August 6th: The Day the Electric Chair First Buzzed

"We live in a higher civilization from this day on."  

  - Dr. Albert Southwick, the man who first suggested the Electric Chair

The Electric Chair: Prisoner prepared for electrocution
 in 1900 at Sing-Sing, in the famous chair 'Old Sparky'

New York's Auburn Prison was the first place to use electrocution for execution on August 6th 1890. The prisoner primarily testing out the electric chair's abilities was William Kemmler, a man convicted of killing his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. The form of execution prior to this date in 1890 was death by hanging, where the criminal could take up to 30 minutes to die. In 1881, Dr. Albert Southwick suggested electrocution to quicken the pace of executing prisoners, based on his witnessing of a man killed by the terminals of an electric generator in Buffalo.

    The electric chair device was created by Auburn Prison's electrician Edwin R. Davis, whose model looks surprisingly similar to the modern equipment. Southwick's suggestion was put into practice 9 years later on August 6th, when they attached electrodes to Kemmler's head and back.  700 volts were sent through Kemmler's body for 17 seconds, which resulted in burnt clothes, burnt skin, but no death. The second installment was determined to finish the murderer off, with 1030 volts applied for nearly two minutes! The smoke spiraling from Kemmler's head was a clear sign that the second blast was successful, and when the guards removed the body from the chair, they discovered the electrode had burnt right through to the spine...

    The death penalty of electrocution in America has recently declined in popularity, since it is believed by some to be a cruel and unusual punishment. One report from 1997 involved flames bursting from convict Pedro Medina's head in a Florida prison! However, it is reserved as an option for prisoners who are sentenced to death, and the most recent convict to be electrocuted was Paul Warner Powell in Virginia, on March 18th 2010. 

    People's Republic of China, India, the U.S.A. and Indonesia continue to apply Capital Punishment today. Do you agree or disagree with it? Is the Electric Chair an appropriate means of execution?