How the Electric Chair Works

The electric chair is an all-American invention. It spread almost nowhere else in the world as a capital punishment but worked overtime in the States. Despite the terrible sights and sounds an electrocution produces, it was created out of humaneness. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
and there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you
Should Know over here. And uh, I guess they probably
found a little too chipper for what we're about to

(00:22):
talk about, because it is grim stuff it is. And I,
my friend, have a fact that you probably know, but
I don't know if everyone else knows that the word
electrocute is a portmanteau that was coined during the War
of Currents. He did, I'm so happy with you. This
is mine fact too. I was like, Chuck's gonna love this.

(00:45):
I appreciate you assuming that I already knew it. Well,
I assume you know everything. Let him have it. Chuck, Well, yeah,
it's uh it comes from the words electric and execution.
And when I saw that, I was like, that can't
be right, Like, surely the word electrocute was around before then,
But there was no before then, because there was no like,

(01:08):
you know, mass use of electricity. And uh, I don't
know who exactly coined it. I couldn't find that, but
it was during the War of Currents. Yeah. I saw
it in like a paper from that said that, and
they said he just said it so matter of factly.
I was like, what that doesn't Oh wow, that is right, electrocute,
electro execution. It's like, um, the s executioner. It's like

(01:30):
sex and the executioner, the sexecutioner. Yeah. And that's also
a word that guess gets misused because a lot of
people say someone's electrocuted if they just experienced a profound shock.
But that's not the case. That's why I was confusing.
I think at first force we're like, wait, that's not mikeense,
it's not sensible. I also saw one another electro than Asia. Okay,

(01:56):
I know it's not nearly as good as electrocute, but
I wanted to toss it out to uh and this
episode has what I believe maybe the best stuff you
should know band name of all time. I know what
that one is too, so we'll just hang onto that. Okay. Cool. Yeah,
I saw that and I was like, there's Chuck's band name.
So we're talking electrocution. And now that you know electrocution

(02:19):
what the word means, you know, we're specifically talking about
being put to death on purpose through electricity, And as
far as we know, the only way that anyone's ever
been put to put to death using electricity is in
an electric chair, which is a specifically American invention. Did
you know that before you researched this? I did, And UM,

(02:43):
we should point out that the Philippines did use this
for a while, but it was because we basically we're like,
you guys should totally use the electric chair. Here, have
one right back in I think like six and they
used it for fifty years until ninety six and then
they were like, this is really gross. We're gonna stop
using this and executing people all together in that right?

(03:07):
Did they all together? I just assumed they went to
firing squad or something. I think I don't know if
it was in seventy six, but I think they got
rid of the death note perhaps how very civil So
um with the electric chair. Um, we've we've had, Like
I said, it was an American invention and it's been
around since. I guess the eighteen eighties is when it

(03:29):
really started to kind of make a make its debut.
But it's it's really kind of basic and simple for
something is um seemingly complicated. Is harnessing electricity to put
in to extinguish a human life. Right, It's a chair
that you strap somebody to and run electricity through their

(03:50):
body until they die. It's really about that simple, Yeah,
they I mean, if you've ever seen a movie um
or god forbid, if you've ever been to an execution,
can't imagine doing something like that. But people do that. Uh.
And by the way, you know, uh, if I say
things like that, I'm just speaking for myself. Everyone, Well,

(04:14):
we did like a whole lethal injection episode and you
came out pretty strongly against the death penalty if I
remember correctly, so, so it's already out there. Yeah. I
just if I seem like I'm turned off by a
lot of this is because I am. But there are
a lot of people in this country that when they
hear about like flame shooting out of someone's head and
blood count coming out of someone's eyeballs and the smell

(04:36):
of cooked flesh, they're like, heck, yeah, like zap him again.
Shouldn't it shouldn't have killed those people? You're getting what
you deserve. So there are a lot of people out
there that feel that way. And I'm just not one
of them. Yeah. I was reading about the execution of
Ted Bundy. He was electrocuted in Florida, I'm pretty sure.
And there were Yeah, it was Florida. There were people

(04:57):
partying outside of the prison where was put to death,
remember holding like a barbecue. What what year was is
like maybe or eighty nine. I feel like I was
in college, but I remember seeing that on the news
and that was just like a it seems like a
tailgate was going on. Yeah, that's what it seems like
from what I read. And and there was apparently zero

(05:18):
Bundy supporters. It was all people who are there for
to cheer on his death. Um, so they're definitely people
who feel that way out there for sure. Uh So. Yeah,
getting back to what you're saying, though, it's it is
very rudimentary. There was a metal cap that is the electrode,
and that is put onto a prisoner's shaved head. Um.
There is a natural sponge with saline salt water in

(05:43):
that sponge, and um salt water is conductive and that's
the reason they used that. But there have been a
lot of problems with UM the wrong sponges, too much salt,
too little salt, too much water, too little water. But
that's generally how it works. That goes in between in
uh the cap uh that metal cap in the in

(06:03):
the person's head. And then there's another electrode um that's
usually on the leg of the prisoner, but sometimes it's
on like the foot or the base of the spine
or something. And this all just allows electricity to flow
freely through a person's body until they die, right right,
Because the the electrode that goes into the head, that's

(06:24):
where the electricity comes from. And then the other electrode
that's connected to the ground like through the leg, allows
the current to pass through the body all the way
right um. And that's you know, from that free flow
of electricity, that's where you get these tremendously horrific results,
ultimately culminating in the death of the person. And then, Chuck,

(06:47):
you said that they put a sponge on people's heads.
It has to be a natural sponge, as you say that.
So apparently they found as as we'll see that only
a natural sponge will work. But one of the other
purposes that serves besides acting is like kind of a
reservoir for the saltwater conductor. Um. It also it fills

(07:08):
the space between the metal cap and the the victim's
head because you're like the metal caps is like this
little metal cap in your head is not a perfect
cap shaped dome. So the sponge is meant to also
kind of fill that space and like get the electricity
everywhere going through your head. Yeah. And as far as
the chair, the actual wooden chair, um, I mean, it

