The Electric Chair

Historical Background and Origins

Prior to 1890, most American executions were carried out by hanging, the method that had been inherited from Great Britain.

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Many prisoners died slowly by strangulation and even occasionally, if the drop was too long, by decapitation.

The administration of the death penalty was largely in the hands of county sheriffs who individually got very little practice at carrying out hangings.

New York State used the “jerker” method of hanging in the 19th century, where the prisoner was hoisted into the air by a falling weight attached to the other end of the rope, which rarely resulted in a quick or easy death.

This prompted State Governor David B. Hill to look for a more acceptable form of execution.

He set up a legislative committee in 1886, including a dentist, Dr. Alfred Southwick, to examine other methods at a time when there was a lot of public interest and experimentation with electricity, as well as accidental deaths from electric shock due to people coming into contact with early, poorly insulated and unguarded high-voltage devices.

The first electric chair was designed in 1888 to be a more humane method of execution.

In the 1880s, electricity was a new and novel power source. Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were the two major players in the bitter commercial struggle to control electrical utilities, known as the “War of the Currents.”

Edison championed direct current (DC), while Westinghouse pioneered alternating current (AC).

Technical and economic circumstances made alternating current superior to direct current for domestic and industrial purposes, and alternating current was soon adopted as the standard for electrical transmission worldwide.

Edison had tried to convince the public and legislators that Westinghouse’s AC current was inherently unsafe and was delighted when New York State introduced the electric chair, which required alternating current.

Adoption Across the United States and Worldwide

After New York, the next state to introduce the electric chair was Ohio in April 1897, with Massachusetts following two years later.

New Jersey changed to electrocution in December 1907, Virginia in January 1908, and North Carolina in February 1910. (Dates quoted here and throughout the statistical tables represent the date of first actual execution rather than the year of legislation).

The introduction of electrocution ended the decentralized practice of county hangings in most states, concentrating execution facilities and death rows at central state penitentiaries.

Mississippi and Louisiana initially proved to be exceptions to this centralization, as each operated a portable electric chair that was transported by truck to parish and county courthouses or gaols when an execution was required.

Louisiana retained this portable arrangement until 1957, when authorities constructed a permanent death chamber at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

Mississippi abandoned its portable electric chair in favor of the lethal gas chamber at the end of 1954.

Considerable public disquiet had arisen concerning the semi-public execution of Luther Wheeler, which was witnessed by some 400 spectators packed into the Forrest County courthouse on February 5th, 1954.

One more man would die in Mississippi’s portable chair—James Johnson on November 10th, 1954—though it is not recorded precisely how many people were permitted to witness the event.

Over time, the electric chair came to be used in twenty-six states plus the District of Columbia at one time or another.

Internationally, the electric chair was adopted by only two jurisdictions outside the United States:

The Philippines: Introduced under U.S. colonial administration and utilized between 1926 and 1976;
Ethiopia: Introduced in 1948 and used at least once.

Following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972) and the resumption of capital punishment post-1976, some states—such as Oklahoma and Texas—chose not to reinstate their electric chairs, transitioning directly to lethal injection.

Electrocution Statistics by State (1890–2020)

Between August 1890 and February 2020, a total of 4,448 people suffered death by electrocution in the United States.

Of these, 58 took place in the 19th century (51 in New York and seven in Ohio), 4,372 occurred in the 20th century, and 18 have been carried out in the 21st century.

Electrocutions for Federal capital crimes were carried out using state facilities and are incorporated into the state totals below.

