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The electric chair is a specialized device used for capital punishment through electrocution. The condemned is strapped to a custom wooden chair and electrocuted via attached to the head and leg. Alfred P. Southwick, a Buffalo, New York dentist, conceived this execution method in 1881. It was developed over the next decade as a more humane alternative to conventional executions, particularly hanging. First used in 1890, the electric chair became a symbol of capital punishment in the United States.
The electric chair was also used extensively in the Philippines. It was initially thought to cause death through cerebral damage, but it was scientifically established in 1899 that death primarily results from ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest. Originally a common method of capital punishment in America, its use has declined with the adoption of lethal injection which was perceived as more humane. While some states retain electrocution as a legal execution method, it is often a secondary option based on the condemned's preference. Exceptions include South Carolina, where it is the primary method, and Louisiana, where the corrections secretary chooses the execution method, and Tennessee, where it can be used without prisoner input if lethal injection drugs are unavailable.
As of 2025, electrocution remains an option in states like Alabama, South Carolina and Florida, where inmates may choose lethal injection instead. Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee offer the electric chair to those sentenced before a certain date. Inmates not selecting this method or convicted after the specified date face lethal injection. Arkansas currently has no death row inmates sentenced before their select date. These three states also authorize electrocution as an alternative if lethal injection is deemed unavailable.
The electric chair remains an accepted alternative in Mississippi, and Oklahoma if other execution methods are ruled unconstitutional at the time of execution. A significant shift occurred on February 8, 2008, when the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled electric chair execution as "cruel and unusual punishment" under the state constitution. This decision ended electric chair executions in Nebraska, the last state to rely solely on this method.
Southwick joined physician George 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. 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.
In 1888, the Commission recommended electrocution using Southwick's electric chair idea with metal conductors attached to the condemned person's head and feet. They further recommended that executions be handled by the state instead of the individual counties with three electric chairs set up at Auburn, 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.
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.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 – 28Mark Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death, Bloomsbury Publishing USA – 2009, pages 225 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) tried to obtain a Westinghouse AC generator for the test but found none could be acquired. 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. 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. 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. The electric chair was built by Edwin F. Davis, the first "state electrician" (executioner) for the State of New York.Stuart Banner, The Death Penalty: an American history, Harvard University Press – 2009, pages 194–195
We have no doubt that if the Legislature of this State should undertake to proscribe for any offense against its laws the punishment of burning at the stake, Breaking 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.Justice Dwight, quoted in "Electric Executions", Lawrence Daily Record, Jan. 1, 1890; pg. 1.
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",AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War; By Tom McNichol and The New York Times ran the headline: "Far worse than hanging".
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.
Leon Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair at New York's Auburn Prison on October 29, 1901, for the 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 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.Time-Life Books, 1969, p. 185
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.
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. 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.
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.
The most recent execution by electric chair was of Nicholas Todd Sutton on February 20, 2020, in Tennessee.
Various cycles (changes in voltage and duration) of alternating current are passed through the individual's body in order to cause lethal damage to the internal organs. The first, more powerful electric shock (between 2,000 and 2,500 volts) is intended to cause immediate unconsciousness, ventricular fibrillation, and eventual cardiac arrest. The second, less powerful electric shock (500–1,500 volts) is intended to cause lethal damage to the vital organs.
After the cycles are completed, a doctor checks the inmate for any signs of life. If none are present, the doctor reports and records the time of death, and prison officials will wait for the body to cool down before removing it to prepare for autopsy. If the inmate exhibits signs of life, the doctor notifies the warden, who usually will order another round of electric current or (rarely) postpone the execution such as with Willie Francis.
In 1946, the electric chair failed to kill Willie Francis, who reportedly shrieked, "Take it off! Let me breathe!", after the current was applied. It turned out that the portable electric chair had been improperly set up by an intoxicated prison guard and inmate. A case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court (Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber),U.S. Supreme Court case, 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 United States Constitution, and Francis was returned to the electric chair and executed in 1947.
Florida saw three highly controversial botched electrocutions in the 1990s, starting with the 1990 execution of Jesse Tafero. His case generated significant controversy, as with the first administration of electricity, Tafero's face and head caught fire. Tafero's execution ultimately required three shocks over the course of seven minutes. The error was blamed on prison officials replacing Florida's old natural sea sponge with a kitchen sponge. The 1997 execution of Pedro Medina in Florida created controversy when flames burst from his head. An autopsy found that Medina had died instantly when the first surge of electricity had destroyed his brain and brain stem. A judge ruled that the incident arose from "unintentional human error" rather than any faults in the "apparatus, equipment, and electrical circuitry" of Florida's electric chair. In 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 were taken, which were later posted on the Internet. An investigation concluded that Davis had begun bleeding before the electricity was applied and that the chair had functioned as intended. Florida's Supreme Court ruled that the electric chair did not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment".
As of 2024, the only places that still reserve the electric chair as an option for execution are the U.S. states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee. Electrocution is also authorized in Florida if lethal injection is found unconstitutional. Mississippi and Oklahoma laws provide for its use should lethal injection ever be held to be unconstitutional. Inmates in the other states must select either it or lethal injection. In Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee, inmates sentenced before a certain date can choose to be executed by electric chair. Arkansas currently doesn't have any death row inmates sentenced before their select date. Electrocution is also authorized in the three aforementioned states in case lethal injection is found unconstitutional by a court. In May 2014, Tennessee passed a law allowing the use of the electric chair if lethal injection drugs were unavailable.
Indiana's electric chair, nicknamed "Old Betsy", was replaced in 1995 with lethal injection as the state's sole execution method, making Gregory Resnover, who was executed for the murder of a police officer on December 8, 1994, the last prisoner to die on the electric chair in Indiana.
On February 15, 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court declared execution by electrocution to be "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Nebraska Constitution.
The last judicial electrocution in the U.S. prior to Furman v. Georgia took place in Oklahoma in 1966. The electric chair was used quite frequently in post- Gregg v Georgia executions during the 1980s, but its use in the United States gradually declined in the 1990s due to the widespread adoption of lethal injection. A number of states still allow the condemned person to choose between electrocution and lethal injection, with the most recent U.S. electrocution, of Nicholas Todd Sutton, taking place in February 2020 in Tennessee.
In 2021, South Carolina's governor Henry McMaster passed a law making electrocution the primary form of execution, with the options of lethal injection or a firing squad being available if the condemned requests it within 14 and 28 days of his execution. In 2022, a judge in Richland County, declared that the firing squad and electrocution were both in violation of the South Carolina State Constitution, which bans methods that are "cruel, unusual, or corporal." The court, in their decision, stated that there was no evidence that electrocution could instantaneously or painlessly kill an inmate, writing that the idea of the electric chair inducing instant unconsciousness was based on "underlying assumptions upon which the electric chair is based, dating back to the 1800s, that have since been disproven." The decision also called electrocution "inconsistent with both the concepts of evolving standards of decency and the dignity of man", and stated, "Even if an inmate survived only fifteen or thirty seconds, he would suffer the experience of being burned alive—a punishment that has 'long been recognized as manifestly cruel and unusual.'" The ruling led to a permanent injunction being issued against both methods of execution, preventing the state from subjecting death row inmates to death by firing squad or electrocution. In July 2024, the Supreme Court of South Carolina ruled that electrocution and firing squad was legal.
On March 5, 2024, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a law reintroducing electrocution and also allowing executions to be carried out via nitrogen gas.
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