(07:30):
could have been anything. It could have been some upright
thing like Hannibal elector was strapped to like a upright gurney,
but they settled on a chair. Um. It's generally this big,
heavy oak chair and many times, um, irony of all ironies,
that chair is built by prison labor. I saw that too,
and it's almost invariably called old Sparky. But there are

(07:53):
also some that were called like old Smokey. And then
the worst of all I think was the Louisiana is
called gruesome Gurtie. It's this terrible name for a chair.
Actually it's a perfect name for a an electric chair actually,
now I think about it. Yeah, but the I don't know,
the sort of I guess tradition of naming electric chairs

(08:15):
these cute names is also something that's a bit of
a turn off. Yeah, just a tap tap it. So
you're strapped into this chair. Uh, obviously your arms are
strapped in. Um, your legs are strapped in. Most of
the times, you have a strap across your chest and
growing area. And again the chair is just has nothing

(08:36):
to do. It doesn't have electricity um running through it
at all. That is just the means to keep the
prisoners strapped in, right, right, because when that switch is thrown,
your muscles just contract to the point where you could
just snap bones, joints get um just thrown out of
joint literally. Um. It's a huge muscle muscular contraction throughout

(08:59):
your entire your body, because that's how your that's how
your muscles contract is through electricity and electrochemical reaction. Right.
So when you introduce a huge amount of electricity to
your body all at once, all the muscles in your
body contract um and it's so much so that if
you're not strapped in, you would just fly right out
of the chair. I think in it must have been

(09:20):
our electricity episode we talked about how when people who
have touched uh an electrical wire, their um muscles have
contracted so so UM strongly that they've thrown themselves across
the room. Like, you're not blown across the room by
the electricity. That's your muscles contracting and shooting you across

(09:41):
the room. That's why the they have people strapped to
the chair in the electric chair to keep them from
shooting across the room when the electricity shoots room. Yeah,
and depending on what states you're in, you know, they're
all going to have their own protocol for how to
carry out in like, uh, electrocution, and Um, we should
also point out to that this is they're generally not

(10:03):
used anymore. Um, there are only nine states but still
have that option. Um, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia.
Are you noticing a trend? And then finally Oklahoma, Uh,
not the only state not in the South. Um. But

(10:23):
but it's not something that is generally still used in
the United States. No, but it is a backup, and
it's not a backup. I think if like lethal injection
doesn't work as a backup, if the prisoners specifically says
I don't want lethal injection, I want the electric chair. Right, So,
depending on where you are, the protocol is gonna vary um.

(10:43):
This one is pulled from Tennessee. That was uh an
execution last year that Edmund Zagorsky, I guess asked for
the chair because it was two thousand eighteen and this
was the protocol. Uh. The electric chair will release and
fifty volts of electricity for twenty seconds, will stop for

(11:04):
fifteen seconds, and then we'll release another fifty volts UH
for another fifteen seconds. UM. After the first wave of electricity,
officials will wait five minutes and then close the blinds
into the witness room. A doctor will check for signs
of life. If there are none, the doctor will pronounce
him dead. If he is still alive, the blinds will
be raised another round. Uh. I assume like an encore,

(11:30):
the curtain goes back up in another round of electricity
will be administered and the doctor will be called in again. Right.
How about that? That that Encore think kind of got beach.
I mean that's I don't know, the parallels are obvious,
so the uh yeah, yeah. But I think also in
the lethal injection, when we explain like the X, like

(11:51):
the state witnesses, people who are hired to come and
witness on behalf of the people because the state is
executing people on behalf of the people of that state.
These are the representatives of everybody else who lives in
that state. I mean, yes, of course there's no way
you wouldn't get weirdos. But if I remember correctly, they
try to weed those people out. But yes, I get

(12:11):
where you're coming from. I'm not trying to like shoot
your opinions down or anything like that. Yeah. So, um,
one of the things, like you said, there's like se volts.
I've seen that slow, like I've seen two thousand at
least is what you want. And then the amps are
really the big one because the voltage is kind of
like the water pressure in a hose, where the amps
are like the actual flow rate of how much is

(12:33):
coming through. So the amps are what kill you, they say,
But you have to balance the amps, and that you
want to you want to introduce enough amps through voltage
into the inmate to kill them quickly and painlessly. Because
I don't think we've said the reason the the electric
chair was brought around was not to just just set

(12:57):
somebody on fire as you were executing them. It was
too because it was thought to be like a painless
and humane way to execute a prisoner. That's supposedly the
point of executions. So you want to balance a quick
and painless death through enough amps and voltage introduced with
not so many amps and and not a high enough

(13:18):
amount of voltage that you cook the person and set
them on fire. That's basically the tightrope that as state
executioner who electrocute somebody is walking and figuring out how
much too how much juice to deliver for the electric chair. Yeah,
and um, I tried to find if you know, I've

(13:38):
always heard that there were dummy switches and that like
three guards will all flip a switch at the same time,
so no one knows if they were the one. Um.
And I think that was just I didn't see any
support for that. And that may just be built on
the old thing of the firing squad where someone has blanks. Um,
and you know, so like one person, everyone basically can say, well,

(14:02):
I may have had the blank, I may not have
actually had the bullet in my gun. But that is
apparently not the case with electric chairs, and a volunteer
throws one switch, um, the you know, it's generally a
prison guard has has said this is something that I
will do I'm volunteering for this. You can't apparently force
someone to do this. Um, it's always a volunteer, right.

