The following is a list of individuals executed by the U.S. State of Wyoming.
Seven men were executed prior to Wyoming becoming a State on July 10, 1890:
Executed person | Date of execution | Method | Crime | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | John Boyer | 21 April 1871 | hanging | murder |
2 | William Tousant Kensler | 19 November 1874 | hanging | murder |
3 | Leroy Donovan | 18 January 1884 | hanging | murder and robbery |
4 | George Cooke | 12 December 1884 | hanging | murder |
5 | John Owens | 5 March 1886 | hanging | murder and robbery |
6 | Benjamin Carter | 26 January 1888 | hanging | murder |
7 | George Black | 26 February 1890 | hanging | murder |
Eighteen men were executed by the state of Wyoming between its statehood and the Supreme Court ban on executions in 1972:
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The state is the 10th largest by area, the least populous, and the second most sparsely populated state in the country. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho and Montana. The state population was estimated at 577,737 in 2018, which is less than 31 of the most populous U.S. cities including Denver in neighboring Colorado. Cheyenne is the state capital and the most populous city, with an estimated population of 63,624 in 2017.
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court struck down all death penalty schemes in the United States in a 5–4 decision, with each member of the majority writing a separate opinion. Following Furman, in order to reinstate the death penalty, states had to at least remove arbitrary and discriminatory effects, to satisfy the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Executed person | Date of execution | Method | Crime | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Charles Miller | 22 April 1892 | hanging | murder and robbery |
2 | Frank Howard | 7 December 1894 | hanging | murder |
3 | James Keffer | 24 September 1902 | hanging | murder and robbery |
4 | Thomas Horn | 20 November 1903 | hanging | murder |
5 | Joseph Seng | 24 May 1912 | hanging | murder |
6 | Warren Jenkins | 14 November 1913 | hanging | murder |
7 | Willard Flanders | 16 June 1916 | hanging | murder |
8 | Wilmer Palmer | 11 August 1916 | hanging | murder |
9 | Oscar White | 20 October 1916 | hanging | murder |
10 | Yee Geow | 11 March 1921 | hanging | murder |
11 | George Brownfield | 10 March 1930 | hanging | murder |
12 | Charles Aragon | 14 May 1930 | hanging | murder |
13 | Talton Taylor | 11 May 1933 | hanging | murder |
14 | Perry Carroll | 13 August 1937 | lethal gas | murder |
15 | Stanley Lantzer | 19 April 1940 | lethal gas | murder |
16 | Cleveland Brown, Jr. | 17 November 1944 | lethal gas | murder and rape |
17 | Andrew Pixley | 10 December 1965 | lethal gas | murder and rape |
Wyoming enacted its post- Furman death penalty statute on February 28, 1977. [1] One man has been executed in the state of Wyoming since then:
Executed person | Race | Date of execution | Method | Murder victim(s) | Under Governor | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Mark Hopkinson | White | 22 January 1992 | lethal injection | Vincent Vehar, Beverly Vehar, John Vehar, and Jeffrey Green | Mike Sullivan |
One federal execution has taken place in Wyoming:
Executed person | Date of execution | Crime | Method | Under President |
---|---|---|---|---|
Henry Ruhl | 27 April 1945 | Murder on a Government Reservation | lethal gas | Harry S. Truman |
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a government-sanctioned practice whereby a person is killed by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes, capital offences or capital felonies, and they commonly include serious offences such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape, child rape, child sexual abuse, terrorism, treason, espionage, offences against the State, such as attempting to overthrow government, piracy, aircraft hijacking, drug trafficking and drug dealing, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and in some cases, the most serious acts of recidivism, aggravated robbery, and kidnapping, but may include a wide range of offences depending on a country. Etymologically, the term capital in this context alluded to execution by beheading.
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. 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.
Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading, is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Execution by shooting is a fairly old practice. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are usually readily available and a gunshot to a vital organ, such as brain or heart, usually kills relatively quickly.
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used. Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s and continue to be a legal execution method in three states. During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program. The use of gas chambers in North Korea has also been reported.
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging". Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since medieval times, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging was in Homer's Odyssey. In this specialised meaning of the common word hang, the past and past participle is hanged instead of hung.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the United States, currently used by 30 states, the federal government, and the military. Its existence can be traced to the beginning of the American colonies. The United States is the only developed Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of California. As of March 2019, further executions are halted by an official moratorium ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Nebraska.
An execution chamber, or death chamber, is a room or chamber in which a legal execution is carried out. Execution chambers are almost always inside the walls of a maximum-security prison, although not always at the same prison where the death row population is housed. Inside the chamber is the device used to carry out the death sentence.
The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) is a large organization dedicated to the abolition of the death penalty in the United States. Founded in 1976 by Henry Schwarzschild, the NCADP is the only fully staffed nationwide organization in the United States dedicated to the total abolition of the death penalty in the country. It also provides extensive information regarding imminent and past executions, death penalty defendants, numbers of people executed in the U.S., as well as a detailed breakdown of the current death row population, and a list of which U.S. state and federal jurisdictions use the death penalty.
The death penalty has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia, the latter of which has a moratorium and has not conducted an execution since 1999. The absolute ban on the death penalty is enshrined in both the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU) and two widely adopted protocols of the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe, and is thus considered a central value. Of all modern European countries, San Marino, Portugal and the Netherlands were the first to abolish capital punishment, whereas only Belarus still practices capital punishment in some form or another. In 2012, Latvia became the last EU Member State to abolish capital punishment in wartime.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Iran. Crimes punishable by death include murder; rape; child molestation; sodomy; drug trafficking; armed robbery; kidnapping; terrorism; burglary; pedophilia; homosexuality; incestuous relations; fornication; prohibited sexual relations; sexual misconduct; prostitution; plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime; political dissidence; sabotage; arson; rebellion; apostasy; adultery; blasphemy; extortion; counterfeiting; smuggling; speculating; disrupting production; recidivist consumption of alcohol; producing or preparing food, drink, cosmetics, or sanitary items that lead to death when consumed or used; producing and publishing pornography; using pornographic materials to solicit sex; recidivist false accusation of capital sexual offenses causing execution of an innocent person; recidivist theft; certain military offenses ; "waging war against God"; "spreading corruption on Earth"; espionage; and treason. Iran carried out at least 977 executions in 2015, at least 567 executions in 2016, and at least 507 executions in 2017.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Saudi Arabia. The country performed at least 158 executions in 2015, at least 154 executions in 2016, and at least 146 executions in 2017.
Capital punishment in Connecticut formerly existed as an available sanction for a criminal defendant upon conviction for the commission of a capital offense. Since the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia until Connecticut repealed capital punishment in 2012, Connecticut executed one individual, although the law allowed executions to proceed for those still on death row and convicted under the previous law, but on August 13, 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court found that applying the death penalty only for past cases was unconstitutional, definitely emptying Connecticut death row.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Idaho.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Wyoming.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Dakota.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Cuba, however it is seldom used. The last executions were in 2003. National legislation provides for death penalty for murder, threatening to commit murder, aggravated rape, terrorism, hijacking, piracy, drug trafficking and manufacturing, espionage, and treason. The typical method is execution by firing squad.
The Wyoming State Penitentiary is a historic and current prison in Rawlins, Carbon County, Wyoming, which has operated from 1901. It moved within Rawlins to a new location in 1981. In 2018, it is a Wyoming Department of Corrections state maximum-security prison for men.