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[[Leon Czolgosz]] was electrocuted at the [[Auburn Correctional Facility|Auburn State Prison]] in [[New York (state)|New York]] on October 29, 1901 for the [[Assassination of William McKinley|assassination]] of [[President of the United States|President]] [[William McKinley]].
[[Leon Czolgosz]] was electrocuted at the [[Auburn Correctional Facility|Auburn State Prison]] in [[New York (state)|New York]] on October 29, 1901 for the [[Assassination of William McKinley|assassination]] of [[President of the United States|President]] [[William McKinley]].


In a botched execution at [[Clinton Prison]] in [[Dannemora (village), New York|Dannemora]], New York, on October 1, 1903, three brothers – Willis, Frederick, and Burton Van Wormer, condemned for murdering their uncle on December 24, 1901 – were electrocuted one after the other over the course of about 15 minutes and pronounced dead.<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer>[http://www.executedtoday.com/2011/10/01/1903-willis-frederick-and-burton-van-wormer/ Anonymous, "1903: Willis, Frederick, and Burton van Wormer," executedtoday.com, October 1, 2011 Retrieved April 4, 2019]</ref> After their bodies were laid out in the prison′s [[autopsy]] room, however, Frederick′s body was seen to move, and the prison doctor determined that his heart was still beating.<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer/> He was returned to the electric chair<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer/> and the executioner, who had gone home, was called back to re-electrocute him,{{Citation needed|date=July 2018}} but he died before any more shocks could be administered.<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer/>
In a botched execution at [[Clinton Prison]] in [[Dannemora (village), New York|Dannemora]], New York, on October 1, 1903, three brothers – Willis, Frederick, and Burton Van Wormer, condemned for murdering their uncle on December 24, 1901 – were electrocuted one after the other over the course of about 15 minutes and pronounced dead.<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer>[http://www.executedtoday.com/2011/10/01/1903-willis-frederick-and-burton-van-wormer/ Anonymous, "1903: Willis, Frederick, and Burton van Wormer," executedtoday.com, October 1, 2011 Retrieved April 4, 2019]</ref> After their bodies were laid out in the prison's [[autopsy]] room, however, Frederick's body was seen to move, and the prison doctor determined that his heart was still beating.<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer/> He was returned to the electric chair<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer/> and the executioner, who had gone home, was called back to re-electrocute him,{{Citation needed|date=July 2018}} but he died before any more shocks could be administered.<ref name=executedtodayvanwormer/>


The electrocution of housewife [[Ruth Snyder]] at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband was made famous when news photographer [[Tom Howard (photographer)|Tom Howard]], working for the ''[[New York Daily News]]'', smuggled a hidden camera into the death chamber and photographed her in the electric chair as the current was turned on. The photograph was a front-page sensation the following morning, and remains one of the most famous [[photojournalism]] photographs of all time.<ref>Time-Life Books, 1969, p. 185</ref>
The electrocution of housewife [[Ruth Snyder]] at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband was made famous when news photographer [[Tom Howard (photographer)|Tom Howard]], working for the ''[[New York Daily News]]'', smuggled a hidden camera into the death chamber and photographed her in the electric chair as the current was turned on. The photograph was a front-page sensation the following morning, and remains one of the most famous [[photojournalism]] photographs of all time.<ref>Time-Life Books, 1969, p. 185</ref>

Revision as of 17:07, 15 May 2019

For other uses, see Electric chair (disambiguation).
Electric chair at the Florida State Prison

Execution by electrocution, performed using an electric chair, is a method of execution originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head and leg. This execution method, conceived in 1881 by a Buffalo, New York, dentist named Alfred P. Southwick, was developed throughout the 1880s as a "humane alternative" to hanging, and first used in 1890. This execution method has been used in the United States and, for a period of several decades,[1] in the Philippines. While death was originally theorized to result from damage to the brain, it was eventually shown in 1899 that it primarily results from ventricular fibrillation and eventual cardiac arrest.[2]

Once the person was attached to the chair, various cycles (differing in voltage and duration) of alternating current would be passed through the individual's body, in order to cause fatal damage to the internal organs. The first, more powerful jolt of electric current is intended to cause immediate unconsciousness,[3][2] ventricular fibrillation, and eventual cardiac arrest.[2] The second, less powerful jolt is intended to cause fatal damage to the vital organs, where body temperatures can reach up to 100 °C (212 °F).[2]