State	First Used (MM/DD/YY)	Last Used (MM/DD/YY)	Pre-1967	1977 – Date	Grand Total	Female Executions
Alabama	04/08/1927	05/10/2002	154	24	178	4
Arkansas	09/05/1913	06/18/1990	169	1	170	0
Connecticut	02/10/1937	05/17/1960	18	0	18	0
District of Columbia	05/29/1928	04/26/1957	50	0	50	0
Florida	01/04/1924	07/08/1999	197	44	241	1
Georgia	09/13/1924	06/10/1998	417	23	440	1
Illinois	12/15/1928	08/24/1962	98	0	98	1
Indiana	02/20/1914	12/07/1994	61	3	64	0
Kentucky	07/08/1911	07/01/1997	162	1	163	0
Louisiana	09/11/1941	07/22/1991	67	20	87	1
Massachusetts	12/17/1901	05/09/1947	65	0	65	0
Mississippi	01/11/1940	11/10/1954	63	0	63	1
Nebraska	12/20/1920	12/02/1997	12	3	15	0
New Jersey	12/11/1907	01/22/1963	160	0	160	0
New Mexico	07/21/1933	02/12/1956	7	0	7	0
New York	08/06/1890	08/15/1963	695	0	695	9
North Carolina	03/18/1910	04/29/1938	165	0	165	0
Ohio	04/21/1897	03/15/1963	315	0	315	3
Oklahoma	12/10/1915	08/10/1966	82	0	82	0
Pennsylvania	02/23/1915	04/02/1962	350	0	350	2
South Carolina	08/06/1912	06/20/2008	240	7	247	2
South Dakota	04/08/1947	04/08/1947	1	0	1	0
Tennessee	07/13/1916	02/20/2020	125	8	128	0
Texas	02/08/1924	07/30/1964	361	0	361	0
Vermont	07/12/1919	12/08/1954	5	0	5	0
Virginia	01/13/1908	01/16/2013	237	31	268	2
West Virginia	03/26/1951	04/03/1959	9	0	9	0
Totals	—	—	4,285	165	4,445	26

Statistical Notes: Twenty-six women are included in the cumulative totals. Mississippi, North Carolina, and New Mexico utilized both the electric chair and the lethal gas chamber at different periods during the 20th century.

New York State – The Birthplace of the Electric Chair

On June 4th, 1888, the New York Legislature enacted Chapter 489 of the Laws of New York of 1888, providing for capital execution by:

“a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death”

for all capital crimes committed after January 1st, 1889.

However, New York did not yet possess the physical apparatus to administer the law.

The state commissioned electrician Harold P. Brown to design and construct three electric chairs—one for each of the state prisons where executions were scheduled to take place: Auburn, Sing Sing, and Clinton.

Auburn Prison received the first chair in December 1888.

Brown favored Westinghouse’s alternating current system, which drew intense hostility from George Westinghouse, who was marketing AC as a safe power source for residential homes and factories.

Westinghouse refused to sell generators to Brown or prison officials, forcing Brown to acquire secondhand Westinghouse dynamos through third-party agents.

Three chairs represented a substantial operational provision for an average of eight executions per year statewide.

The chairs were solid, heavy oak structures equipped with two electrodes: one secured to the shaved scalp and the second strapped to the lower spine or calf.

A total of 695 individuals died in New York’s electric chairs up to 1963:

Auburn Prison: 55 executions between 1891 and 1916;
Clinton Prison (Dannemora): 26 executions between 1895 and 1913;
Sing Sing Prison (Ossining): 614 executions.

From 1916 onward, all New York executions were concentrated at Sing Sing inside a dedicated Death House constructed at a cost of $268,000.

This self-contained facility could house twenty-four male and three female condemned prisoners, containing its own kitchen, hospital ward, autopsy theater, and dedicated electrical generator substation.

Among those electrocuted at Sing Sing were Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray, “Lonely Hearts” killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, serial killer Albert Fish, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Harris A. Smiler became the first person executed in Sing Sing’s electric chair on July 7th, 1891, being one of four men electrocuted that morning.

The World’s First Electrocution: William Kemmler (1890)

William Kemmler was convicted of the brutal hatchet murder of his common-law wife, Matilda “Tillie” Ziegler, in Buffalo, becoming the first person condemned under New York’s electrical execution statute.

Kemmler’s legal team, funded covertly by George Westinghouse, appealed the sentence under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, arguing that electrocution constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

The appeals were denied by the courts on October 9th, 1889, and the execution was set for August 6th, 1890.

The execution was carried out in the basement of Auburn Prison before twenty-five witnesses, fourteen of whom were medical doctors.

Kemmler was escorted into the room, calmly removed his coat, and seated himself in the oak chair.

The head and spinal electrodes each consisted of a four-inch wooden cup housing a three-inch metal contact plate, lined with an artificial sponge saturated in brine solution to optimize electrical conductivity.

