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The term electric-chair is sometimes used in publications by organizations of people with disabilities to mean "electric-powered wheelchair".

The electric chair is a device used in some states in the United States for execution of criminals convicted of capital crimes. The electric chair is one method of execution used when a capital crime trial results in conviction and the sentence of death is recommended by a jury or approved by the presiding judge.

The electric chair is a primary form of execution in Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Virginia, and the sole method of execution in Nebraska (the former four states allow the prisoner to choose lethal injection as an alternative method). In the U.S. states of Kentucky and Tennessee, the electric chair has been retired except for those whose capital crimes were committed prior to legislated dates in 1998. [Kentucky 3/31/98, Tennessee 12/31/98]. In both Kentucky and Tennessee, the method of execution authorized for crimes committed after these dates is lethal injection. The electric chair is an alternate form of execution approved for potential use in Illinois and Oklahoma if other forms of execution are found unconstititional in the state at the time of execution. In Florida, the condemned may choose death by electrocution, but the default is lethal injection. In Texas it is allowed. In the United States, state legislatures are the authorizing bodies for death penalty allowance and any approved death penalty methods.

The electric chair was first used in 1890. It was used by more than 25 states throughout the 20th century, acquiring nicknames such as Sizzlin' Sally, Old Smokey, Old Sparky, Yellow Mama, and Gruesome Gertie. To be put to death in an electric chair is colloquially known as "riding the lightning", triggering the naming of a Metallica song and album of that name. In the late 20th century, the electric chair was removed as a form of execution in many U.S. states, and its use in the 21st century is declining. The electric chair was also used, for a time, in the Philippines.

History

The first practical electric chair was invented by Harold P. Brown. Brown was an employee of Thomas Edison's, hired for the purpose of researching electrocution and for the development of the electric chair. Since Brown worked for Edison, and Edison promoted Brown's work, the development of the electric chair is often erroneously credited to Edison himself. Brown's design was based on George Westinghouse's Alternating Current (AC), which was then just emerging as the rival to Edison's less transport-efficient Direct Current (DC), which was further along in commercial development. The decision to use AC was entirely driven by Edison's attempt to claim that AC was more lethal than DC.

New York State in 1886 established a committee to determine a new, more humane system of execution to replace hanging. Neither Edison nor Westinghouse wanted their electrical system to be chosen because they feared that consumers would not want in their homes the same type of electricity used to kill criminals.

In order to prove that AC electricity was better for executions, Brown and Edison killed many animals, including a circus elephant, while testing out their prototypes. They also held executions of animals for the press in order to ensure that AC current was associated with electrocution. It was at these events that the term "electrocution" was coined. Edison introduced the verb "to westinghouse" for denoting the art of executing persons with AC current. Most of their experiments were conducted at Edison's West Orange, New Jersey, laboratory in 1888.

The experiments apparently had their intended effects, and the AC electric chair was adopted by the committee in 1889. [1]

The first person to be executed via the electric chair was William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the 'state electrician' was Edwin Davis. The first woman to be executed in the electric chair was Martha M. Place, executed at Sing Sing Prison on March 20, 1899. It was adopted by Ohio (1897), Massachusetts (1900), New Jersey (1906) and Virginia (1908), and soon became the prevalent method of execution in the U.S., replacing hanging. It remained so until the mid-1980s, despite the increased popularity of the gas chamber from the 1950s onwards.

At the turn of the century, Charles Justice was a prison inmate in Columbus and helped build and install Ohio's only electric chair. He served his time and was released from prison, but returned to prison 13 years later. On November 9, 1911, he died in the same electric chair that he had helped to build.

A record was set on July 13, 1928 when seven men were executed, one after another, in the electric chair at Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville. In 1942 the same technique of criminals watching the others die was used to execute the six Germans convicted of espionage in the Quirin Case.

Notable deaths by electric chair include Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Ted Bundy, Giuseppe Zangara, and Leon Czolgosz.

On May 25, 1979, John Arthur Spenkelink became the first electrocuted person after the Gregg v. Georgia decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in U.S. in 1976.

A number of states still allow the condemned individual to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. Occasionally, the condemned individual chooses electrocution. The last use of the chair (as of 2005) was in May 2004, when James Neil Tucker was electrocuted in South Carolina. He elected this method. Probably the last person who was forced to die in the electric chair was Lynda Lyon Block on May 10, 2002 in Alabama.

Method

The condemned is typically strapped into the chair, with one electrode attached to the head and a second attached to the leg to provide a full circuit. At least two jolts of an electrical current would be applied for several minutes, depending on the person. An initial voltage of around 2,000 volts is used to break the initial resistance of the skin and induce unconsciousness. The voltage is then lowered to reduce current flow to approximately 8 amps. The body of the condemned may heat up to approximately 140°F (60°C), and the electric current will generally cause severe damage to internal organs.