(14:24):
And depending on the state too, they might not actually
work at the prison. They might that might just be
their job as an execution maybe a second job they
have or something like that. UM. And from what I've seen,
there typically called electricians. The um electro executioner is called
an electrician. And New York had some very famous and
prolific ones, kind of at the heyday of the electric

(14:46):
chair and like the first half of the twentie century. Yeah,
one of them killed are you ready for this is
one of the most gruesome things I've ever heard in
my life. One of them killed seven men in succession
and why day And they had all seven men in
sing sing on death row like in the in the

(15:07):
death house at the same time. And so as one
would be taken away, the other eleven would just be
sitting there like freaking out, like and then the next
one would come, and it just kept whittling down. And
as they went through this day of executions, UM, the
like the the sense among the inmates, so they were
like almost losing their minds. It's one of the cruelest

(15:28):
things I've ever heard in my life, at least in
the modern era. You know, there's no way to to
um execute prisoners, and I believe they've really gotten away
from them. You don't execute more than one person in
a day at the same place. I think it's really
kind of like your time to shine. It's your special day.
You're not going to share it with eleven other or
eight six other people anymore. Um. But the executioner, the

(15:53):
electrician for New York who did that, I can't remember
his name right now, but he actually ended up taking
his own life because apparently he was doing us to
pay the medical bills for his wife, who was chronically ill,
and this paid really really well, and eventually she died
and he abruptly quit and then went and took his
took his life. Yeah, So it's not like it's not

(16:15):
like if you're an electrician or you're an executioner. I
I don't think it's kind of like this is a
fun thing like I think, I think this kind of
destroys everybody involved, basically. Yeah, and so you know you
mentioned that, uh, it was supposedly the humane way of
killing people, and we'll we'll get to how that happened
in a minute. But um, the two gentleman Jean Louis

(16:38):
Provost and Frederica Batelli, they, by the way, we got
an email about someone who was not happy with my
Italian Yes, but we got we got a couple from
people who were Italian Americans saying like, I love it,
don't ever stop. Yeah. The one guy who said I
went too far was also very upset about my care

(17:00):
actorization of New Englanders as liking Duncan donuts as well. Wow,
So I sort of took that one with a grain
of salt. That's a that's a big fat that's a
salt lick. I think, yeah, donut jokes, come on, stop
Duncan donuts. So anyway, those two gentlemen, they did a
lot of research into heart defribrillation in eighteen nineties, and

(17:24):
the idea that time was, um, hey, what's going on here?
When you electrocute someone is is it instantly sort of
kills the prisoner by a massive brain damage and a
stoppage interruption of the heart. And so that's why they
thought it was more humane than like hanging, which we'll
get to in a sect. But um, that is not

(17:45):
the case, as we will see from the scores of
butched um electrocutions over the years. Right, that's why if
you if you read like these procedures for executing a
prisoner using electricity city, there is two rounds of juice. Invariably,
the first one supposedly destroys the brain, but the second one.

(18:08):
Remember how I said all the muscles in the body
like contract, Well, one of the biggest muscles in the
body is your heart, and um, your heart contracts, which
ironically protects it from dying. Right, yeah, So that's why
they'll stop with the electricity, the electrical flow for several
seconds to let the hearts like come out of seizure again,

(18:31):
and then when they do it a second time, allegedly,
that is the one that's meant to destroy the heart.
So initially the first one is supposed to destroy the
conscious mind and then ultimately the brain. And it's supposedly
happens very fast. The number you'll see bandied about is
that it happens in one two a second, which is
faster than you can consciously register pain. So you're you're dead,

(18:55):
you're at least unconscious, and then you're you're dead. Right
after that before you can feel pain. But the person
I think I've seen associated with that is a guy
named Fred Luketer who's actually like a UM, well known
UM engineer of Tennessee's electric chair, and I believe a
Holocaust denier. Two And I didn't see anywhere else, like

(19:18):
any legitimate study that showed that. So but it's like
somebody said it, and everybody's just gonna go with that.
But supposedly that's what the first just does is knock
you out and kill you brain wise, your brain dead,
and then the second one kills your your cardiac system. Yeah.
It was Errol Morris at a documentary about him actually,
um about Fred luke Yeah, it was called Mr. Death

(19:43):
and um. Part of it was on you know, his
work with the electric chair, and then part of it
was on your right, the fact that he is a
notorious Holocaust denier. And guess what he does now. I
have no idea. He apparently is a works in the
garden apart of a home depot really in his old age. Wow,

(20:04):
well he I'm correct that he built Tennessee's electric chair.
He wasn't an actual electrician, right, or an executioner? No? No, no,
he uh it's it's a really good documentary, of course
because it's Errol Morris, but yeah, you should check it out.
You wanted to take a break. Uh yeah, we'll take
a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about
a very famous Supreme Court case and then a lots

(20:25):
about hanging right after this. Okay, Chuck, So we're back,

(20:56):
and you wanted to talk about the Supreme Court. You said,
what about I love it when your ki Uh yeah,
the U Supreme Court, uh chose not to review a
case Glass v. Louisiana, UM, which would have been a
very big deal because it was on the constitutionality of
the electric chair, the whole that whole thing about cruel

(21:19):
and unusual punishment UM has always been a talking point
when it comes to whether or not people should be
put to death and just how to do that. And
they chose, like I said, they chose not to review it.
But very famously, uh, Justice William Brennan wrote a dissent
that described an execution like this And by the way,

(21:40):
this this part is particularly gruesome. So if you if
you don't want to hear about this, then just tune
out for like twenty seconds when the switch is thrown,
The condemned prisoner cringes, leaps, and fights the straps with
amazing strength. The hands turned red then white, and the
cords of the next stand out like steel bands. The
prisoners limbs, fingers, toes, and faces severely contorted. The force

(22:01):
of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's
eyeballs sometimes pop out and rest on his cheeks. The
prisoner often defecates, urinates, and vomits blood and jewel. Sometimes
the prisoner catches on fire, particularly if he perspires excessively.
And witnesses here allowed and sustain sound like bacon frying,
and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh permeates the chamber.

(22:25):
And and dude, we should point out, like Brennan wasn't saying,
you know, in the worst case scenario, this is what happens.
That's a pretty standard. That's standard for an electric chair execution.
And then there's like there was one other thing too
that I saw still in the gruesome zone. Everybody, Um,
you said that the uh, well, Brennan said that the

(22:47):
the person gurgles often, Um, they'll also sigh, and apparently
it for freaks out witnesses because they're like he's still alive.
And what happens again the when the muscles tracked, UM,
whatever air is in the lungs gets trapped in there
because your epple glottis shuts tight just it's not opening again.

