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When it Began in America
The first established death penalty laws date back to the 18th century. In America, the first execution was in 1608 of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony. He was executed because it was believed he was a spy for Spain. -
Death Penalty and the Constitution
When drawing up the Constitution, the Founding Fathers added the Fifth and Eighth Amendment. They expressly allow for the taking of a life. They were also ambiguously phrased to suggest certain forms of punishment (such as beheading) could be banned and0or permissible by the individual state. -
Federal Death Penalty
The first US Congress established the federal death penalty on April 30th, 1790. The Punishment of Crimes Act was the first listing of federal crimes and their punishments, Those crimes included murder, disfigurement, and robbery committed in federal jurisdictions. The first federal execution was on June 25th, 1790, when U.S. Marshall Henry Dearborn coordinated the hanging of Thomas Bird in Massachusetts. -
Public Executions are Deemed Cruel
Starting around the year 1833, public executions were seen as cruel. Thousands of people would view the hangings and merchants would even sell souvenirs and alcohol. Violence and drunkenness would ensure and people would fight over the "best spot to watch". -
First US State to Abolish Capital Punishment
The state of Michigan in 1846 abolished the death penalty for all crimes, except treason, and in turn replaced it with life imprisonment. The death penalty is often viewed as an eye for an eye rather than justice. But, Michigan was the first English-speaking jurisdiction in the world to abolish capital punishment. -
14th Amendment is Ratified
After the Civil War, July 9th, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment is ratified. It extends the previous protection to the states and was cited in the case Furman v. Georgia. It was ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional as administered in the Supreme court case. -
First Execution by Electrocution
With the help of Thomas Edison's engineers, the condemned murderer, William Kemmler, was the first person in the electric chair. The electricity did eventually burned him to death, but not before he had to endure two pervious surges of electricity. One had even lasted more than a minute, During this time, people believed that using the electric chair was a more humane way of executing criminals. -
Cruel and Unreasonable Punishment
In the case Weems v. United States, the court made a ruling that significantly affected the debate on the penalty. Weems was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and a number of other penalties for the minor crime he had committed. The court ended up overturning the sentence because they ruled it was too harsh of a punishment considering the nature of the crime. This is important because nowadays no one can have a harsh punishment for a petty crime. -
Death Penalty Administered as Unconstitutional
In Furman v. Georgia , the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that in all cases before the court, the death penalty violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The majority declared that the penalty was unconstitutional entirely as a punishment. By using this as a guideline, hundreds of sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. -
Resumed Use of the Penalty
In nearly two decades, officials were ordered to schedule executions for 5 inmates. Legal challenges were faced on how to carry out the punishment and Attorney General William Barr tried to order the government to adopt a new method. That however, was reversed.