Although the electric chair has long been a symbol of the death penalty in the United States, its use is in decline due to the rise of lethal injection, which is widely believed to be a more humane method of execution. While some states still maintain electrocution as a method of execution, today it is only maintained as a secondary method that may be chosen over lethal injection at the request of the prisoner, except in Tennessee, where it may be used without input from the prisoner if the drugs for lethal injection are not available.[4] As of 2014, electrocution is an optional form of execution in the states of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia, all of which allow the prisoner to choose lethal injection as an alternative method. In the state of Kentucky, the electric chair has been retired, except for those whose capital crimes were committed prior to March 31, 1998, and who choose electrocution; inmates who do not choose electrocution and inmates who committed their crimes after the designated date are executed by lethal injection. Electrocution is also authorized in Kentucky in the event that lethal injection is found unconstitutional by a court.[5] The electric chair is an alternate form of execution approved for potential use in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma if other forms of execution are found unconstitutional in the state at the time of execution.

On February 8, 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court determined that execution by electric chair was a "cruel and unusual punishment" under the state's constitution. This brought executions of this type to an end in Nebraska, the only remaining state to retain electrocution as its sole method of execution.[6]

Invention

In the late 1870s to early 1880s, the spread of arc lighting, a type of brilliant 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, a strange new phenomenon that seemed to instantaneously strike a victim dead without leaving a mark.[7] One of these accidents, in Buffalo, New York, on August 7, 1881, led to the inception of the electric chair.[8] That evening a drunken dock worker, looking for the thrill of a tingling sensation he had noticed before, managed to sneak his way into a Brush Electric Company arc lighting power house and grabbed the brush and ground of a large electric dynamo. He died instantly. The coroner who investigated the case brought it up at a local Buffalo scientific society. Another member, Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist who had a technical background, thought some application could be found for the curious phenomenon.[9]

Southwick, local physician George E. Fell, and the head of the Buffalo ASPCA performed a series of experiments electrocuting hundreds of stray dogs, experimenting with animals in water, out of water, electrode types and placement, and conductive material until they came up with a repeatable method to euthanize animals using electricity.[10] 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.[11]

The 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 and Southwick, to investigate a more humane means of execution.[12]

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 fact-finding questionnaire to government officials, lawyers, and medical experts all around the state asking for their opinion.[13] 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 generator).[14][15][16] 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 dissected dogs trying to discern exactly how electricity killed a subject.[17][14]

In 1888, the Commission recommended electrocution using Southwick's electric chair idea with metal conductors attached to the condemned person's head and feet.[8] 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.

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.[18]

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 become to be known as the War of 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, 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.[18] 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.[19][20][21] 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.[22] 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 test 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.[23]

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.[24][25][26] 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[21]) tried to obtain a Westinghouse AC generator for the test but found none was to be had.[24] 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.[24] Dr. 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.[17] 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.[27] The electric chair was built by Edwin F. Davis, the first "state electrician" (executioner) for the State of New York.[28]

First execution

The execution of William Kemmler, August 6, 1890

The first person in line to die under New York's new electrocution law was Joseph Chappleau, convicted for beating his neighbor to death with a sled stake, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.[29] 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.[30] 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:

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 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.[31]

Kemmler was executed in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the "state electrician" was Edwin F. Davis. The first 17-second passage of 1,000 volts AC of current through Kemmler caused unconsciousness, but failed to stop his heart and breathing. The attending physicians, Edward Charles Spitzka and Carlos F. 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. The entire execution took about eight minutes. George Westinghouse later commented that, "They would have done better using an axe",[32] and a witnessing reporter claimed that it was "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging".[33]

Adoption

Electric chair history and laws in the United States
Color key:
  Secondary method only
  Has previously used electric chair, but does not today
  Has never used electric chair

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. Most of the states that currently use or have used the electric chair lie east of the Mississippi River. The electric chair remained the most prominent execution method until the mid-1980s when lethal injection became widely accepted for conducting judicial executions.

Other countries appear to have contemplated using the method, sometimes for special reasons. The only country other than the United States to use the electric chair was the Philippines, although the method was discontinued after 1976.