(23:08):
So then when the electricity has turned off and your
muscles relaxed, that air is expelled out and it sounds
like you're sighing or you're gurgling if there's you know,
fluid in there. UM. And it's just another terrible a
facet of this of this this kind of execution. Yeah,
so we promised talk of hanging, and that's really how

(23:30):
the electric chair came about. Um. In Europe they had
uh long used the guillotine, but here in the United
States kind of from the beginning. UM, I guess there're
firing squads, but hanging was really the um quote unquote
humane way of executing prisoners for a long time. UM
with the idea that, um, if it's in the case

(23:51):
of a gallows, that door would drop, you would drop
and your neck would snap basically and you would die
very very quickly. But that was not always the case. UM.
It was a man named Tom Ketchum in nineteen and
one and then New Mexico, New Mexico Territory. His head
was completely torn off of his body. Yep, that's just one.

(24:12):
There were plenty of them that actually happened to a
woman named Eva Duggan had that happened to her in
Arizona in ninety as well. And it's not like it's
it's not that's not the only possible outcome from a
botched hanging. Like they can go the other way as well,
where you're not like your neck doesn't snap or your
head doesn't pop off and you're just slowly suffocating. There

(24:36):
was the case of one guy, I think his name
is William williams Um who was just born to lose
apparently um he he he dropped and didn't it didn't strangle,
it didn't um break his neck, he didn't do anything,
and the prison officials had to like basically stranglate him
with the with the rope to kill him. And so

(24:56):
all this stuff, and there's plenty of them. They're all
this stuff is making the news at the time, and
it was kind of converging with a public sentiment against
the death penalty in general. So if the public is
kind of like, oh, not quite sure, we should be
killing people. I don't. I don't feel very good about this.
And then news of like botched hangings are coming out.

(25:19):
Something's going to change. And there are basically two things
that can happen at a point in history like this.
Either the society can say, you know what, execution in
general is just bad, bad news, and let's just not
do that anymore. Or maybe we do need execution, but
we need to find a better way to do it
in pronto, because this is not okay any longer. Yeah,

(25:42):
there was there was another kind of hanging. Um. You
always think of the gallows and that trap door, but
there's something called a suspension hanging where um, the person
is on the ground with a rope around their neck
and weights are dropped over a pulley and then you
are jerked up instead of being dropped and that supposedly
will snap your neck. And that was the case with

(26:04):
the execution of Roxelanna Drew's seven. Um. She was small
and so when that um, when that rope was jerked up,
her neck was not snapped and she slowly was strangled
to death for about twenty minutes. And um, she had
killed her husband. And that was a case that was

(26:25):
uh controversial for a lot of reasons. Um. It was
very much a pre planned killing. But she claimed that
she had been abused. She had her children involved in
the killing. Um, it's it was. It's a pretty interesting story. Um.
She sent her ten year old out, uh and then
had her teenage kids help out. So one of the

(26:48):
kids tied a rope around her dad's neck. Um. The woman,
the mother, Roxanna Roxelanna shot him. Um, but I think
didn't use the gun properly so it didn't kill him.
Gave the gun to her fourteen year old nephew. He
shot him a few more times. The husband's laying there

(27:08):
unable to move, pleading for help, and then she comes
barreling in with an axe and cuts his head off. Jeez. Yeah.
So uh she takes the head and the body to
the parlor. Uh. They stayed there for about a day.
Then she cut the body up, burnt it and got
rid of the ashes, and then was was found out.

(27:29):
So um. But the upshot of all this was when
she was executed. She didn't die quickly and humanely. Um.
She died very slowly, painfully, and very important publicly at
a time when the public in particular. New York was like,
we're better than this, and so, um, not not strictly

(27:49):
from her um her botched execution, but definitely in part
because of it, New York said, we need to find
a better way to do this. Um, how can we
how can we execute somebody better? And they said, um,
prominent lawyer Albridge Thomas Jerry go. And so Jerry formed, Well,

(28:10):
he's like, well, you guys picked me first, So we're
gonna call the commission, the Jerry Commission, and um he
assembled two other guys, including a man named Alfred P. Southwick,
who was a dentist who was interested in this kind
of stuff. He was like, you know what, being a
dentist isn't scratching that sadistic itch? Right? He was basically

(28:31):
like the founder of Ohio Art, you know exactly. So
he's so the three of them get together and they
spent two years figuring out, like looking at different ways
of execution, and they looked at all of them. Man,
they released this um this journal report, like a formal
government New York state government report that details and chronicles

(28:51):
all the different ways that you could officially kill somebody
from precipitation, which is pushing him off a cliff to
um boiling them alive, whether you want it to be
you know, molten lead or water doesn't really matter at
that point. UM to crushing from heavy stones. And they
looked at thirty four different methods of execution in detail,

(29:12):
and they concluded that none of them we're an improvement
on hanging. That yeah, some of them would definitely like
provide the public spectacle that would probably deter other people
or make them think twice about killing somebody, but um,
definitely no more humane, as inhumane as hanging could be,
especially a botched hanging. So they said, okay, well we're

(29:34):
back to square one. But one of us, south Alfred P. Southwick,
thinks he knows of a method that we haven't hit
upon yet, and it was electricity. No, he had seen
a a Marx Brothers movie and he said, maybe we
should just drop a safe on someone's head as they
walked down the sidewalk. Right, They're like, yeah, I could
kind of work, but if you miss, you just really

(29:54):
maim them terribly. Yeah, So he came upon electrocution as
a as what he thought was like the best way
because electricity was, um, this is where we get into
like kind of things aligning and carbon arc lining becoming widespread,
and cities and people having um street lights and electricity
in their houses was in in big cities. Was sort

(30:16):
of a new thing, but it was super dangerous and
there were a lot of cases of people getting electrocuted.
Um that was a drunken buffalo. A drunk man who
grabbed hold of a generator, Um, just to sort of
see what it felt like, died instantly. And that's when
Southfolk was like, wait a minute, I think we're onto
something here. If it can kill people just instantly, and

(30:36):
then that's kind of what we're after. Right. So the
thing is is like that whole instantly thing, that's a
little subjective. Um, it happened once to this guy, right, Yeah,
it happened one time. And then also like this is
what an eyewitness standing, you know, a little ways away says,
it happened he died instantly. Are you fudging a little bit?

