Jill Jonnes Popular Books

Jill Jonnes Biography & Facts

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 specially designed wooden chair and electrocuted 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 forms of execution, particularly hanging. The electric chair was first utilized in 1890 and subsequently became known as a symbol of this method of execution. The electric chair has been closely associated with the history of capital punishment in the United States and has also been utilized for a significant period in the Philippines. Originally, it was believed that death resulted from cerebral damage, but in 1899, it was scientifically established that the primary cause of death is ventricular fibrillation followed by cardiac arrest. Despite its historical significance in the context of the American death penalty, the use of the electric chair has diminished over time due to the increasing adoption of lethal injection as a more humane method of execution. While certain states still retain electrocution as a legally authorized method of execution, it is often employed as a secondary option, contingent upon the preference of the condemned individual. Exceptions to this include South Carolina, where it's the primary method, and Tennessee, where electrocution can be used without prisoner input if the necessary drugs for lethal injection are unavailable. As of 2024, electrocution remains a selectable method of execution in states such as Alabama, where inmates may opt for lethal injection instead, and Florida, where inmates may also instead opt for lethal injection, but electrocution can also be used if lethal injection is found to be unconstitutional. In contrast, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee have the electric chair available for individuals sentenced to capital punishment before a certain date, who can choose electrocution. Inmates who do not select this method, as well as those convicted after the aforementioned date, are executed through lethal injection. Arkansas currently does not have any inmates on its death row, sentenced before their select date. All three aforementioned states have also authorized the use of electrocution as a potential alternative if lethal injection is deemed unconstitutional by a court. The electric chair continues to be an accepted alternative method of execution in states like Mississippi and Oklahoma, to be utilized if other forms of execution are ruled unconstitutional at the time of the execution. A significant turning point occurred on February 8, 2008, when the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that execution by electric chair constituted a form of "cruel and unusual punishment" under the state's constitution. This decision marked the cessation of electric chair executions in Nebraska, making it the last state to rely solely on this method of execution. Historical Background Invention In the late 1870s to early 1880s, the spread of arc lighting, a type of outdoor street lighting that required high voltages in the range of 3000–6000 volts, was followed by one story after another in newspapers about how the high voltages used were killing people, usually unwary linemen; it was a strange new phenomenon that seemed to instantaneously strike a victim dead without leaving a mark. One of these accidents, in Buffalo, New York, on August 7, 1881, led to the inception of the electric chair. That evening a drunken dock worker named George Lemuel Smith, looking for the thrill of a tingling sensation he had noticed when grabbing the guard rail in a Brush Electric Company arc lighting power house, managed to sneak his way back into the plant at night and grabbed the brush and ground of a large electric dynamo. He died instantly. The coroner who investigated the case brought it up that year at a local Buffalo scientific society. Another member attending that lecture, Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist who had a technical background, thought some application could be found for the curious phenomenon. Southwick joined physician George E. Fell and the head of the Buffalo ASPCA in a series of experiments electrocuting hundreds of stray dogs. They ran trials with the dog in water and out of water, and varied the electrode type and placement until they came up with a repeatable method to euthanize animals using electricity. Southwick went on in the early 1880s to advocate that this method be used as a more humane replacement for hanging in capital cases, coming to national attention when he published his ideas in scientific journals in 1882 and 1883. He worked out calculations based on the dog experiments, trying to develop a scaled-up method that would work on humans. Early on in his designs he adopted a modified version of the dental chair as a way to restrain the condemned, a device that from then on would be called the electric chair. The Gerry Commission After a series of botched hangings in the United States, there was mounting criticism of that form of capital punishment and the death penalty in general. In 1886, newly elected New York State governor David B. Hill set up a three-member death penalty commission, which was chaired by the human rights advocate and reformer Elbridge Thomas Gerry and included New York lawyer and politician Matthew Hale and Southwick, to investigate a more humane means of execution. The commission members surveyed the history of execution and sent out a fact-finding questionnaire to government officials, lawyers, and medical experts all around the state asking for their opinion. A slight majority of respondents recommended hanging over electrocution, with a few instead recommending the abolition of capital punishment. The commission also contacted electrical experts, including Thomson-Houston Electric Company's Elihu Thomson (who recommended high voltage AC connected to the head and the spine) and the inventor Thomas Edison (who also recommended AC, as well as using a Westinghouse generator). They also attended electrocutions of dogs by George Fell who had worked with Southwick in the early 1880s experiments. Fell was conducting further experiments, electrocuting anesthetized vivisected dogs trying to discern exactly how electricity killed a subject. In 1888, the Commission recommended electrocution using Southwick's electric chair idea with metal conductors attached to the condemned person's head and feet. They further recommended that executions be handled by the state instead of the individual counties with three electric chairs set up at Auburn, Clinton, and Sing Sing prisons. A bill following these recommendations passed the legislature and was signe.... Discover the Jill Jonnes popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jill Jonnes books.