from then on would be called the ''electric chair''.<ref>Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 24</ref>

====Gerry Commission====
After a series of botched hangings in the United States, there was mounting criticism of that form of [[capital punishment]] and the death penalty in general. In 1886, newly elected New York State governor [[David B. Hill]] set up a three-member death penalty commission, which was chaired by the human rights advocate and reformer [[Elbridge Thomas Gerry]] and included New York lawyer and politician [[Matthew Hale (New York politician)|Matthew Hale]] and Southwick, to investigate a more humane means of execution.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-2001919|title=Southwick, Alfred Porter (1826–1898), mechanic, dentist, and proponent of the electric chair as a means of administering the death penalty|website=American National Biography|year=2009|doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.2001919|isbn=978-0-19-860669-7|last1=Marc|first1=David}}</ref><ref>Richard Moran, Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – 2007, page 74</ref>

[[File:EXECUTION BY ELECTRICITY electric chair illustration Scientific American Volumes 58-59 June 30 1888.png|thumbnail|left|A June 30, 1888, ''[[Scientific American]]'' illustration of what the ''electric chair'' suggested by the Gerry Commission might look like.]]
The commission members surveyed the history of execution and sent out a [[Trier of fact|fact-finding]] questionnaire to government officials, lawyers, and medical experts all around the state asking for their opinion.<ref>Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, page 54</ref> A slight majority of respondents recommended hanging over electrocution, with a few instead recommending the abolition of capital punishment. The commission also contacted electrical experts, including [[Thomson-Houston Electric Company]]'s [[Elihu Thomson]] (who recommended high voltage AC connected to the head and the spine) and the inventor [[Thomas Edison]] (who also recommended AC, as well as using a [[Westinghouse Electric Corporation|Westinghouse]] generator).<ref name="autogenerated30">Anthony Galvin, Old Sparky: The Electric Chair and the History of the Death Penalty, Skyhorse Publishing – 2015, pages 30–45</ref><ref>Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, pages 57–58</ref><ref>Jill Jonnes, Empires Of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The World, Random House – 2004, page 420</ref> They also attended electrocutions of dogs by George Fell who had worked with Southwick in the early 1880s experiments. Fell was conducting further experiments, electrocuting anesthetized [[vivisected]] dogs trying to discern exactly how electricity killed a subject.<ref name="autogenerated4">Richard Moran, Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – 2007, page 4</ref><ref name="autogenerated30" />

In 1888, the Commission recommended electrocution using Southwick's electric chair idea with metal conductors attached to the condemned person's head and feet.<ref name="Brandon The Electric Chair page 12"/> They further recommended that executions be handled by the state instead of the individual counties with three electric chairs set up at [[Auburn Correctional Facility|Auburn]], [[Clinton Correctional Facility|Clinton]], and [[Sing Sing]] prisons. A bill following these recommendations passed the legislature and was signed by Governor Hill on June 4, 1888, set to go into effect on January 1, 1889.