Kemmler was strapped in with heavy leather bands securing his arms, legs, chest, and waist.

The head harness was attached, and a black cloth was drawn over his face.

Warden Charles Durston signaled state electrician Edwin F. Davis, who threw the operating switch, sending an alternating current of approximately 700 volts through Kemmler’s body.

Kemmler stiffened into extreme muscular contraction for seventeen seconds until Davis opened the circuit.

The prisoner relaxed and was certified dead by the attending physicians.

However, after thirty seconds, witnesses observed spasmodic heaving of Kemmler’s chest accompanied by labored moaning, indicating that he had survived the shock.

Warden Durston ordered a second charge.

Davis applied an increased current of up to 2,000 volts, which lasted approximately seventy seconds until steam and smoke rose from the spinal electrode, accompanied by the distinct smell of burning flesh.

The current was switched off, and examination confirmed Kemmler was dead.

The execution provoked immediate national controversy. A medical expert interviewed by the New York Times declared:

“an awful botch, Kemmler was literally roasted to death.”

George Westinghouse remarked caustically:

“They could have done better with an axe!”

New York State’s Official Electricians

While most retentionist states preserved strict secrecy regarding execution personnel, New York’s state electricians were publicly documented:

Edwin F. Davis (1891–1914): The world’s first official state electrician, who executed William Kemmler and over 200 other condemned felons across New York, New Jersey, and neighboring states.
John Hilbert (1914–1926): Succeeded Davis and carried out 140 electrocutions before resigning.
Robert G. Elliott (1926–1939): The most prolific executioner in American history, electrocuting 387 people across six states, including Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Ruth Snyder, Judd Gray, and Lindbergh baby kidnapper Bruno Richard Hauptmann.
Joseph P. Francel (1939–1954): Carried out 134 executions at Sing Sing and over 100 in other states, famously officiating at the federal double execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on June 19th, 1953.
Dow B. Hoover (1953–1963): New York’s final executioner, who carried out thirty-eight executions at Sing Sing, concluding with the electrocution of Eddie Lee Mays on August 15th, 1963.

Juvenile Executions in the Electric Chair

Between 1897 (when Willie Haas was electrocuted in Ohio) and 1956 (when Roye Norman was put to death in New York), fifty-eight juvenile offenders were electrocuted across the United States.

While the majority were seventeen years of age and twelve were sixteen, the youngest person executed in the American electric chair in the 20th century was George Junius Stinney Jr.

Stinney, an African-American youth aged just fourteen, was executed in South Carolina’s electric chair on June 16th, 1944.

He had been convicted of the fatal bludgeoning of two white girls, eleven-year-old Betty June Binnicker and eight-year-old Mary Emma Thames, in Clarendon County.

Following an interrogation without legal counsel or his parents present, an all-white jury convicted him after ten minutes of deliberation, and he was electrocuted just eighty-one days after the murders.

Stinney stood only 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighed 98 lbs, meaning the adult-sized leather straps of the chair could not fit his small frame.

Guards had him sit upon a large prison Bible to elevate his head to the level of the head electrode.

When the massive electrical charge struck his body, the adult-sized leather face mask slipped from his head, exposing his face and tears to the witnesses.

Stinney’s conviction was posthumously vacated in December 2014 by a South Carolina circuit court judge, who ruled that he had been denied fundamental due process.

The only juvenile female electrocuted in the United States was seventeen-year-old Virginia Christian, put to death in Virginia on August 16th, 1912, for the murder of her employer.

Executions of Women in the Electric Chair

Twenty-six women were electrocuted in the United States between 1890 and 2020:

Martha M. Place (New York, March 20th, 1899): The first woman in history executed in the electric chair, put to death at Sing Sing for the murder of her stepdaughter.
Ruth Snyder (New York, January 12th, 1928): Executed alongside Judd Gray at Sing Sing for murdering her husband; New York Daily News photographer Tom Howard illicitly captured a famous photograph of her in the chair using a miniature ankle camera.
Ethel Rosenberg (Federal/New York, June 19th, 1953): Executed alongside her husband Julius for atomic espionage; her execution required multiple shocks after medical checks revealed her heart was still beating.
Rhonda Belle Martin (Alabama, October 11th, 1957): Executed for poisoning multiple family members.
Judy Buenoano (Florida, March 30th, 1998): Known as the “Black Widow,” the first woman electrocuted in Florida since 1848.