In theory, unconsciousness occurs in a fraction of a second. There have been reports of a condemneds' head on fire, of burning transformers, and of letting the condemned wait in pain on the floor of the execution room while the chair was fixed. In 1946, the electric chair failed to execute Willie Francis, who reportedly shrieked "Stop it! Let me breathe!" as he was being executed. It turned out that the portable electric chair had been improperly set up by an intoxicated trustee. A case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court (Francis v. Resweber), 329 U.S. 459 (1947), 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 US Constitution, and Francis was returned to the electric chair and executed the following year.

Further, regardless of how well the execution is performed, some skin is always burned and it is unpleasant for the guard charged with separating the burned, oozing skin from the seat belts. The initial flow of electric current often causes the condemned to lose control over many bodily functions, including muscle movement, urination and defecation. Many refinements to modern electric chairs include padding and inertia style retractable seat belts. The condemned may also wear a diaper.

Decline

The popularity of the electric chair declined in following years as legislators sought more "humane" methods of execution. Lethal injection became the most popular method, helped by newspaper accounts of botched electrocutions in the early 1980s.

As of 2004, the only places in the world still having the electric chair as an option are the U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Except for Nebraska, where it remains the only method of execution, inmates in the other states must select it or lethal injection. In the state of Florida, on July 8, 1999, murderer Allen Lee Davis was executed in the Florida electric chair "Old Sparky". Davis' face was bloodied and photographs taken, which were later posted on the internet. Lethal injection is now (2006) the primary method of execution in the state of Florida.

The electric chair has come under criticism because of several instances in which the subjects were not instantly killed, but had to be subjected to multiple electric shocks, leading to a call for ending of the practice because many see it as cruel and unusual punishment. Trying to address such concerns, Nebraska's new electrocution protocol calls for administration of a 15-second-long jolt of 2,450 volts of electricity; after a 15-minute wait, a coroner then checks for signs of life. (Previously, an initial eight-second jolt of 2,450 volts was administered, followed by a one-second pause, then a 22-second jolt at 480 volts. After a 20-second break, the cycle was repeated three more times.) Nebraska retains electrocution as its sole method of execution largely due to some strong anti-death penalty opposition in its state legislature; death penalty abolitionists in the state hope to see electrocution ruled as cruel and unusual punishment, leaving the state without a legal way of administering the death penalty if lethal injection is not legalized.

Electric chair in popular culture

• The heavy metal band Metallica named their 1984 album Ride The Lightning. The cover art depicted an electric chair being struck by blue lightning. It was also the name of a song off the same album.
• Singer/songwriter Prince wrote the song "Electric Chair" for the soundtrack to the 1989 film, Batman.
• The book and film The Green Mile depict in detail several executions by electric chair including a botched execution that burned the subject to death.
• The 1989 horror film Shocker depicts in detail an execution by electric chair of a serial killer who returns from the dead.
• The TV Series Hill Street Blues had a series of episodes covering a criminal act and ending with showing the character's execution in the electric chair.
• In the 2005 film Constantine, the main character John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) uses the electric chair of Sing Sing to locate Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz).
• An intense graphical scene featured a middle-aged man being executed in an electric chair in the latest part of the Silent Hill video game series, Silent Hill 4: The Room.
• In Frank Miller's graphic novel and film Sin City, the character Marv is sentenced to death by method of the electric chair. However Marv must be shocked twice, having survived the first one, defiantly asking his executioners if "that's all they got." A toy figure was created from this scene, which includes a working toggle switch, which when flipped, causes "Marv" to shake and his eyes to glow.
• In the film The Crow: Salvation, Alex Corvis is wrongfully sentenced to the electric chair. A crow brings him back to life to help him find the real killer of his fiance.
• In the FOX series Prison Break, Lincoln Burrows is awaiting execution by electric chair but is secretly trying to escape with his brother Michael Scofield.

Trivia

Recently released Minutes of the British War Cabinet show that in December 1942 Winston Churchill proposed that Hitler - if caught - should be summarily executed in an electric chair, obtained from the USA. 'This man is the mainspring of evil. Instrument - electric chair, for gangsters, no doubt available on lease-lend'.

See also

• Electric shock
• Capital punishment

External links

• History of the electric chair
• Another electric chair history
• State of Louisiana Ex Rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947)
• Film: Reenactment of the execution of Leon Czolgosz in the electric chair, early film from 1901, Library of Congress archives (.rm format; offline viewable)
• "Patrick crusade"
• The Green Mile

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "electric chair".