(30:57):
Because instantly or not really kind of counts when you're
looking for a new method of execution for a state
to use over and over and over again and to
spread through all all fifty states. Basically, Um, it's really
important that it's instant, and they were like, yea, yeah,
it's instant. Let's just look into this one because it's
got to be better than hanging. So they they did,

(31:17):
and when they found out that, um that when it
became public and announced that they were um kind of
forming a sub set to the Jerry Commission called Chuck
the Electric Death Commission best band name of all time.
We have arrived at the band name. Everybody, Yeah, there's
not a lot on this. Even I looked into this

(31:38):
a little more and it's not. It's not all over
the internet. Surprisingly, no, it's not. But it's like I've
seen it in some reputable sources, so it's not like
it's just totally made up or a myth or a
legend or something like that. I think I think it was.
It was basically they said, Okay, the Jerry Commission is
has done its job. We're gonna set ourselves up in

(31:59):
this own com it's in the Electric Death Commission, to
basically show that electrocution is a good and humane way
to elected to take a life right for the state.
So um, Alfred Southwick fell in with a guy named
George Fell. Appropriately enough, George Fell was a surgeon. He

(32:20):
was a tinkerer, an engineer, and um, he became extremely
interested in the applications of electricity to cause death as well.
And so Southwick and Fell basically got together and formed
this like weirdo cabal to figure out how to create
an electric chair. Yeah. This part I don't quite get

(32:40):
because I know that and I can hardly even say
the sentence out loud. But I know that they practiced
on stray dogs, like they electrocuted hundreds of dogs. But
it says here they were supplied by the Buffalo a
s p c A not knowingly right, Yes, I saw
somewhere chuck at for at this time. Thanks to these guys,

(33:03):
that became the method of euthanasia that the local animal
shelters used on stray animals. Yeah, so, I I guess
they started testing on him and it became like so
um so useful. I guess that the s p c
A said, Ay, bring your equipment on over here, and
they started using it to execute straights. That's what I saw. Wow.

(33:25):
I'm sure they're not proud of that part of their
history of protecting animals from cruelty. I'm sure that they
are not actually like please please stop, just keep moving
on keep going, talk about Thomas Edison. So at the
end of this uh and all these dogs, they they
basically came to that conclusion that we talked about earlier
was that electricity will instantly disrupt the heartbeat and the

(33:48):
rhythm uh, and death will be instant and painless. And uh.
New York passed a state law saying basically that this
is the way forward for us. Yeah, and again this
is like, this is long after the time when the
two guys um Provost and Battelli had shown this is

(34:10):
like the early I think that you could actually use
electricity to restart somebody's heart. And then also now we
know that actually electricity doesn't instantly kill you by causing
a heart attack. It does the opposite. The heart becomes
like goes into safe mode to protect itself, and um,
you have to hit it again to make it spasm

(34:31):
and go into fibrillation, because that's what fibrillation is. It's
like an in um uh non rhythmic heartbeat to where
you can't actually pump any blood out. That's a heart attack, right,
or that's fibrillation, that's cardiac arrest. That's not what happens
when you get hit with the first jolt of electricity.
So I don't know if Fell and Southwick were just

(34:52):
making this up or if it just happened that it
did kill dogs like that or what. Maybe they were
using a massive amount or maybe they we're using just
the right level of amps. I don't know, but um,
they definitely demonstrated that this was this was something that
could be done. But it wasn't just them. Simultaneous to
Southwick and Fell, who from everything I could tell, we're

(35:13):
aside from the fact that they killed a lot of
dogs with electricity, were legitimate um scientists who were doing
this to find a humane alternative to hanging. There was
another guy who was the opposite of legitimate, wasn't a
scientist and was a fairly shaded character named Harold Brown. Yeah.
So uh, off to the side. You know, fell in

(35:36):
Southwick built the first actual chair. So just park that
there for a moment and then we have to just
pop a squat, take a seat and that no, don't
sit there, sit in the other chair. Um, So we
have to talk about the war of currents, which we've
talked about on this. I think we did a whole
podcast on this, right, Yeah, we did, like did did

(35:59):
Nicola Tesla change the way we use electricity? Answer? Yes, yeah,
so we don't need to go over all that again.
But um, just very quickly the war of currents. There
was a big war between uh, whether or not we're
going to move forward as a nation with a C
power or DC power. Uh. Thomas Edison UM wanted that
DC power. That was he had invested heavily in that,

(36:20):
so he was trying to make that one out. Uh.
And then George Westinghouse, of course, on the other side,
was working U had invested in a C power and
Brown who you mentioned he actually worked for Edison? Is
that right? Yes? But supposedly unbeknows he even testified under
oath that he did not work for Edison when he
very well, very much did and had for years by

(36:41):
that time. How interesting. Yeah, yeah, who, here's a shade ball.
And I the one thing that I can't figure out, Chuck,
is whether he was truly a UM crusader against Westinghouse
and a C power like he genuinely thought it was
dangerous and then he fell in with Edison, or if
he was in edis an operative from the outset. That's

(37:01):
what I've not been able to establish, but he was
definitely working for Edison secretly. Interesting, So the Electric Death
Commission gets in touch with Edison, and then the Grabster
put this together for us, and I thought, this is
a very kind of great comparison. He said, you know,
what happened next is sort of like if the government

(37:23):
said to Pepsi, Hey, you guys are experts on soda, um,
how how should we kill someone with a soda And
Pepsi was like, here, we'll do lots of experiments that
will prove to you that coca cola will kill somebody
very easily. And that's basically what happened is is Harold Brown,
working with Edison, did all these gruesome, uh public electrocutions