====New York Medico-Legal Commission====
The bill itself contained no details on the type or amount of electricity that should be used and the New York Medico-Legal Society, an informal society composed of doctors and lawyers, was given the task of determining these factors. In September 1888, a committee was formed and recommended 3000 volts, although the type of electricity, [[direct current]] (DC) or [[alternating current]] (AC), was not determined, and since tests up to that point had been done on animals smaller than a human (dogs), some members were unsure that the lethality of AC had been conclusively proven.<ref name="Richard Moran 2007, page 102">Richard Moran, Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – 2007, page 102</ref>
[[File:Harold Pitney Brown edison electrocute horse 1888 New York Medico-Legal Journal vol 6 issue 4.png|thumbnail|Harold Brown demonstrating the killing power of AC to the New York Medico-Legal Society by electrocuting a horse at Thomas Edison's West Orange laboratory.]]
At this point, the state's efforts to design the electric chair became intermixed with what has come to be known as the [[war of the currents]], a competition between [[Thomas Edison]]'s direct current power system and [[George Westinghouse]]'s alternating current based system. The two companies had been competing commercially since 1886 and a series of events had turned it into an all-out media war in 1888. The committee head, [[Neurology|neurologist]] [[Frederick Peterson]], enlisted the services of [[Harold P. Brown]] as a consultant. Brown had been on his own crusade against alternating current after the shoddy installation of pole-mounted AC arc lighting lines in New York City had caused several deaths in early 1888. Peterson had been an assistant at Brown's July 1888 public electrocution of dogs with AC at Columbia College, an attempt by Brown to prove AC was more deadly than DC.<ref name="Richard Moran 2007, page 102" /> Technical assistance in these demonstrations was provided by Thomas Edison's West Orange laboratory and there grew to be some form of collusion between Edison Electric and Brown.<ref>Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, McFarland – 1999, pages 70 and 261</ref><ref>Jill Jonnes, Empires Of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The World, Random House – 2004, page 166</ref><ref name="W. Bernard Carlson 2003, page 285">W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, Cambridge University Press – 2003, page 285</ref> Back at West Orange on December 5, 1888, Brown set up an experiment with members of the press, members of the Medico-Legal Society including Elbridge Gerry who was also chairman of the death penalty commission, and Thomas Edison looking on. Brown used alternating current for all of his tests on animals larger than a human, including 4 calves and a lame horse, all dispatched with 750 volts of AC.<ref>Mark Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death, Bloomsbury Publishing USA – 2009, pages 152–155</ref> Based on these results the Medico-Legal Society recommended the use of 1000–1500 volts of alternating current for executions and newspapers noted the AC used was half the voltage used in the power lines over the streets of American cities. Westinghouse criticized these tests as a skewed self-serving demonstration designed to be a direct attack on alternating current and accused Brown of being in the employ of Edison.<ref>Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 82</ref>

At the request of death penalty commission chairman Gerry, Medico-Legal Society members; [[electrotherapy]] expert Alphonse David Rockwell, [[Carlos Frederick MacDonald]], and Columbia College professor Louis H. Laudy, were given the task of working out the details of electrode placement.<ref name="Terry S. Reynolds 1989, pages 19-28">Terry S. Reynolds, Theodore Bernstein, Edison and "The Chair", Technology and Society Magazine, [[Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]] (Volume 8, Issue 1) March 1989, pages 19 – 28</ref><ref>Mark Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death, Bloomsbury Publishing USA – 2009, pages 225</ref> They again turned to Brown to supply the technical assistance. Brown asked Edison Electric Light to supply equipment for the tests and treasurer Francis S. Hastings (who seemed to be one of the primary movers at the company trying to portray Westinghouse as a peddler of death dealing AC current<ref name="W. Bernard Carlson 2003, page 285" />) tried to obtain a Westinghouse AC generator for the test but found none could be acquired.<ref name="Terry S. Reynolds 1989, pages 19-28" /> They ended up using Edison's West Orange laboratory for the animal tests they conducted in mid-March 1889. Superintendent of Prisons [[Austin E. Lathrop]] asked Brown to design the chair, but Brown turned down the offer.<ref name="Terry S. Reynolds 1989, pages 19-28" /> [[George Fell]] drew up the final designs for a simple oak chair and went against the Medico-Legal Society recommendations, changing the position of the electrodes to the head and the middle of the back.<ref name="autogenerated4" /> Brown did take on the job of finding the generators needed to power the chair. He managed to surreptitiously acquire three Westinghouse AC generators that were being decommissioned with the help of Edison and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the [[Thomson-Houston Electric Company]], a move that made sure that Westinghouse's equipment would be associated with the first execution.<ref name="books.google.com">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1EOgAwAAQBAJ&q=harold+brown++%22edison+and+Thomson-Houston%22&pg=PA195|title=Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death|first=Mark|last=Essig|date=October 1, 2005|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|isbn=9780802777102|via=Google Books}}</ref> The electric chair was built by [[Edwin Davis (executioner)|Edwin F. Davis]], the first "[[state electrician]]" ([[executioner]]) for the State of New York.<ref>Stuart Banner, The Death Penalty: an American history, Harvard University Press – 2009, pages 194–195</ref>

