First Execution by Electric Chair

• Author: Allen Pusey
• Pages: 72-72

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72 || ABA JOURNAL JULY-AUGUST 2019

Precedents || By Allen Pusey

A depiction of Wil liam Kemmler’s dea th by electrocut ion

First Execution by Electric Chair

BY VIRTUALLY ANY RE CKONING, William

Kemm ler—an il litera te veget able pedd ler, a

bound less alc oholic a nd a confe ssed a x mur-

derer—w as both an unwi lling a nd an un likely

pioneer. B ut by the t ime he wa s execut ed—for

having murdered his common-law wife dur-

ing a hungover spasm of jealousy —Kemmler

had b ecome bot h a symb ol for a gr owing pu b-

lic revulsion toward capital punish ment and a

pawn in a high-stakes strugg le over control of

Amer ica’s nas cent elec trica l power g rid.

New England in the 1880s was the hear tbeat of a post-

Civil War surge in industr y, technology and conspicuous

consumption tagged by Mark Twain as the Gi lded Age.

It was also the heyday of conspicuous corr uption and a

period of intense cultu ral refl ection spurred by a bel ief

that scientifi c innovation could solve any problem.

One such cultural refl ection per tained to capital pun-

ishment. The growing sense t hat hanging—the traditional

method of execution in most states a t the time—was

inappropriate to a modern age gave ri se to a search for

“humane” alternat ives and a debate over whether capital

punishment should be tolerated at all.

In New York, Alfred Southwick, a denti st and former

steamboat capta in , had a reputation in Bu alo as a man

of science despite an education that ended wit h high

school. And as arc lamps a nd incandescent light bulbs

replaced gas lamps a nd candles, Southwick became fasc i-

nated by the possibilities of elec tricity. When a local man

was killed in stantly after grabbing at the electrode s of

a dynamo, Southwick conceived of u sing electricity as a

means to execute cr iminals instantly and humanely.

He published in technical journ als several conceptions

of a device which, wit h Southwick being a dentist, cen-

tered on the functiona l convenience of a chair. His idea

caught the fancy of a few powerf ul infl uencers, among

them Thomas Edison. As a n opponent of capital punish-

ment, Edison had no interest i n pursuing capital electro-

cution, and he worried that elect rocuting anyone—even

on purpose—would make his electr ical products seem

unsafe in the public mind.

Still, Edison found a way to b enefi t. Edison’s company

developed and sold large-sca le electrical distribution and

lighting systems to cit ies and townships through-

out the country. His system was ba sed on direct

current technology, while that of h is chief rival,

George Westinghouse, was ba sed on alternating

current, a higher-voltage Europe an technology

more adaptable for large-sc ale distribution.

Hoping to demonize the Westinghouse system,

Edison deployed proxies to promote, legislat e

and secure Southwick ’s conception as a model for

execution in New York. And by June 1888, when

Gov. David Hill signed it into law, Edison allies

were fi r mly in control of the technical development of

the “electric chair”—act ually, three of them: at state pris-

ons in Dannemora, Sing Sing and Auburn , with the use of

Westinghouse AC technology a foregone conclusion.

In May 1889, when Kemmler was c onvicted by a jury

in Bu a lo and sentenced to death for murdering Matilda

Ziegler, it went almost unnoticed he was elig ible for elec-

trocution under the new law. But as it dawned on the pub-

lic that the nation’s fi rst use of elec trical execution was on

the verge of reality, it also daw ned on Westinghouse that

Edison’s hand was behind what might prove to be a dev-

astating blow to the AC technolog y upon which his for-

tune depended.

Like Edison, Westinghouse downplayed the ex tent of

his involvement, but he bankrolled high-pric ed lawyers

for Kemmler’s appeals all the way to t he U.S. Supreme

Court and moved to block any sa le of Westinghouse dyna-

mos, new or used, for the planned execution. A nd through

his own proxies, Westinghouse cha llenged the validity

of the gruesome anima l experimentation that had been

used—even at Edison’s lab—to test the process.

All of it proved unsuccessf ul. On Aug. 6, 1890, Kemmler

was strapped to a wooden cha ir, and two electrodes were

attached to his shaved s calp and spine. A switch was

tripped allowing as much as 1,500 volts to surge through

his body. The switch was tr ipped o after 17 seconds, but

when Kemmler’s mouth foamed and chest heaved, an

attending doctor decla red Kemmler alive and demanded

that the current be reapplied. The se cond surge left burns

in Kemmler’s scalp, raising doubts about whet her the new

technology was, i n fact, a humane improvement over the

rope. Q

Aug. 6, 1890

Thomas Edison