(37:47):
to show how dangerous a C current was so they
would adopt it for the electric chair, which would in turn,
in his mind, give a C current a bad name.
I mean, that's as underhanded as it gets. Like, if
you are in competition and business, that's like Uber calling
fake lift rides um when they started out, do you

(38:08):
remember that? But this is way way worse. But it's
still in the same wheelhouse. But but that's what that's
what Edison was doing. He was like, oh yeah, totally.
This is a great Apparently, he declined first that participate
have anything to do with this Electric Death Commission, and
then he was like, oh wait, yes, actually I have
a great idea. I would like to be involved. I
really I suggest that a C current be used. And

(38:31):
he used Harold Brown to to just basically carry out
this whole thing, so much so that Harold Brown managed
to convince the Electric Death Commission that not only should
a C current be used for the first electrocution in
the state of New York, a Westinghouse generator should be
used to generate that electrical current. And he tried to

(38:51):
buy some generators from Westinghouse and they're like, uh, no, no,
you can't, we know what you're gonna do with those.
So he ended up buying second hand ones and that
kind of sets the stage for the first execution, which,
if you ask me, is a really good point to
take our second break. So, Chuck, We're in Auburn State Prison.

(39:38):
It's August of eighteen nine, and there's a guy named
William Kemmler who was convicted of murdering his common law
wife Tilly with an axe, and uh when he was caught,
he apparently had done it in a drunken range. And
I don't know if he felt remorse or guilt or
was just bored with the whole thing, but he had
a quote where he said something like, um, uh, yes,

(40:00):
I I struck her with a hatchet. I intended to
kill her. Um. The sooner I am hung, and it's
over with the better hanged, hanged. I always get that
wrong tonight, So the sooner I'm hanged, uh, and it's
over with the better and uh. I guess he was
not afraid of the noose. But when he found out

(40:21):
that they were going to use electrocution and that he
would be the first ever human being to be executed
by the state with electric electricity, he was like whoa, whoa, whoa, wa, whoa,
what are you talking about again? And started to file lawsuits.
So he actually also became the first person to challenge
the constitutionality of the electric chair as a means of execution. Yeah,

(40:43):
that's kind of a crazy fact. I think the very
first person to go to the electric chair was the
first person to be like, I don't think this is right. Yeah,
it's true. Uh, But the Supreme Court said no, no,
They rolled against Kimbler and said it does not violate
the eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Um, And he went,
what about the excessive bail? And they went, I thought

(41:05):
you were talking about cruel and unusual punishment, and he
went out, whatever you want to hear. Uh. So his execution, uh,
the very first one, was by all accounts botched pretty
severely in and of itself. Yeah, so you remember how
um uh what was his name? Harold Brown managed to
get Westinghouse generators used for that first execution, but he

(41:29):
had to buy secondhand ones. The first jolt of electricity
that was sent through William Kemmeler to kill him only
lasted for seventeen seconds because one of the belts started
to fall off the generator, so they had to stop
before it had killed him. And by all accounts, he
was sitting there struggling with life left in him. And
the New York Times reported that quote strong men fainted

(41:51):
and felt like logs on the floor at the site.
It was a terrible thing to see. And also if
you look at the drawings of them of the execution
that we're used in the newspapers of the day, he's
just sitting there in a chair surrounded by people like
Harold Brown and George Fell and Alfred Southwick, and then
the witnesses are all just milling around, like standing around

(42:14):
watching them, like they're watching some guy like in a
drinking contest or something, and that's how he was executed.
So I would imagine, like, you know, it's it would
be bad enough to be a witness to an execution
today where it's real sterile in the it's really um
clinical and there's a glass glass thick glass window between
you and the curtain. Comes down to standing in the

(42:35):
same room with somebody who's being electrocuted just a few
feet away. That's gotta be that's gotta make it even worse,
you know. Yeah, And so you know, clearly not a
more humane way after this first execution, but they press
forward because um and I think Ed points out very
astutely that there was something about the fact that it

(42:57):
was a use of technology that wasn't tie a rope
around someone's neck or just put a bullet in their
head that it seemed less offensive to the public at large.
I think, um, because it's not the kind of thing
like they didn't if you're not a witness to it
and you just read about something in the paper, it
may seem like there is a um an acceptable moral

(43:21):
distance because of this technology, right right, right, So like hanging,
when hanging came when hanging was under fire for you know,
not being humane, new technology that kind of put more
distance between you, that just seem more advanced. And because
it was more advanced in this kind of technocratic way
of thinking, it was more humane, it was more high tech,

(43:42):
so it must just be better. That was kind of
how the electric chair came to replace hanging. But even
though that first one was simply botched, the idea of
it just made it. It made it allowed it to spread.
And from like all not all the accounts, but most
of the accounts that I saw um of that first execution,
We're just like, this is terrible, this is gruesome. This

(44:03):
will probably never happen again. And then other states were like, oh,
you cook him with electricity, huh, Like I like that idea,
Let me try that too, And it spread fairly quickly
and became far and away the dominant method of execution
in the United States in the twentieth century. Yeah, and
there have been many many and you know, at the
end we'll talk about some some more botched executions. But UM,

(44:27):
I don't think there are any more UM legendary than
Willie Francis in nineteen UM. He was executed in Louisiana
for a murderer that uh. To call his trial UM
questionable and suspect is like an understatement. UM. It seems
like this guy was just totally railroaded. UM. And you

(44:47):
mentioned gruesome girty earlier. That was the name of the
electric chair in Louisiana in this case for his execution.
It was set up by a drunk prison guard UM
who apparently didn't add it up correctly. It was total
human heir. So he goes down in history, as to
my knowledge, the only person who has ever been executed

(45:08):
uh technically twice or because he survived his botched execution
such that he lived completely through it, they couldn't use
the chair anymore and he actually lived to fight to say, hey,
you can't do this again, because that is totally that