The Execution Procedure and Physiological Mechanics

Modern electrocution follows an established technical sequence:

Preparation: The condemned prisoner’s scalp and the calf of one leg are shaved to ensure direct skin contact. The inmate is strapped into the chair with heavy leather or webbing belts securing the chest, groin, arms, and legs.
Electrodes: Copper or lead contact electrodes, lined with natural sea sponges soaked in a concentrated saline solution (or conductive electrode gel), are applied to the shaved crown of the head and the calf. The brine facilitates the flow of electricity while minimizing electrical contact resistance.
Lethal Cycle: Modern execution protocols deploy an automated cycle of alternating current designed to induce ventricular fibrillation and brain death. A typical protocol (such as Florida or Virginia) administers:
- First Jolt: 1,800 to 2,000 volts at approximately 5 to 7 amperes for 10 to 30 seconds, designed to cause instantaneous brain death and immediate unconsciousness;
- Second Jolt: Reduced to 500 to 1,000 volts for 30 to 60 seconds to maintain cardiac arrest and prevent resuscitation while preventing the body from catching fire.

The electric current depolarizes the central nervous system, paralyzes the respiratory system, and throws the heart muscle into instantaneous ventricular fibrillation, heating the internal organs to temperatures between 130°F and 140°F (55°C–60°C).

Botched Executions and Controversies

The history of the electric chair features numerous documented equipment failures:

Willie Francis (Louisiana, May 3rd, 1946): A seventeen-year-old youth who survived an execution attempt in Louisiana’s portable electric chair (“Gruesome Gertie”) after an intoxicated prison guard and inmate electrician miswired the apparatus. Francis screamed from behind the hood: “Take it off! Let me breathe!” The execution was halted, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber (1947) that subjecting him to a second execution did not constitute double jeopardy or cruel and unusual punishment. He was electrocuted successfully a year later on May 9th, 1947.
John Evans (Alabama, April 22nd, 1983): Required three separate 1,900-volt shocks over fourteen minutes; the electrode on his leg caught fire, filling the chamber with smoke.
Pedro Medina (Florida, March 25th, 1997): Flames and thick black smoke erupted from Medina’s head harness during electrocution, caused by execution staff using a dry synthetic sponge instead of a saline-soaked natural sponge.
Allen Lee Davis (Florida, July 8th, 1999): Davis suffered extensive bleeding from his nose and chest burns during execution; photographs of his bloodied corpse were published online by the Florida Supreme Court, prompting the state legislature to introduce lethal injection as an alternative.

Following these controversies and the introduction of lethal injection, the electric chair was largely relegated to secondary status, though it remains an optional execution method in several states—including Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia—when lethal injection pharmaceuticals are legally challenged or unavailable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was the first person executed in the electric chair?

William Kemmler was the first person executed in the electric chair, put to death on August 6th, 1890, at Auburn Prison in New York for the murder of Matilda Ziegler.

Why was alternating current (AC) chosen for the electric chair?

During the “War of the Currents,” Thomas Edison advocated for direct current (DC) and sought to demonstrate that George Westinghouse’s alternating current (AC) was lethal and dangerous. New York State’s electrical commission adopted AC because its high voltage easily overcame the natural resistance of human skin.

Who was the youngest person executed in the electric chair?

George Junius Stinney Jr. was the youngest person electrocuted in the United States in the 20th century. He was fourteen years old when executed in South Carolina on June 16th, 1944; his conviction was posthumously vacated in 2014.

Which states still have the electric chair?

Electrocution remains a statutory secondary option in several states—including Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee—if lethal injection drugs are unavailable or if the condemned inmate specifically elects the chair.

What caused the flames during Pedro Medina’s execution in Florida?

During Pedro Medina’s execution in Florida’s “Old Sparky” on March 25th, 1997, flames erupted from his headpiece because prison staff improperly substituted a dry synthetic sponge for a conductive, brine-soaked natural sea sponge, creating high electrical resistance that ignited the leather headpiece.

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