Death Penalty

By kristveselii

  • 1608

    Captain George Kendall becomes the first recorded execution in the new colonies.When European settlers came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment. The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. Kendall was executed for being a spy for Spain.

  • 1890- William Kemmler

    1890- William Kemmler becomes first person executed by electrocution. On August 6, 1890, William Kemmler became the first person to be sent to the chair. After he was strapped in, a charge of approximately 700 volts was delivered for only 17 seconds before the current failed.

  • 1907-1917 - Nine states abolish the death penalty for all crimes or strictly limit it.

    1846 - Michigan becomes the first state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except treason. 1890 - William Kemmler becomes the first person executed by electrocution. 1907-1917 - Nine states abolish the death penalty for all crimes or strictly limit it. By 1920, five of those states had reinstated it.

  • 1924 - The use of cyanide gas introduced as an execution method

    The gas chamber was first adopted in the U.S. state of Nevada in 1921 in an effort to provide a more humane form of capital punishment.

  • 1948 - The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaiming a “right to life.”

    Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (

  • 1958 - Trop v. Dulles. Eighth Amendment’s meaning contained an “evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society.”

    The 1960s brought challenges to the fundamental legality of the death penalty. Before then, the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments were interpreted as permitting the death penalty. However, in the early 1960s, it was suggested that the death penalty was a “cruel and unusual” punishment, and therefore unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. In 1958, the Supreme Court had decided in Trop v. Dulles (356 U.S. 86),

  • 1968 - Witherspoon v. Illinois. Dismissing potential jurors solely because they express opposition to the death penalty held unconstitutional.

    Illinois (1968) The Supreme Court held that prospective jurors could not be disqualified from jury service simply because they voiced general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against it.

  • June 1972 - Furman v. Georgia. Supreme Court effectively voids 40 death penalty statutes and suspends the death penalty.

    On June 29, 1972, the Court decided in a complicated ruling, Furman v. Georgia, that the application of the death penalty in three cases was unconstitutional. The Court would clarify that ruling in a later case in 1976, putting the death penalty back on the books under different circumstances.

  • January 17, 1977 - Ten-year moratorium on executions ends with the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in Utah.

    Gary Gilmore, in full Gary Mark Gilmore, original name Faye Robert Coffman, (born December 4, 1940, McCamey, Texas, U.S.—died January 17, 1977, Draper, Utah), American murderer whose execution by the state of Utah in 1977 ended a de facto nationwide moratorium on capital punishment that had lasted nearly 10 years.

  • 1986 - Batson v. Kentucky. Prosecutor who strikes a disproportionate number of citizens of the same race in selecting a jury is required to rebut the inference of discrimination by showing neutral reasons for his or her strikes.

    During the criminal trial in a Kentucky state court of petitioner, a black man, the judge conducted voir dire examination of the jury venire and excused certain jurors for cause. The prosecutor then used his peremptory challenges to strike all four black persons on the venire, and a jury composed only of white persons was selected.