(45:29):
is the definition of cruel and unusual. You tried to
kill me once and it didn't work, and I'm here
in court again and the Supreme Court said, now, sorry,
you're gonna have to go to the chair again. And't
the craziest thing you've ever heard crazy. So so the
guy this wasn't like the guys survived and they're like, quick, quick,

(45:49):
throw the switch again. He's still alive. We need to
we need to you know, finish the job or whatever
you want to call it. This was the electric chairs
broke after going through a full execution. The guy still
alive and lives for another year before they're like, all right,
we fix the electric chair. It's time for you to
die again. And they did it twice in that second time.
That was that. But he um, that's that is that's

(46:12):
the definition of cruel and unusual. I agree with you entirely. Yeah.
And the interesting thing though is if you look, there
were statistics put together about four or five years ago
that shows that the electric chair, and you know, like
you said, we did one on lethal injection UM that
starting in the late seventies kind of became UM one
of the more preferred choices for most states. But uh,

(46:35):
as far as what you would consider botch percentage UM,
the electric chair kind of leads the way except for
the firing squad UM. Only one point nine to electrocutions
are UM categorized as botched, compared to seven point one
two percent for lethal injection. Yeah, which is that's a
pretty pretty good track record comparatively speaking, I guess. But

(47:00):
then there's a really big point here too. It's like,
um in a botched lethal injection, at least from the
perspective of the witnesses, that's vastly preferred to a botched
electrocution where the person catches fire something like that. But
here's the problem with all of these, with comparing like

(47:21):
botch nous and what's preferred and all that one's much
more that's a much more tasteful botched execution than this one.
We because the medical profession has said, well, we don't
have anything to do with this, Like yeah, doctor can
be present to pronounce the person dead, but the doctor
is not going to insist, assist in any way, shape
or form and still keep the medical license. We we
cause no harm, so we can't assist in executions. Right.

(47:45):
Our understanding of execution is coming. It's like anecdotal, like
how to carry out an execution? What protocol you should use,
Like it's it's done by the people who are doing
this almost through trial and error or from people's day
to where they executed dogs a hundreds something years ago. Um,
and that was what was used to kill you know, hundreds,

(48:08):
if not a thousand plus humans in actually, yeah, probably
more than thousands humans in the United States in the
twentieth century. Um. The thing is this chuck. So, so
you can stop there pretty easily and just say like, so,
we we don't know if it was ever humane. We
don't know if it does caused instant death people catch
on fire or whatever. But you actually we've never known

(48:32):
whether it does cause instant death because when you when
you are autopsied after your execution, your brain is cooked,
um like invariably, that's one of the by products of
uh a electrocution. Your brain gets cooked basically through and through.
It can be like a hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit

(48:52):
at autopsy. Still, you know, um, dozens of minutes or
an hour or so later, when your brain is removed,
it's still that right. So we don't actually know if
the electric chair isn't humane or isn't painless, We don't
really know. Um. But then at the same time, an
execution and whether it's tasteful or appears humane, it's it's yes,

(49:15):
it's meant to be that way for the the inmate.
But it really is meant to be that way for
society because it has to be palatable and tasteful for society,
or else society is gonna be like, no, we can't
do that anymore, like we did with hanging. And that
is what happened actually with execution. Because of some botched
executions in Florida in the nineties, UM, society said like,

(49:37):
we've got to find another way. I've heard about this
lethal injection thing. Let's try that instead. Yeah, I mean,
should we talk about some of these uh awful stories? Yeah,
so let me see here UM October in Indiana, UM
electrocution of William van Diver uh first administrat volts. He

(50:01):
was still breathing. The execution took a total of five
volts I'm sorry, five jolts uh in seventeen minutes UM.
The smell of smoke of hair and flesh burning. The
Department of Corrections said this quote the execution did not
go according to plan. Yeah, they like to be droll.

(50:21):
It sounds like how about Horace Franklin Duncan's Jr. Nine
in Alabama, UM. Two jolts of electricity nine minutes apart um.
The first jolt failed to kill him, and the captain
of the prison guard opened the door to the witness
room and said, I think we've got the jack's on wrong. Uh.

(50:42):
They reconnect the cables correctly and death was pronounced nineteen
minutes after the first charge. But the first charge, it's
not like it wasn't painful. If it was probably more
painful than the second one because the second one produced death.
But um, it was not. It couldn't possibly produce the
kind of voltage that would kill a person. It was
just basically torture, like a little a little torture starter

(51:06):
like they have a t g I Fridays. And then
that was followed by the entree, which was death, um,
which is not supposed to happen. So again, if you'll
kind of harken back to um, the all these news
stories coming out like, oh, this is not how we're
supposed to be executing people. What's going on? This is
starting to go on in the eighties and then early

(51:26):
nineties around the United States with with electrocution. Yeah, this
one in Georgia, Alpha otis stevens Um. The first charge
failed to kill him. He struggled to breathe for eight minutes. Uh,
and they carried out the second charge. After the first
two minute power surge, there was a six minute pause
so his body could cool enough so physicians could examine him.

(51:49):
And in that six minute period he took twenty three breaths,
which if you do the math, you know, and think
about how intermittent those breaths are. Uh. And then the
quote from the or your prison official was Stevens was
just not a conductor of electricity. But how about that?
And then there were three chuck, There were three um
in Florida that really kind of galvanized public opinion against electrocutions.

