Died in Electric Chair

Please add profiles of those who were executed in an Electric Chair.

Tags: electrocution, electric chair, capital punishment, electric shock, Gruesome Gertie, Old Smokey, Old Sparky, Yellow Mama,

Electrocution, a method of execution in which the condemned person is subjected to a heavy charge of electric current.

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, in the Philippines (its first use was in 1924, last in 1976).

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.

From 1890 to 1972 (when the Supreme Court commenced its moratorium on the death penalty), electrocution was used in 4,251 executions; from 1976 (when the Supreme Court ended the moratorium) through the early 21st century, it had been used in about 160 executions.

A number of states still allow the condemned person to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. In all, twelve inmates nationwide - seven in Virginia, three in South Carolina, and one each in Arkansas and Tennessee - have opted for electrocution over lethal injection. The last use of the chair was on January 16, 2013, when Robert Gleason, Jr., decided to go to the electric chair in Virginia.

After 1966, electrocutions ceased for a time in the United States, but the method continued in the Philippines. 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 dela Riva.

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.

Statistics:

1. ProCon.org - VI. Executions by Method, 1900-1999
2. ProCon.org - Forms of Execution in the united States, 1977-2009. (updated on 12/9/2016)

(Source: US Department of Justice (USDOJ) US Bureau of Justice Statistics (USBJS) , "Capital Punishment, 2009 - Statistical Tables - Number of Persons Executed by Race, Hispanic Origin, and Method, 1977-2009," Dec. 2, 2010)

• From 1900 to 1999 there were 4,361 people electrocuted
  • 1900-1909 = 132
  • 1910-1919 = 484
  • 1920-1929 = 823
  • 1930-1939 = 1,206
  • 1940-1949 = 919
  • 1950-1959 = 540
  • 1960-1969 = 119
  • 1970-1979 = 1
  • 1980-1989 = 71
  • 1990-1999 = 66
• From 1977 to 2009 there were a total of 156 persons executed by electrocution of 1,188 total executed by all methods: lethal injection (1,016), electrocution (156), gas chamber (11), hanging (3), firing squad (2).
  • Started in 1977 because that was when Oklahoma became the first state to authorize lethal injection - currently the most common form of execution.

Notable persons and events in the United States:

• Lizzie Halliday (c. 1859-1894), serial killer, 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.
• A second woman sentenced to death in 1895, Maria Barbella (1868-1902) was acquitted the next year.
• On August 6, 1890, New York state initiated its electric chair, executing William Kemmler (1860-1890) at Auburn State Prison, but required the the electricity to be turned on twice.(Duhaime’s Timetable of World Legal History - 1890: The Debut of the Electric Chair-The Electrocution of William Kemmler
• Martha M Place (1849-1899) became the first woman to receive the deadly current in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on March 20, 1899, for the murder of her 17-year-old stepdaughter, Ida Place.
• In a botched electrocution at Sing Sing in 1903, Fred Van Wormer was electrocuted and pronounced dead, but, upon arrival in the autopsy room, he was seen to be breathing once again. The executioner had gone home, and was called back to re-electrocute Wormer. Before the executioner returned, Wormer had died.
• Ruth Snyder (1895-1928), housewife was electrocuted at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband. It 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Julius Rosenberg (1918-1953) & Ethel Rosenberg (Greenglass) (1915-1953)) were executed by electric chair in 1953, after being convicted of espionage, involving sharing secrets related to the atomic bomb with the Soviet Union.
• James French (1936-1966) 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.
• On May 25, 1979, John Spenkelink (1949-1979) 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 (1948-2002) on May 10, 2002, in Alabama.

Other Notables:

1. Ranker - Famous People Who Were Executed in the Electric Chair (101 listed)

• Ted Bundy (1946-1989) serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, necrophile; confessed to 30 homicides
• Hamiton Howard “Albert” Fish (1870-1936) - Serial killer
• Gerald E Stano (1951-1998) - Serial killer; killed at least 22; confessed killing 41
• Ramond Fernandez (1914-1951) & Martha Beck - Serial killer couple; believed to have killed as many as 20 women between 1947 & 1949; became known as “The Lonely Hearts Killers”.
• Peter Kudzinowski (1903-1929) - Serial killer
• Donald Henry Gaskins (1933-1991) - Serial killer; (Wikipedia - Donald Henry Gaskins)
• Anna Marie Hahn (1906-1938) - Serial killer
• Leon Frank Czolgosz (1873-1901) - Assassinated US President William McKinley
• Richard Hauptmann (1899-1936) - Convicted of abduction & murder the son of Charles Lindbergh; (Wikipedia - Richard Hauptmann)
• Frank Abbandando (1910-1942) - Nicknamed “The Dasher”, was NY contract killer as part of Murder, Inc. gang; (Find A Grave - Frank Abbundando)
• Giuseppe Zangara (1900-1933) - Attempted assassination of US President-elect Franklin D Roosevelt, but 5 people shot in process including the assassination of Chicago mayor Anton Cermak; (Wikipedia - Guiseppe Zangara)
• Harry Pierpont (1902-1934) - Prohibition era gangster & friend & mentor of John Dillinger

References & Additional Reading:

• Britannica - Electrocution, Capital Punishment, by Deborah W Denno
• Wikipedia - Electric Chair
• Death Penalty Information Center - Descriptions of Execution Methods - Electrocution
• Death Penalty - Electrocution
• Washington Examiner - The shocking truth about the electric chair. by Daniel Allott, 29 Mar 2016
• ProCon.org - Electrocution (has three articles by different authors)