History of Execution by Electric chair

The very first execution

The very first person executed by electric chair was William Kemmler in 1890. The execution was horrible. At the beginning was Kemmler very calm and relaxed. He even wished the executioners all the best and said to don’t hurry. But as the executioners had no experience with this kind of executions it wasn’t going well. After the first 17 seconds shot was Kemmler still alive and he was screaming. They put another shots to him. During this his body started burning and witnesses smelled burned human flesh. After eight minutes they found that he died. After this horrible experience many people wanted the electric chair not to be used anymore as it is a very inhuman way to die. They’ve tested that on animals before but never on people. Later they implemented some improvements and prepared the inmates more for the execution. From the picture above you can see that Kemmler was executed in ordinary suit with shoes on and his head wasn’t shaved. These things they implemented later.

The portable electric chair

They first used a portable electric chair in 1940. The first inmate executed by this type of chair was Willie Mae Bragg. As you can see on the picture the inmate is strapped to the chair more firmly. In those times they started to shave inmates head and used wet sponge to make the execution faster. But the inmates still had ordinary common clothes, not the prison uniform. They also improved the electrodes connection and tested the chair before the execution. Of course they covered inmates face by the mask to not let witnesses see what happens to his face.

The modern history

In modern history the requirements were even more strict. Inmates had to wear diapers because in the past they often urinated a defecated during the execution so this was a solution to avoid these problems. But they stopped use electric chair as the main way to execute people after some guards shared some pictures of Allan Lee Davis execution. Since this happened the main way how to execute people was lethal injection.