(52:13):
Joseph or Jesse Joseph Tafaraoh, Pedro Medina and a guy
named Allan Lee Davis and Ta. Pharaoh and Medina both
caught on fire. Um I think to Pharaoh's head had
like six inch flames shooting out from under the crown
um under the electrode on his head, and um Medina
had like a foot flames and like so much that

(52:35):
his whole he was just charred. His head was charred
during the execution. Again, we don't know that he actually suffered,
but that's not what the public wants to see or
read about. When we're when we leave it to the
state to execute people humanely, that's not supposed to happen.
And then Alan Lee Davis very famously had photographs taken
of him after his execution, and his face seems to

(52:56):
be very clearly contorted in in a look of pain.
He was a very big man, like pounds and a
tremendous amount of blood loss. It looks like it came
out of his mouth and maybe even his chest, but
they later determined that it was um, it came out
of his nose. Um. But there's just a lot of blood.
And they also said, like, well, the guy was on
blood thinners, so this is pretty clear has happened, but

(53:18):
it doesn't really mean anything. He got a nosebleed during
the electrocution, and the public said, we don't care. That's
number three on in Florida alone. Go find something else.
Let's try this lethal injection thing. Yeah. Um, I did ah,
I did a list. Actually, I think Nebraska in two
thousand and eight was the last state to UH stop

(53:39):
using the electric chair as their primary source. UM. But
I was curious, like, which state just has executed the
most people period by whatever means? And um, Texas leads
away what Uh, they have two stats since nineteen thirty
and since nineteen seventy six, but Texas has executed eighteen

(54:02):
hundred I'm sorry, eight hundred forty one people since nineteen thirty.
George's number two actually with four d and thirty six,
but since nineteen seventy six, um, Georgia has executed seventy
four people to Texas is five hundred and sixty three.
Oh my gosh. And since seventy six, Virginia is actually

(54:23):
second and then Florida is third. Both have over a hundred.
Would not have guessed Virginia Florida. I probably would have
guessed Texas. I knew, but wow, that's a significant that's
a that's a long gap between number one and two. Yeah,
and Texas has always you know, been criticized as uh
death penalty. Um happy, I would say that's a fair characterization.

(54:49):
Sadly prove us wrong in Texas, you can't do it? Yeah,
um so. So remember we said that everybody was like, no,
no more electrocutions, let's find something else. When they went
to the lethal injection, which is supposedly more humane. I
was reading this article by a law professor named Austin
Austin Surat who basically said, you know, those two two

(55:11):
prisoners in Tennessee in December of two thousand eighteen alone
opted for the electric chair because they didn't have faith
that UM lethal injection was going to be less painful
or less prolonged. They wanted the electric chair instead, and
that up to this point, every time we've changed UM
what our method of execution is, it's been technologically speaking,

(55:35):
socially speaking, a step forward in that in that kind
of area, and that going back to the electric chair
is a huge step backwards. Into him, it represents a
major crisis in the legitimacy of the death penalty. And
he was, I guess kind of wondering without saying it, like,
is this is this the beginning of the end for
the death penalty in the United States? Again? Interesting, I

(55:59):
thought so too. But that's electric chairs. You can buy one,
or you could. I think it's sold. One sold in
two thousand twelve. Tennessee's old Sparky sold in two thousand twelve,
if I'm not mistaken, Yeah, on an online auction for
twenty five thousand dollars. Marilyn Manson, I don't know. I
heard it was being put in a museum in Tennessee,

(56:19):
so probably not um. But that's electric chairs. Like I said, everybody,
and if you want to know more about them, you
can go look around the internet. You can also just
leave this behind forever. It will kind of be nice
to shed this one because it was some grim research.
And since I say sorry for putting us through this one, chuck,
this is a Josh pick everybody, since I mean, like

(56:42):
halfway through great research to today, I was like, god, man,
I just feel just bad right now, you know. And
then he had a panini and everything was okay. Yeah,
it was a good panini for sure. Uh. Well, since
we said panini, it's time for listener mail. I'm curious
if you're gonna this is the one, Josh, but here

(57:04):
we go. Hey, guys, I just recently I listened to
the started listening to podcasts because apparently I'm a luddite,
so I've been waiting my way through the old episodes.
I listened to the one on saunas uh, and I
wanted to let you know there is a holiday inn
just outside of Toledo in Perrysburg. Did you see this email? Yeah?

(57:26):
I did, I responded, Actually, okay, well, I can't wait
to hear what happened. Um. It's it's called the holiday
in French Quarter, which used to be a holid dome
and to which it is possible to have or was
possible to have a pool membership. In addition to three
pools in a large hot tub, the hotel has a
large sauna and I am positive that this is the
holiday end that Josh's dad took him to when he

(57:49):
was a kid, staple for over fifty years. Unfortunately, the
hotel will be closing at the end of the month
after losing its holiday in flag to a new build
that is from Deanna Pollen. Is that the one? No,
it's not, but my family here. My family used to
go on staycations at that French Quarter holiday. It was

(58:10):
like two towns over and it was like it was
pretty awesome when you were a kid. I think she's
kind of underselling at the three pools in the hot tub.
Like the pools were meandering and went all over the place.
They were like bridges over them, so you swam under bridges.
They would go out, so they were like indoor outdoor pools.
It was pretty awesome. But my um pool membership and
saw a membership was at the Holiday Inn near Southwick Mall,

(58:34):
which that Holiday Inn is now a um an assisted
living tower, I believe, but for a little while in
between being a holiday Inn and being an assisted living tower,
it was abandoned and one of the coolest, like photos
that she can look at her abandoned hotels and somebody
went to the trouble of getting photos inside this abandoned
holiday and it's really cool, including the pool. So just

(58:56):
look up I think abandoned holiday in Toledo. I O
Southwick Mall. Maybe you know, probably bring it up. Well,
maybe you'll end up there one day, bring it full circle. Yeah.
I was depressed of the French Quarters going under though.
That was a great, great little place. I was talking
to UM. I was like, oh, man, did I ever
tell you about my family staying at the French Course.
She's like, yes, you told me your family went on

(59:17):
vacation two towns over a holiday and I was like, yeah,
it was great though. I think the best one was
the pool that was in the Highway median. What was
that one? I just thought that was like the fourth pool.
Right to use it your own risk pool. It was disconnected,
you'd run like heck to get to it. That's right. Uh, well, Chuck,

(59:39):
you got anything else? Well, if you want to get
in touch with this to let us know about some
part of my childhood being shut down forever, we love
hearing about that kind of stuff. You can go to
stuff you Should Know dot com and look for our
social links, and you can also send us an email
to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Stuff

(01:00:00):
you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.