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The electric chair is a specialized device employed for carrying out capital punishment through the process of electrocution. During its use, the individual sentenced to death is securely strapped to a specifically designed wooden chair and subjected to electrocution via strategically positioned electrodes affixed to the head and leg. This method of execution was conceptualized by Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist based in Buffalo, New York, in 1881. Over the following decade, this execution technique was developed further, aiming to provide a more humane alternative to the conventional form of execution, particularly hanging. The electric chair was first utilized in 1890 and subsequently became known as a symbol of this method of execution.
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2004.
Old Sparky is the nickname of the electric chairs in Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Old Smokey was the nickname of the electric chairs used in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. "Old Sparky" is sometimes used to refer to electric chairs in general, and not one of a specific state.
Yellow Mama is the electric chair of the U.S. state of Alabama. It was used for executions from 1927 to 2002.
John Louis Evans III was the first inmate to be executed by the state of Alabama after the United States reinstituted the death penalty in 1976. The manner of his execution is frequently cited by opponents of capital punishment in the United States. Evans was born in Beaumont, Texas, and was executed at the Holman Correctional Facility near Atmore, Alabama, at the age of 33.
The lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama, on March 21, 1981, was one of the last reported lynchings in the United States. Several Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members beat and killed Michael Donald, a 19-year-old African-American, and hung his body from a tree. One perpetrator, Henry Hays, was executed by electric chair in 1997, while another, James Knowles, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty and testifying against Hays. A third man was convicted as an accomplice and also sentenced to life in prison, and a fourth was indicted but died before his trial could be completed.
Pedro Luis Medina was a Cuban refugee who was executed in Florida for the murder of a 52-year-old woman in Orlando. The circumstances of his execution elevated objections to the use of electrocution as a means of capital punishment. During his execution, Medina's head burst into flames, filling the death chamber with smoke. An autopsy later revealed that the current had destroyed Medina's brain, killing him instantly.
Rhonda Belle Martin was an American serial killer and family annihilator who was executed by the state of Alabama for the murder of Claude Carroll Martin, her fourth husband, in 1951. Martin's method of murder was rat poison; she was also accused of poisoning and murdering her own mother, as well as five of her seven children, all of whom were below the age of 12 at the times of their deaths. Only one of her victims, her former son-in-law and fifth husband Ronald Martin, was known to have survived. Although she initially confessed to all the murders she was accused of committing, she later recanted her confession in the murders of two of her children.
Nicholas Lee Ingram was a dual British and American national, executed for murder in 1995 at the age of 31 by the US state of Georgia, using the electric chair. He was born in Britain, but had an American father. The British Prime Minister, John Major, declined to intervene and attempt to get him reprieved. He had been imprisoned since 1983 for the murder of J.C. Sawyer, a 55-year-old retired military veteran, and injuring his wife Mary Eunice Sawyer, during a robbery. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, was one of many who campaigned unsuccessfully for clemency. The case received widespread media coverage in the United Kingdom.
Jesse Joseph Tafero was convicted of murder and executed via electric chair in the U.S. state of Florida for the murders of 39-year-old Florida Highway Patrol officer Phillip A. Black and 39-year-old Ontario Provincial Police Corporal Donald Irwin, a visiting Canadian constable and friend of Black. The officers were killed during a traffic stop where Tafero, his wife Sunny Jacobs and their children were passengers. Tafero's execution was botched; his head burst into flames during the execution by electric chair. After Tafero's execution, the driver, Walter Rhodes, confessed to shooting the officers, but later retracted his testimony.
Brandon Wayne Hedrick was an American convicted murderer who was executed by the state of Virginia in the electric chair for the 1997 murder of 23-year-old Lisa Crider, who was kidnapped, robbed, raped, and shot in the face. He was the first person electrocuted in Virginia since 2003, when Earl Bramblett was executed for rape and murder.
Frank Joseph Coppola was an American convicted murderer and former police officer from Portsmouth, Virginia who was executed for the 1978 murder of Muriel Hatchell. Hatchell was bound with Venetian blind cords and then had her head slammed repeatedly into the floor until she died. Coppola and his accomplices fled with $3,100 in cash and some rings from the crime scene. On September 26, 1978, Coppola was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in Virginia's electric chair. His conviction and death sentence were upheld after an appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Kilby Correctional Facility is an Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) prison for the state of Alabama, located in Mt. Meigs, an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Alabama, with a capacity to house over 1,400 inmates. A section of the city of Montgomery covers a portion of the prison facility.
Robert Smith Vance was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He was one of three 20th-century United States federal court judges assassinated because of his judicial service.
Robert Austin Sullivan was an American man who was executed by the state of Florida in the electric chair for the 1973 murder of a Howard Johnson's restaurant manager. He was the second person to be executed in Florida after capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, and at the time of his execution, had been on death row longer than anyone else in the United States. His execution generated attention when Pope John Paul II personally pleaded for clemency to spare Sullivan's life, however, Governor Bob Graham refused the appeal. Sullivan was executed in 1983 and maintained his innocence to the end.
Walter Hill was an American serial killer who killed five people between 1952 and 1977. He was convicted of capital murder, sentenced to death, and executed at Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama in 1997.
References
- Montgomery Advertiser, October 7, 2002.
- ↑ https://montgomeryadvertiser.newspapers.com/image/413683303/?clipping_id=127015593&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjQxMzY4MzMwMywiaWF0IjoxNjg5NjgwMzI1LCJleHAiOjE2ODk3NjY3MjV9.agBwKdI8461L9iySz4PqTWN_Iy_CM3PT6mhxtGuQKig
- ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/article/10161809/horace-devaughn/
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