United Kingdom

See also: Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom considered replacing hanging with the electric chair (as well as considering the gas chamber, shooting, the guillotine and lethal injection) during the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, the findings of which were published in 1953. The Commission concluded that the electric chair had no particular advantages over hanging, and so, the electric chair was not adopted for use in the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom performed its last execution in 1964, and abolished capital punishment for murder the following year, thereby rendering any debate over method moot.

Current use

A number of states still allow the condemned person to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. In all, fourteen inmates nationwide – seven in Virginia, three in South Carolina, three in Tennessee and one in Arkansas – have opted for electrocution over lethal injection. The most recent use of the chair was on December 6, 2018, when David Earl Miller was executed in Tennessee after he elected to die by electrocution over lethal injection.

After 1966, electrocutions ceased for a time in the United States, but the method continued in the Philippines.[34] A well-publicized triple execution took place 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 execution in the Philippines was in 2000, utilizing lethal injection, and the death penalty was abolished six years later.

Notable persons and events in the United States

The former Louisiana execution chamber at the Red Hat Cell Block in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, West Feliciana Parish. The electric chair is a replica of the original.

Serial killer Lizzie Halliday was the first woman sentenced to die in the electric chair, in 1894, but governor Roswell P. Flower commuted her sentence to life in a mental institution after a medical commission declared her insane.[35][36] A second woman sentenced to death in 1895, Maria Barbella, was acquitted the next year.[37] Martha M. Place became the first woman to receive the deadly current when she was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on March 20, 1899, for the murder of her 17-year-old stepdaughter, Ida Place.[38]

Leon Czolgosz was electrocuted at the Auburn State Prison in New York on October 29, 1901 for the assassination of President William McKinley.

In a botched execution at Clinton Prison in Dannemora, New York, on October 1, 1903, three brothers – Willis, Frederick, and Burton Van Wormer, condemned for murdering their uncle on December 24, 1901 – were electrocuted one after the other over the course of about 15 minutes and pronounced dead.[39] After their bodies were laid out in the prison's autopsy room, however, Frederick's body was seen to move, and the prison doctor determined that his heart was still beating.[39] He was returned to the electric chair[39] and the executioner, who had gone home, was called back to re-electrocute him,[citation needed] but he died before any more shocks could be administered.[39]

The electrocution of housewife Ruth Snyder at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband was made famous when news photographer Tom Howard, working for the New York Daily News, smuggled a hidden camera into the death chamber and photographed her in the electric chair as the current was turned on. The photograph was a front-page sensation the following morning, and remains one of the most famous photojournalism photographs of all time.[40]

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.[citation needed]

Bruno Richard Hauptmann, convicted of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was electrocuted on April 3, 1936, at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey.[41][42][43]

On August 8, 1942, six German agents convicted of espionage and attempted sabotage in the Quirin case for their role in Operation Pastorius during World War II were executed by electric chair at the District of Columbia Jail in Washington, D.C.[44]

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.[45]

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted on June 19, 1953, after being convicted of espionage for sharing secrets related to the atomic bomb with the Soviet Union.[46] Julius died after a single shock, but Ethel's heart was still beating when she was unstrapped from the electric chair after three shocks, so she was strapped in again and shocked twice more, finally completing her execution.[46]

James French was executed on August 10, 1966, the last person electrocuted until 1979. French was the first person executed in Oklahoma since Richard Dare was electrocuted June 1, 1963, and the only person executed in 1966.[citation needed]

On May 25, 1979, 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. Serial murderer and rapist Ted Bundy was executed in the same electric chair in Florida on January 24, 1989.

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.[47]

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 widely used method, aided by media reports of botched electrocutions in the early 1980s.

The electric chair has been criticized because of several instances in which the subjects were killed only after being subjected to multiple electric shocks. This led to a call for ending of the practice, as being a cruel and unusual punishment.[48] Trying to address such concerns, Nebraska introduced a new electrocution protocol in 2004, which called for administration of a 15-second-long application of electric current at a potential of 2,450 volts; after a 15-minute wait, an official then checks for signs of life. In April 2007, new concerns raised regarding the 2004 protocol resulted in the ushering in of the current Nebraska protocol, calling for a 20-second-long application of electric current at a potential of 2,450 volts. Prior to the 2004 protocol change, an initial eight-second application of current at 2,450 volts was administered, followed by a one-second pause, then a 22-second application at 480 volts. After a 20-second break, the cycle was repeated three more times.

