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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,

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Speaker 1: and there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Should Know over here. And uh, I guess they probably

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Speaker 1: found a little too chipper for what we're about to

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Speaker 1: talk about, because it is grim stuff it is. And I,

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Speaker 1: my friend, have a fact that you probably know, but

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Speaker 1: I don't know if everyone else knows that the word

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Speaker 1: electrocute is a portmanteau that was coined during the War

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Speaker 1: of Currents. He did, I'm so happy with you. This

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Speaker 1: is mine fact too. I was like, Chuck's gonna love this.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate you assuming that I already knew it. Well,

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Speaker 1: I assume you know everything. Let him have it. Chuck, Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's uh it comes from the words electric and execution.

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Speaker 1: And when I saw that, I was like, that can't

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Speaker 1: be right, Like, surely the word electrocute was around before then,

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Speaker 1: But there was no before then, because there was no like,

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Speaker 1: you know, mass use of electricity. And uh, I don't

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Speaker 1: know who exactly coined it. I couldn't find that, but

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Speaker 1: it was during the War of Currents. Yeah. I saw

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Speaker 1: it in like a paper from that said that, and

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Speaker 1: they said he just said it so matter of factly.

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Speaker 1: I was like, what that doesn't Oh wow, that is right, electrocute,

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Speaker 1: electro execution. It's like, um, the s executioner. It's like

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Speaker 1: sex and the executioner, the sexecutioner. Yeah. And that's also

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Speaker 1: a word that guess gets misused because a lot of

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Speaker 1: people say someone's electrocuted if they just experienced a profound shock.

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Speaker 1: But that's not the case. That's why I was confusing.

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Speaker 1: I think at first force we're like, wait, that's not mikeense,

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Speaker 1: it's not sensible. I also saw one another electro than Asia. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I know it's not nearly as good as electrocute, but

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Speaker 1: I wanted to toss it out to uh and this

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Speaker 1: episode has what I believe maybe the best stuff you

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Speaker 1: should know band name of all time. I know what

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Speaker 1: that one is too, so we'll just hang onto that. Okay. Cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I saw that and I was like, there's Chuck's band name.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking electrocution. And now that you know electrocution

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Speaker 1: what the word means, you know, we're specifically talking about

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Speaker 1: being put to death on purpose through electricity, And as

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Speaker 1: far as we know, the only way that anyone's ever

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Speaker 1: been put to put to death using electricity is in

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Speaker 1: an electric chair, which is a specifically American invention. Did

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Speaker 1: you know that before you researched this? I did, And UM,

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Speaker 1: we should point out that the Philippines did use this

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Speaker 1: for a while, but it was because we basically we're like,

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Speaker 1: you guys should totally use the electric chair. Here, have

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Speaker 1: one right back in I think like six and they

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Speaker 1: used it for fifty years until ninety six and then

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Speaker 1: they were like, this is really gross. We're gonna stop

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Speaker 1: using this and executing people all together in that right?

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Speaker 1: Did they all together? I just assumed they went to

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Speaker 1: firing squad or something. I think I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it was in seventy six, but I think they got

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Speaker 1: rid of the death note perhaps how very civil So

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Speaker 1: um with the electric chair. Um, we've we've had, Like

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Speaker 1: I said, it was an American invention and it's been

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Speaker 1: around since. I guess the eighteen eighties is when it

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Speaker 1: really started to kind of make a make its debut.

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Speaker 1: But it's it's really kind of basic and simple for

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Speaker 1: something is um seemingly complicated. Is harnessing electricity to put

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Speaker 1: in to extinguish a human life. Right, It's a chair

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Speaker 1: that you strap somebody to and run electricity through their

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Speaker 1: body until they die. It's really about that simple, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they I mean, if you've ever seen a movie um

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Speaker 1: or god forbid, if you've ever been to an execution,

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Speaker 1: can't imagine doing something like that. But people do that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, you know, uh, if I say

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Speaker 1: things like that, I'm just speaking for myself. Everyone, Well,

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Speaker 1: we did like a whole lethal injection episode and you

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Speaker 1: came out pretty strongly against the death penalty if I

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Speaker 1: remember correctly, so, so it's already out there. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: just if I seem like I'm turned off by a

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Speaker 1: lot of this is because I am. But there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of people in this country that when they

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Speaker 1: hear about like flame shooting out of someone's head and

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Speaker 1: blood count coming out of someone's eyeballs and the smell

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Speaker 1: of cooked flesh, they're like, heck, yeah, like zap him again.