===First execution===
[[File:Kemmler exécuté par l'électricité.jpg|thumb|The execution of [[William Kemmler]], August 6, 1890]]
The first person in line to die under New York's new electrocution law was Joseph Chapleau, convicted for beating his neighbor to death with a sled stake, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.<ref>Carl Sifakis, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, Infobase Publishing – 2014, page 39</ref> The next person scheduled to be executed was [[William Kemmler]], convicted of murdering his wife with a hatchet. An appeal on Kemmler's behalf was made to the [[New York Court of Appeals]] on the grounds that use of electricity as a means of execution constituted a "[[cruel and unusual punishment]]" and was thus contrary to the constitutions of the United States and the state of New York.<ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=ix4AEQmNN7wC&dat=18900101&printsec=frontpage&hl=en "Electric Executions: The New York Court of Appeals Passes on the Question: The Famous Kemmler Case Decided"], ''Lawrence Daily Record,'' Jan. 1, 1890, pg. 1.</ref> On December 30, 1889, the writ of ''[[habeas corpus]]'' sworn out on Kemmler's behalf was denied by the court, with Judge Dwight writing in a lengthy ruling:

<blockquote>We have no doubt that if the Legislature of this State should undertake to proscribe for any offense against its laws the punishment of [[Death by burning|burning at the stake]], [[Breaking wheel|breaking at the wheel]], etc., it would be the duty of the courts to pronounce upon such attempt the condemnation of the Constitution. The question now to be answered is whether the legislative act here assailed is subject to the same condemnation. Certainly, it is not so on its face, for, although the mode of death described is conceded to be unusual, there is no common knowledge or consent that it is cruel; it is a question of fact whether an electric current of sufficient intensity and skillfully applied will produce death without unnecessary suffering.<ref>Justice Dwight, quoted in "Electric Executions", ''Lawrence Daily Record,'' Jan. 1, 1890; pg. 1.</ref></blockquote>

Kemmler was executed in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the "state electrician" was Edwin  Davis. The first 17-second passage of 1,000 volts AC through Kemmler caused unconsciousness, but failed to stop his heart and breathing. The attending physicians, [[Edward Charles Spitzka]] and [[Carlos Frederick MacDonald]], came forward to examine Kemmler. After confirming Kemmler was still alive, Spitzka reportedly called out, "Have the current turned on again, quick, no delay." The generator needed time to re-charge, however. In the second attempt, Kemmler received a 2,000 volt AC shock. Blood vessels under the skin ruptured and bled, and the areas around the electrodes singed; some witnesses reported that his body caught fire. The entire execution took about eight minutes. George Westinghouse later commented that, "They would have done better using an axe",<ref>AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War; By Tom McNichol</ref> and ''[[The New York Times]]'' ran the headline: "Far worse than hanging".<ref>{{cite news |title=Far Worse Than Hanging |newspaper=The New York Times |date=August 7, 1890 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1890/08/07/103256332.pdf |access-date=November 12, 2022 |archive-date=May 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200503014728/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1890/08/07/103256332.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Adoption===
The electric chair was adopted by Ohio (1897), Massachusetts (1900), New Jersey (1906), and Virginia (1908), and soon became the prevalent method of execution in the United States, replacing hanging. Twenty-six states, the District of Columbia, the federal government, and the U.S. military either had death by electrocution on the books or actively executed criminals using the method. The electric chair remained the most prominent execution method until the early 1990s, was downgraded to a backup method that an inmate could choose in several states, but was rarely used.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/electrocution|title=Electrocution|website=www.britannica.com|access-date=2025-01-04}}</ref>