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.[49] A case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court (Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber),[50] 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 successfully executed in 1947.

Recorded incidents of botched electrocutions were prevalent after the national moratorium ended January 17, 1977; two in Alabama, three in Florida, one in Georgia, one in Indiana, and three in Virginia. All five states now have lethal injection as the default method if a choice is not made.

As of 2015, the only places in the world that still reserve the electric chair as an option for execution are the U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Arkansas 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 Kentucky, only inmates sentenced before a certain date can choose to be executed by electric chair. Electrocution is also authorized in Kentucky in the event that lethal injection is found unconstitutional by a court.[51] Tennessee was among the states that provided inmates with a choice of the electric chair or lethal injection; in May 2014, however, the state passed a law allowing the use of the electric chair if lethal injection drugs were unavailable or made unconstitutional.[52] In the U.S. 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 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 designed. Florida's Supreme Court ruled that the chair did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.[53] The 1997 execution of Pedro Medina in Florida created controversy when flames burst from the inmate's head. An autopsy found that Medina had died instantly when the first surge of electricity had destroyed his brain and brain stem, and a judge ruled that Florida's electric chair was in ‘excellent condition’.[54] Lethal injection has been the primary method of execution in Florida since 2000. On February 15, 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court declared execution by electrocution to be "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Nebraska Constitution.[55]

The most recent executions by electrocution were Edmund Zagorski on November 1, 2018, and David Earl Miller on December 6, 2018, both executed in the electric chair at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee. The most recent execution in the electric chair outside of Tennessee was Robert Gleason, who was electrocuted at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, on January 16, 2013.[56][57][58][59]

