Vwegba Blogging World

125 Years Ago, First Execution Using Electric Chair Was Botched On August 6, 1890, New York executed William Kemmler. It was the first time ever a state used the electric chair to carry out an execution. Proponents of electrocution - including Thomas Edison - touted the new method as quick, effective, painless, and humane: the same arguments later used by legislators to support lethal injection and execution by nitrogen gas. In May 1890, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kemmler’s challenge that the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment. “Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death,” the Court wrote. But it said the New York legislature in enacting the electric chair statute had intended “to devise a more humane method” of execution and “presume[d] that the legislature was possessed of the facts upon which it took action.” The execution proceeded. According to the Buffalo News, Kemmler - who was intellectually disabled - asked corrections officers: “Don...