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Speaker 1: Shouldn't it shouldn't have killed those people? You're getting what

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Speaker 1: you deserve. So there are a lot of people out

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Speaker 1: there that feel that way. And I'm just not one

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Speaker 1: of them. Yeah. I was reading about the execution of

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Speaker 1: Ted Bundy. He was electrocuted in Florida, I'm pretty sure.

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Speaker 1: And there were Yeah, it was Florida. There were people

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Speaker 1: partying outside of the prison where was put to death,

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Speaker 1: remember holding like a barbecue. What what year was is

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Speaker 1: like maybe or eighty nine. I feel like I was

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Speaker 1: in college, but I remember seeing that on the news

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Speaker 1: and that was just like a it seems like a

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Speaker 1: tailgate was going on. Yeah, that's what it seems like

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Speaker 1: from what I read. And and there was apparently zero

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Speaker 1: Bundy supporters. It was all people who are there for

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Speaker 1: to cheer on his death. Um, so they're definitely people

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Speaker 1: who feel that way out there for sure. Uh So. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: getting back to what you're saying, though, it's it is

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Speaker 1: very rudimentary. There was a metal cap that is the electrode,

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Speaker 1: and that is put onto a prisoner's shaved head. Um.

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Speaker 1: There is a natural sponge with saline salt water in

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Speaker 1: that sponge, and um salt water is conductive and that's

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Speaker 1: the reason they used that. But there have been a

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Speaker 1: lot of problems with UM the wrong sponges, too much salt,

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Speaker 1: too little salt, too much water, too little water. But

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Speaker 1: that's generally how it works. That goes in between in

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Speaker 1: uh the cap uh that metal cap in the in

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Speaker 1: the person's head. And then there's another electrode um that's

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Speaker 1: usually on the leg of the prisoner, but sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: on like the foot or the base of the spine

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Speaker 1: or something. And this all just allows electricity to flow

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Speaker 1: freely through a person's body until they die, right right,

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Speaker 1: Because the the electrode that goes into the head, that's

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Speaker 1: where the electricity comes from. And then the other electrode

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Speaker 1: that's connected to the ground like through the leg, allows

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Speaker 1: the current to pass through the body all the way

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Speaker 1: right um. And that's you know, from that free flow

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Speaker 1: of electricity, that's where you get these tremendously horrific results,

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Speaker 1: ultimately culminating in the death of the person. And then, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: you said that they put a sponge on people's heads.

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Speaker 1: It has to be a natural sponge, as you say that.

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Speaker 1: So apparently they found as as we'll see that only

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Speaker 1: a natural sponge will work. But one of the other

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Speaker 1: purposes that serves besides acting is like kind of a

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Speaker 1: reservoir for the saltwater conductor. Um. It also it fills

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Speaker 1: the space between the metal cap and the the victim's

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Speaker 1: head because you're like the metal caps is like this

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Speaker 1: little metal cap in your head is not a perfect

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Speaker 1: cap shaped dome. So the sponge is meant to also

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Speaker 1: kind of fill that space and like get the electricity

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Speaker 1: everywhere going through your head. Yeah. And as far as

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Speaker 1: the chair, the actual wooden chair, um, I mean, it

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Speaker 1: could have been anything. It could have been some upright

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Speaker 1: thing like Hannibal elector was strapped to like a upright gurney,

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Speaker 1: but they settled on a chair. Um. It's generally this big,

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Speaker 1: heavy oak chair and many times, um, irony of all ironies,

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Speaker 1: that chair is built by prison labor. I saw that too,

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Speaker 1: and it's almost invariably called old Sparky. But there are

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Speaker 1: also some that were called like old Smokey. And then

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Speaker 1: the worst of all I think was the Louisiana is

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Speaker 1: called gruesome Gurtie. It's this terrible name for a chair.