See also

Nicknames of various electric chairs
State electricians

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2004-11-07. Retrieved 2007-04-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Philippines: The Death Penalty: Criminality, Justice and Human Rights
  2. ^ a b c d tweet_btn(), Dr Stephen Juan 20 Oct 2006 at 13:19. "What happens when you are executed by electrocution?". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-02-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ The Effects of Electric Shock on the Body
  4. ^ Tennessee electric chair use could spur legal challenges
  5. ^ "431.220 Execution of death sentence". lrc.ky.gov. Retrieved April 9, 2017."431.223 Method of execution in event of unconstitutionality of KRS 431.220". lrc.ky.gov. Retrieved April 9, 2017."431.224 Retroactive applicability". lrc.ky.gov. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
  6. ^ Liptak, Adam (February 9, 2008). "Electrocution Is Banned in Last State to Rely on It". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Randall E. Stross, The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World, Crown/Archetype – 2007, page 171-173
  8. ^ a b Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 12
  9. ^ Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 14
  10. ^ Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 21
  11. ^ Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 24
  12. ^ David Marc. "Southwick, Alfred Porter", American National Biography Online – 2000
  13. ^ Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, page 54
  14. ^ a b Anthony Galvin, Old Sparky: The Electric Chair and the History of the Death Penalty, Skyhorse Publishing – 2015, pages 30–45
  15. ^ Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, pages 57–58
  16. ^ Jill Jonnes, Empires Of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The World, Random House – 2004, page 420
  17. ^ a b Richard Moran, Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – 2007, page 4
  18. ^ a b Richard Moran, Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group – 2007, page 102
  19. ^ Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History, McFarland – 1999, pages 70 and 261
  20. ^ Jill Jonnes, Empires Of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The World, Random House – 2004, page 166
  21. ^ a b W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, Cambridge University Press – 2003, page 285
  22. ^ Mark Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death, Bloomsbury Publishing USA – 2009, pages 152–155
  23. ^ Craig Brandon The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History page 82
  24. ^ a b c 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
  25. ^ Mark Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death, Bloomsbury Publishing USA – 2009, pages 225
  26. ^ Sarah Davis., A "Bungled" Execution and a Doctor's Guilt: The Horrifying Debut of the Electric Chair, December 4, 2014
  27. ^ Mark Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death, Bloomsbury Publishing – 2005, pages 190–195
  28. ^ Stuart Banner, The Death Penalty: an American history, Harvard University Press – 2009, pages 194–195
  29. ^ Carl Sifakis, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, Infobase Publishing – 2014, page 39
  30. ^ "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.
  31. ^ Justice Dwight, quoted in "Electric Executions", Lawrence Daily Record, Jan. 1, 1890; pg. 1.
  32. ^ AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War; By Tom McNichol
  33. ^ "William Kemmler – Things To Remember While Reading Excerpts From "far Worse Than Hanging":, Excerpt From "far Worse Than Hanging" – JRank Articles". Law.jrank.org. 2004-08-19. Retrieved 2014-02-11.
  34. ^ "Philippines: The Death Penalty: Criminality, Justice and Human Rights". Amnesty International. 30 September 1997. Archived from the original on December 27, 2009. Retrieved 2010-09-07. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  35. ^ Robert Wilhelm. "The Worst Woman on Earth". Murder by Gaslight. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  36. ^ James D. Livingston, Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York, SUNY Press – 2012, pge 64
  37. ^ James D. Livingston, Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York, SUNY Press – 2012, pages 64–65
  38. ^ "On This Day: First Woman Executed by Electric Chair". Findingdulcinea.com. Retrieved 2014-02-11.
  39. ^ a b c d Anonymous, "1903: Willis, Frederick, and Burton van Wormer," executedtoday.com, October 1, 2011 Retrieved April 4, 2019
  40. ^ Time-Life Books, 1969, p. 185
  41. ^ Bleam, I. C. Prison Clerk, New Jersey State Prison. Death House Menu, "Last meal served to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, #17400, April 3, 1936," 1600 File, New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives.
  42. ^ Runyon, Damon, "Bruno Dies in Chair," The New York American, April 4, 1936
  43. ^ Folliard, Edward "Witness to an Execution," The Washington Post, July 17, 1972.
  44. ^ "German saboteurs executed in Washington – History.com This Day in History – 8/8/1942". History.com. Retrieved 2014-02-11.
  45. ^ Jones, Mark R. (2007). "Chapter Five: Too Young to Die: The Execution of George Stinney Jr. (1944)". South Carolina Killers: Crimes of Passion. The History Press. pp. 38–42. ISBN 978-1-59629-395-3. Retrieved November 24, 2014.
  46. ^ a b Philipson, Ilene (1993). Ethel Rosenberg: Beyond the Myths. Rutgers University Press. pp. 351–52. ISBN 978-0-8135-1917-3.
  47. ^ "Lynda Lyon Block #775". www.clarkprosecutor.org. Retrieved 2017-01-05.
  48. ^ "The Shocking Truth About Death in the Electric Chair". Archived from the original on 2008-02-02.
  49. ^ Gilbert King, The Two Executions Of Willie Francis, Wednesday, July 19, 2006, washingtonpost.com
  50. ^ U.S. Supreme Court case, Francis v. Resweber: 329 U.S. 459 (1947)
  51. ^ "431.220 Execution of death sentence". lrc.ky.gov. Retrieved April 9, 2017."431.223 Method of execution in event of unconstitutionality of KRS 431.220". lrc.ky.gov. Retrieved April 9, 2017."431.224 Retroactive applicability". lrc.ky.gov. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
  52. ^ Berman, Mark (May 23, 2014). "Tennessee has long had the electric chair, but now it's going to be available for more executions". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 23, 2014.
  53. ^ http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/deathrow/drorder.html
  54. ^ Tightening the Nuts and Bolts of Death by Electric Chair, Tom Kuntz, New York Times, Aug 3 1997
  55. ^ "Cases determined in the Supreme Court of Nebraska" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-04-13.
  56. ^ "Tennessee uses electric chair to execute double-murderer". USA Today. November 1, 2018. Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  57. ^ "Convicted Murderer Who Pleaded for Death Electrocuted in Virginia". Abcnews.go.com. 2013-01-16. Retrieved 2014-02-11.
  58. ^ "Home – WSLS 10 NBC in Roanoke/Lynchburg Va". .wsls.com. Archived from the original on January 18, 2013. Retrieved 2014-02-11. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  59. ^ Tennessee executes Edmund Zagorski by electric chair
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