The electric chair was invented by Dr. Alfred P. Southwick who was a steam-boat engineer, dentist and inventor from Buffalo, New York. In 1881 he conceived the idea of the electric chair after he had heard about an accident happen that resulted in an electrocution of a person, he then found this as a humane capital punishment. He thought that this could be an alternative to hangings for executions. When he started, he first thought about this idea to help invent a way to euthanize stray dogs at the Buffalo SPCA but later, he thought it would be better to use this method as capital punishment. After many inhumane hangings that occurred due to capital punishments, the newly elected New York State governor of 1886, David B. Hill, asked death penalty commissioners to find a more humane form of execution. The committee included Southwick’s idea and in 1888, the electric chair was recommended with metal straps to the persons head and feet. After everything was processed and approved, the first person to get executed by electrocution was William Kemmler on August 6, 1890 while Southwick was present.
William Kemmler was convicted of murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. On the day of his execution, he was strapped to the electric chair, there was a charge of approximately 700 volts that was delivered for seventeen seconds before the electrocution stopped. Although witnesses had reported that they had smelled burnt cloths and blood, they knew Kemmler was far from dead. Even after that, a second shock was in preparation for him. The second one was coming on stronger which was charged with 1,030 volts and it went on for about two minutes until smoke was seen coming out of his head. This was considered the first successful execution done by an electric chair. Ever since then, the electric chair has been used frequently up until a few years ago for some states. The electric chair has been used several times on death penalty inmates and some have even survived the electric waves that are sent with hundreds of volts in charge.
One person who survived the electric chair was named Willie Francis, a 17-year-old teenager. In November of 1944, someone had shot a white pharmacist, Andrew Thomas, in Francis’ hometown of St. Martinville, La. After the police department were unable to find someone as the suspect, the towns sheriff told the chief of police to arrest “any man” just to finish this open case. So, as they were ordered to arrest any man, they arrested Willie Francis on suspicion of being an accomplice of a drug dealer. Even though Francis was arrested about that, the police could not find any connections between him and the drug dealer, so they started questioning him about the murder of Andrew Thomas. The police allegedly found Thomas’ wallet and identification card in Francis’ possession. After, they later had a signed confession from Francis admitting to the murder. He was then arrested and pleaded not guilty. The murder weapon used to kill Andrew Thomas was supposedly stolen from the sheriff’s deputy by Francis. The gun was never examined for fingerprints and the bullets found in Thomas’ body were not a match to the gun. So, it was later thought the deputy had shot and killed the pharmacist because he suspected that he was having an affair with his wife. Although they started to suspect the duty, they still sentenced Willie Francis to death in prison and he was later scheduled for his execution.
As they were getting prepared to execute him, something went wrong. He survived and later explained what it felt like to get electrocuted. He said, “It felt like a hundred and thousand needles and pins were pricking in me all over and my left leg felt like somebody was cutting it with a razor blade.” He also mentioned that the people in the room with him said that he that he yelled at them to remove the strap. After the execution was a fail, it was noted that it was set up incorrectly. The chair had been transported from jail to jail and was later found that the two people responsible for this was Captain Ephie Foster and an inmate named Vincent Venezia who had been drinking the night before. After Francis’ failed execution, he was talked about in the news and his survival was a shock to many people. The state was in a legal battle to see if they were able to try and execute Francis for the second time. The case was so big that it made its way up to the Supreme Court. Willie Francis’ execution was set after a year later where it was actually successful.
As known, the electric chair was probably one of the best ways of capital punishment and was consider humane. Now, the electric chair is not the primary method of execution in the United States. It is actually banned in most of the states of the U.S. and is considered cruel and an unusual form of punishment. However, it is still used in nine states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia with the lethal injection as the primary method. There could either be two or three drugs used in the ejection. The two drug protocol uses a dose of an anaesthetic or sedative and the three drug protocol also uses an anaesthetic or sedative but is followed by pancuronium bromide, which is used to paralyze the inmate and then potassium chloride to stop the heart.
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