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Speaker 1: Actually it's a perfect name for a an electric chair actually,

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Speaker 1: now I think about it. Yeah, but the I don't know,

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Speaker 1: the sort of I guess tradition of naming electric chairs

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Speaker 1: these cute names is also something that's a bit of

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Speaker 1: a turn off. Yeah, just a tap tap it. So

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Speaker 1: you're strapped into this chair. Uh, obviously your arms are

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Speaker 1: strapped in. Um, your legs are strapped in. Most of

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Speaker 1: the times, you have a strap across your chest and

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Speaker 1: growing area. And again the chair is just has nothing

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Speaker 1: to do. It doesn't have electricity um running through it

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Speaker 1: at all. That is just the means to keep the

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Speaker 1: prisoners strapped in, right, right, because when that switch is thrown,

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Speaker 1: your muscles just contract to the point where you could

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Speaker 1: just snap bones, joints get um just thrown out of

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Speaker 1: joint literally. Um. It's a huge muscle muscular contraction throughout

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Speaker 1: your entire your body, because that's how your that's how

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Speaker 1: your muscles contract is through electricity and electrochemical reaction. Right.

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Speaker 1: So when you introduce a huge amount of electricity to

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Speaker 1: your body all at once, all the muscles in your

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Speaker 1: body contract um and it's so much so that if

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Speaker 1: you're not strapped in, you would just fly right out

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Speaker 1: of the chair. I think in it must have been

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Speaker 1: our electricity episode we talked about how when people who

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Speaker 1: have touched uh an electrical wire, their um muscles have

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Speaker 1: contracted so so UM strongly that they've thrown themselves across

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Speaker 1: the room. Like, you're not blown across the room by

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Speaker 1: the electricity. That's your muscles contracting and shooting you across

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Speaker 1: the room. That's why the they have people strapped to

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Speaker 1: the chair in the electric chair to keep them from

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Speaker 1: shooting across the room when the electricity shoots room. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and depending on what states you're in, you know, they're

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Speaker 1: all going to have their own protocol for how to

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Speaker 1: carry out in like, uh, electrocution, and Um, we should

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Speaker 1: also point out to that this is they're generally not

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Speaker 1: used anymore. Um, there are only nine states but still

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Speaker 1: have that option. Um, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia.

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Speaker 1: Are you noticing a trend? And then finally Oklahoma, Uh,

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Speaker 1: not the only state not in the South. Um. But

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Speaker 1: but it's not something that is generally still used in

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Speaker 1: the United States. No, but it is a backup, and

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Speaker 1: it's not a backup. I think if like lethal injection

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Speaker 1: doesn't work as a backup, if the prisoners specifically says

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Speaker 1: I don't want lethal injection, I want the electric chair. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: depending on where you are, the protocol is gonna vary um.

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Speaker 1: This one is pulled from Tennessee. That was uh an

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Speaker 1: execution last year that Edmund Zagorsky, I guess asked for

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Speaker 1: the chair because it was two thousand eighteen and this

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Speaker 1: was the protocol. Uh. The electric chair will release and

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Speaker 1: fifty volts of electricity for twenty seconds, will stop for

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Speaker 1: fifteen seconds, and then we'll release another fifty volts UH

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Speaker 1: for another fifteen seconds. UM. After the first wave of electricity,

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Speaker 1: officials will wait five minutes and then close the blinds

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Speaker 1: into the witness room. A doctor will check for signs

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Speaker 1: of life. If there are none, the doctor will pronounce

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Speaker 1: him dead. If he is still alive, the blinds will

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Speaker 1: be raised another round. Uh. I assume like an encore,

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Speaker 1: the curtain goes back up in another round of electricity

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Speaker 1: will be administered and the doctor will be called in again. Right.

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Speaker 1: How about that? That that Encore think kind of got beach.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's I don't know, the parallels are obvious,

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Speaker 1: so the uh yeah, yeah. But I think also in

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Speaker 1: the lethal injection, when we explain like the X, like

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Speaker 1: the state witnesses, people who are hired to come and

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Speaker 1: witness on behalf of the people because the state is

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Speaker 1: executing people on behalf of the people of that state.

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Speaker 1: These are the representatives of everybody else who lives in

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Speaker 1: that state. I mean, yes, of course there's no way

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't get weirdos. But if I remember correctly, they

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Speaker 1: try to weed those people out. But yes, I get

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Speaker 1: where you're coming from. I'm not trying to like shoot

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Speaker 1: your opinions down or anything like that. Yeah. So, um,

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Speaker 1: one of the things, like you said, there's like se volts.