Other countries appear to have contemplated using the method, sometimes for special reasons. The [[Philippines]] also adopted the electric chair from 1926 to 1987.  A well-publicized triple execution took place there in May 1972, when Jaime Jose, Basilio Pineda, and Edgardo Aquino were electrocuted for the 1967 abduction and gang-rape of the young actress [[Maggie de la Riva]]. The last electric chair execution in the Philippines was in 1976 and was later replaced with lethal injection when executions resumed in that country.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

===Key events in the United States===
[[File:RedHatsExecutionChamber.jpg|thumb|The former [[State of Louisiana|Louisiana]] execution chamber at the [[Red Hat Cell Block]] in the [[Louisiana State Penitentiary]], [[West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana|West Feliciana Parish]]. The electric chair is a replica of [[Gruesome Gertie|the original]].]]

[[Martha M. Place]] became the first woman executed in the electric chair at [[Sing Sing|Sing Sing Prison]] on March 20, 1899, for the murder of her 17-year-old stepdaughter, Ida Place.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/March/First-Woman-is-Executed-by-Electric-Chair.html |title=On This Day: First Woman Executed by Electric Chair |publisher=Findingdulcinea.com |access-date=2014-02-11 |archive-date=2012-09-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120911140301/http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/March/First-Woman-is-Executed-by-Electric-Chair.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
[[Leon Czolgosz]] was executed in the electric chair at New York's Auburn Prison on October 29, 1901, for the [[Assassination of William McKinley|assassination of then-President William McKinley]].

The first photograph of an execution by electric chair was of housewife [[Ruth Snyder]] at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband. It was photographed for a front-page story in the ''[[New York Daily News]]'' the following morning by news photographer [[Tom Howard (photographer)|Tom Howard]] who had smuggled a camera into the death chamber and photographed her in the electric chair as the current was turned on. It remains one of the best-known examples of [[photojournalism]].<ref>Time-Life Books, 1969, p. 185</ref>

A record was set on July 13, 1928, when seven men were executed consecutively in the electric chair at the [[Kentucky State Penitentiary]] in [[Eddyville, Kentucky|Eddyville]], Kentucky.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/kentucky |title=Kentucky: Other Interesting Facts |website=deathpenaltyinfo.org |access-date=May 2, 2021}}</ref>

On June 16, 1944, an African-American teenager, 14-year-old [[George Stinney]], became the youngest person ever executed in the electric chair when he was electrocuted at the [[Central Correctional Institution]] in [[Columbia, South Carolina|Columbia]], South Carolina. His conviction was overturned in 2014 after a circuit court judge vacated his sentence on the grounds that Stinney did not receive a fair trial. The judge determined that Stinney's legal counsel was inadequate, thus violating his rights under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jones |first=Mark R. |title=South Carolina Killers: Crimes of Passion |url=https://archive.org/details/southcarolinakil00jone |url-access=registration |access-date=November 24, 2014 |year=2007 |publisher=[[The History Press]] |isbn=978-1-59629-395-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/southcarolinakil00jone/page/38 38]–42 |chapter=Chapter Five: ''Too Young to Die: The Execution of George Stinney Jr.'' (1944)}}</ref>

On May 3, 1946, an African-American teenager named [[Willie Francis]] became the first person known to have survived the electric chair in the [[Louisiana State Penitentiary]] in [[West Feliciana Parish]], Louisiana. His appeals to the death penalty failed, and was executed again on May 9, 1947, at age 18. His trial has claimed to be unfair, which the trial also violated his Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights to the U.S. Constitution.

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

The last person to be executed by electric chair without the choice of an alternative method was [[Lynda Lyon Block]] on May 10, 2002, in Alabama.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/block775.htm|title=Lynda Lyon Block #775|website=www.clarkprosecutor.org|access-date=2017-01-05}}</ref>

The most recent execution by electric chair was of [[Nicholas Todd Sutton]] on February 20, 2020, in Tennessee.