Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,misc.legal Path: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!kimbark!thf2 From: thf2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) Subject: Electric Chair Message-ID: <1993Aug13.011007.20619@midway.uchicago.edu> Followup-To: alt.folklore.urban Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System) Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: University of Chicago Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 01:10:07 GMT Lines: 79 Xref: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu alt.folklore.urban:86468 misc.legal:57129 A sporadic a.f.u. topic, I came across a law review Note on the subject ("The Madness of the Method: The Use of Electrocution and the Death Penalty," 70 Tex. L. Rev. 1039 (1992). It's in the same issue as "Big Breasts and Bengali Beggars: A Reply to Richard Posner and Martha Nussbaum.") and thought I'd inject some facts into this newsgroup. The first victim of the electric chair was William Kemmler, a Cayuga County, NY, fruit-peddler. In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436 (1890). New York had recently replaced hanging with electrocution as its means of execution, and Kemmler appealed his sentence as cruel and unusual punishment. John Laurence's "A History of Capital Punishment" reports that Westinghouse and other electric companies financed the appeal, reportedly to the tune of over $100,000 for fear of the bad publicity from such a dangerous use of the product. Though Kemmler presented evidence of a British experiment where electric current failed to kill a calf and a dog (see James Berry, "My Experiences as an Executioner"; Berry was a British hangman), New York had the countering "evidence" of a legislative commission that heard testimony from Thomas Edison, and the Court deferred to the State's findings. The article includes a gruesome August 7, 1890 New York Times account of the execution (it took two shocks, flesh and hair singed, blood appeared on his face). Later executions weren't especially successful, either: the July 27, 1893 execution of William Taylor had a chair malfunction which took an hour to repair, during which time he died. See Robert G. Elliott, "Agent of Death." Arthur Miller and Jeffrey Bowman's "Death by Installments" (the title comes from the nickname for the common need for recurrent shocks) reports on the Willie Francis case. Francis, who was almost certainly innocent of the Louisiana murder he was convicted of by an all-white jury, had the dubious fortune of sitting on an electric chair where the cables had been improperly connected by drunk workmen. Less than the full current passed through his body, and despite multiple shocks being administered, he survived. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a second attempt to electrocute him would not be cruel and unusual punishment, 329 U.S. 459 (1947), and the Louisiana governor refused to commute the sentence. Francis was executed. More recent outrages are reported by the Note, such as the May 4, 1990 execution of Jesse Tafero, which required four power surges and had flames, sparks, and smoke emanating from the hood on his head (Hamblem v. Dugger, 748 F. Supp. 1498, 1501 (M.D. Fla. 1990)). Horace Dunkins was burned to death before the electric shock could kill him because his cables were connected to the wrong wall receptacles. Thomas v. Jones, 742 F. Supp. 598, 604 (S.D. Ala. 1990). See also the gruesome account in Justice Brennan's dissent in Glass v. Louisiana, 471 U.S. 1080 (1985). Laurence reports the common technique: 2000-2200 volts at 7-12 amperes for 60-90 seconds, possibly lowered and reapplied at various intervals until death. Another method, according to an article in the 6/7/1990 Washington Times, is 700-1000 volts at 6 amperes for one minutes, then a second jolt of 2000 volts for another minute. (In comparison, Edison claimed that 1000 volts would kill instantly.) Robert Johnson's book "Death Work" reports that nearly all electrocution chambers come equipped with sickness bags because of the nauseating smell of burning flesh. (Truth or UL?) Interestingly enough, the Note cites Fred Leuchter's claim that electrocution is painless without noting that the "engineer" is a neo-Nazi who was consulting on death penalty techniques without anything resembling a valid license--in other words, he was a quack. The electric chair seems to have fallen in a blind spot in activists' agendas; the ACLU, for example, won't lobby for more humane methods of execution for fear of undercutting their opposition to the death penalty; conservative groups won't oppose the electric chair for fear of undermining support for the death penalty. Please note the cross-posting when following up, and follow up to the appropriate group. Followups are currently set to alt.folklore.urban. -- ted frank | "You won't settle for putting Susan B. Anthony thf2@kimbark.uchicago.edu | on the new dollar then?" the u of c law school | -- Justice Rehnquist, to Ruth Bader Ginsburg in standard disclaimers | a 1978 sex-discrimination case oral argument