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Speaker 1: I've seen that slow, like I've seen two thousand at

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Speaker 1: least is what you want. And then the amps are

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Speaker 1: really the big one because the voltage is kind of

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Speaker 1: like the water pressure in a hose, where the amps

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Speaker 1: are like the actual flow rate of how much is

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Speaker 1: coming through. So the amps are what kill you, they say,

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Speaker 1: But you have to balance the amps, and that you

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Speaker 1: want to you want to introduce enough amps through voltage

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Speaker 1: into the inmate to kill them quickly and painlessly. Because

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Speaker 1: I don't think we've said the reason the the electric

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Speaker 1: chair was brought around was not to just just set

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Speaker 1: somebody on fire as you were executing them. It was

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Speaker 1: too because it was thought to be like a painless

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Speaker 1: and humane way to execute a prisoner. That's supposedly the

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Speaker 1: point of executions. So you want to balance a quick

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Speaker 1: and painless death through enough amps and voltage introduced with

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Speaker 1: not so many amps and and not a high enough

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Speaker 1: amount of voltage that you cook the person and set

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Speaker 1: them on fire. That's basically the tightrope that as state

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Speaker 1: executioner who electrocute somebody is walking and figuring out how

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Speaker 1: much too how much juice to deliver for the electric chair. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and um, I tried to find if you know, I've

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Speaker 1: always heard that there were dummy switches and that like

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Speaker 1: three guards will all flip a switch at the same time,

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Speaker 1: so no one knows if they were the one. Um.

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Speaker 1: And I think that was just I didn't see any

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Speaker 1: support for that. And that may just be built on

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Speaker 1: the old thing of the firing squad where someone has blanks. Um,

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Speaker 1: and you know, so like one person, everyone basically can say, well,

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Speaker 1: I may have had the blank, I may not have

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Speaker 1: actually had the bullet in my gun. But that is

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Speaker 1: apparently not the case with electric chairs, and a volunteer

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Speaker 1: throws one switch, um, the you know, it's generally a

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Speaker 1: prison guard has has said this is something that I

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Speaker 1: will do I'm volunteering for this. You can't apparently force

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Speaker 1: someone to do this. Um, it's always a volunteer, right.

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Speaker 1: And depending on the state too, they might not actually

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Speaker 1: work at the prison. They might that might just be

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Speaker 1: their job as an execution maybe a second job they

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Speaker 1: have or something like that. UM. And from what I've seen,

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Speaker 1: there typically called electricians. The um electro executioner is called

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Speaker 1: an electrician. And New York had some very famous and

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Speaker 1: prolific ones, kind of at the heyday of the electric

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Speaker 1: chair and like the first half of the twentie century. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: one of them killed are you ready for this is

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Speaker 1: one of the most gruesome things I've ever heard in

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Speaker 1: my life. One of them killed seven men in succession

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Speaker 1: and why day And they had all seven men in

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Speaker 1: sing sing on death row like in the in the

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Speaker 1: death house at the same time. And so as one

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Speaker 1: would be taken away, the other eleven would just be

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Speaker 1: sitting there like freaking out, like and then the next

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Speaker 1: one would come, and it just kept whittling down. And

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Speaker 1: as they went through this day of executions, UM, the

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Speaker 1: like the the sense among the inmates, so they were

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Speaker 1: like almost losing their minds. It's one of the cruelest

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Speaker 1: things I've ever heard in my life, at least in

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Speaker 1: the modern era. You know, there's no way to to

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Speaker 1: um execute prisoners, and I believe they've really gotten away

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Speaker 1: from them. You don't execute more than one person in

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Speaker 1: a day at the same place. I think it's really

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Speaker 1: kind of like your time to shine. It's your special day.

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Speaker 1: You're not going to share it with eleven other or

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Speaker 1: eight six other people anymore. Um. But the executioner, the

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Speaker 1: electrician for New York who did that, I can't remember

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Speaker 1: his name right now, but he actually ended up taking

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Speaker 1: his own life because apparently he was doing us to

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Speaker 1: pay the medical bills for his wife, who was chronically ill,

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Speaker 1: and this paid really really well, and eventually she died

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Speaker 1: and he abruptly quit and then went and took his

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Speaker 1: took his life. Yeah, So it's not like it's not

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Speaker 1: like if you're an electrician or you're an executioner. I

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's kind of like this is a

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Speaker 1: fun thing like I think, I think this kind of

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Speaker 1: destroys everybody involved, basically. Yeah, and so you know you

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Speaker 1: mentioned that, uh, it was supposedly the humane way of

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Speaker 1: killing people, and we'll we'll get to how that happened

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Speaker 1: in a minute. But um, the two gentleman Jean Louis

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Speaker 1: Provost and Frederica Batelli, they, by the way, we got

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Speaker 1: an email about someone who was not happy with my

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Speaker 1: Italian Yes, but we got we got a couple from

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Speaker 1: people who were Italian Americans saying like, I love it,

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Speaker 1: don't ever stop. Yeah. The one guy who said I

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Speaker 1: went too far was also very upset about my care

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Speaker 1: actorization of New Englanders as liking Duncan donuts as well. Wow,

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Speaker 1: So I sort of took that one with a grain

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Speaker 1: of salt. That's a that's a big fat that's a

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Speaker 1: salt lick. I think, yeah, donut jokes, come on, stop

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Speaker 1: Duncan donuts. So anyway, those two gentlemen, they did a

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Speaker 1: lot of research into heart defribrillation in eighteen nineties, and

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Speaker 1: the idea that time was, um, hey, what's going on here?

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Speaker 1: When you electrocute someone is is it instantly sort of

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Speaker 1: kills the prisoner by a massive brain damage and a

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Speaker 1: stoppage interruption of the heart. And so that's why they

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Speaker 1: thought it was more humane than like hanging, which we'll

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Speaker 1: get to in a sect. But um, that is not

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Speaker 1: the case, as we will see from the scores of

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Speaker 1: butched um electrocutions over the years. Right, that's why if

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Speaker 1: you if you read like these procedures for executing a

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Speaker 1: prisoner using electricity city, there is two rounds of juice. Invariably,

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Speaker 1: the first one supposedly destroys the brain, but the second one.

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Speaker 1: Remember how I said all the muscles in the body

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Speaker 1: like contract, Well, one of the biggest muscles in the

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Speaker 1: body is your heart, and um, your heart contracts, which

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Speaker 1: ironically protects it from dying. Right, yeah, So that's why

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Speaker 1: they'll stop with the electricity, the electrical flow for several

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Speaker 1: seconds to let the hearts like come out of seizure again,

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Speaker 1: and then when they do it a second time, allegedly,

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Speaker 1: that is the one that's meant to destroy the heart.

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Speaker 1: So initially the first one is supposed to destroy the

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Speaker 1: conscious mind and then ultimately the brain. And it's supposedly

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Speaker 1: happens very fast. The number you'll see bandied about is

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Speaker 1: that it happens in one two a second, which is

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Speaker 1: faster than you can consciously register pain. So you're you're dead,

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Speaker 1: you're at least unconscious, and then you're you're dead. Right

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Speaker 1: after that before you can feel pain. But the person

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Speaker 1: I think I've seen associated with that is a guy

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Speaker 1: named Fred Luketer who's actually like a UM, well known

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Speaker 1: UM engineer of Tennessee's electric chair, and I believe a

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Speaker 1: Holocaust denier. Two And I didn't see anywhere else, like

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Speaker 1: any legitimate study that showed that. So but it's like

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Speaker 1: somebody said it, and everybody's just gonna go with that.

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Speaker 1: But supposedly that's what the first just does is knock

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Speaker 1: you out and kill you brain wise, your brain dead,

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Speaker 1: and then the second one kills your your cardiac system. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It was Errol Morris at a documentary about him actually,

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Speaker 1: um about Fred luke Yeah, it was called Mr. Death

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Speaker 1: and um. Part of it was on you know, his

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Speaker 1: work with the electric chair, and then part of it

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Speaker 1: was on your right, the fact that he is a

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Speaker 1: notorious Holocaust denier. And guess what he does now. I

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Speaker 1: have no idea. He apparently is a works in the

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Speaker 1: garden apart of a home depot really in his old age. Wow,

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Speaker 1: well he I'm correct that he built Tennessee's electric chair.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't an actual electrician, right, or an executioner? No? No, no,

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Speaker 1: he uh it's it's a really good documentary, of course

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Speaker 1: because it's Errol Morris, but yeah, you should check it out.

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Speaker 1: You wanted to take a break. Uh yeah, we'll take

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Speaker 1: a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: a very famous Supreme Court case and then a lots

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Speaker 1: about hanging right after this. Okay, Chuck, So we're back,

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Speaker 1: and you wanted to talk about the Supreme Court. You said,

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Speaker 1: what about I love it when your ki Uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: the U Supreme Court, uh chose not to review a

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Speaker 1: case Glass v. Louisiana, UM, which would have been a

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Speaker 1: very big deal because it was on the constitutionality of

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Speaker 1: the electric chair, the whole that whole thing about cruel

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Speaker 1: and unusual punishment UM has always been a talking point

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Speaker 1: when it comes to whether or not people should be

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Speaker 1: put to death and just how to do that. And

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Speaker 1: they chose, like I said, they chose not to review it.

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Speaker 1: But very famously, uh, Justice William Brennan wrote a dissent

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Speaker 1: that described an execution like this And by the way,

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Speaker 1: this this part is particularly gruesome. So if you if

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Speaker 1: you don't want to hear about this, then just tune

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Speaker 1: out for like twenty seconds when the switch is thrown,

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Speaker 1: The condemned prisoner cringes, leaps, and fights the straps with

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Speaker 1: amazing strength. The hands turned red then white, and the

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Speaker 1: cords of the next stand out like steel bands. The

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Speaker 1: prisoners limbs, fingers, toes, and faces severely contorted. The force

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Speaker 1: of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's

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Speaker 1: eyeballs sometimes pop out and rest on his cheeks. The

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Speaker 1: prisoner often defecates, urinates, and vomits blood and jewel. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: the prisoner catches on fire, particularly if he perspires excessively.

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Speaker 1: And witnesses here allowed and sustain sound like bacon frying,

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Speaker 1: and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh permeates the chamber.

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Speaker 1: And and dude, we should point out, like Brennan wasn't saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, in the worst case scenario, this is what happens.

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Speaker 1: That's a pretty standard. That's standard for an electric chair execution.

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Speaker 1: And then there's like there was one other thing too

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Speaker 1: that I saw still in the gruesome zone. Everybody, Um,

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Speaker 1: you said that the uh, well, Brennan said that the

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Speaker 1: the person gurgles often, Um, they'll also sigh, and apparently

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Speaker 1: it for freaks out witnesses because they're like he's still alive.

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Speaker 1: And what happens again the when the muscles tracked, UM,

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Speaker 1: whatever air is in the lungs gets trapped in there

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00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:08,479
Speaker 1: because your epple glottis shuts tight just it's not opening again.

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00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 1: So then when the electricity has turned off and your

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Speaker 1: muscles relaxed, that air is expelled out and it sounds

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Speaker 1: like you're sighing or you're gurgling if there's you know,

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Speaker 1: fluid in there. UM. And it's just another terrible a

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Speaker 1: facet of this of this this kind of execution. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we promised talk of hanging, and that's really how

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Speaker 1: the electric chair came about. Um. In Europe they had

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Speaker 1: uh long used the guillotine, but here in the United

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Speaker 1: States kind of from the beginning. UM, I guess there're

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Speaker 1: firing squads, but hanging was really the um quote unquote

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Speaker 1: humane way of executing prisoners for a long time. UM

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Speaker 1: with the idea that, um, if it's in the case

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Speaker 1: of a gallows, that door would drop, you would drop

401
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: and your neck would snap basically and you would die

402
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:03,359
Speaker 1: very very quickly. But that was not always the case. UM.

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Speaker 1: It was a man named Tom Ketchum in nineteen and

404
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Speaker 1: one and then New Mexico, New Mexico Territory. His head

405
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Speaker 1: was completely torn off of his body. Yep, that's just one.

406
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Speaker 1: There were plenty of them that actually happened to a

407
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Speaker 1: woman named Eva Duggan had that happened to her in

408
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Speaker 1: Arizona in ninety as well. And it's not like it's

409
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:25,119
Speaker 1: it's not that's not the only possible outcome from a

410
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Speaker 1: botched hanging. Like they can go the other way as well,

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Speaker 1: where you're not like your neck doesn't snap or your

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Speaker 1: head doesn't pop off and you're just slowly suffocating. There

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Speaker 1: was the case of one guy, I think his name

414
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Speaker 1: is William williams Um who was just born to lose

415
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Speaker 1: apparently um he he he dropped and didn't it didn't strangle,

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Speaker 1: it didn't um break his neck, he didn't do anything,

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Speaker 1: and the prison officials had to like basically stranglate him

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Speaker 1: with the with the rope to kill him. And so

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Speaker 1: all this stuff, and there's plenty of them. They're all

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Speaker 1: this stuff is making the news at the time, and

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Speaker 1: it was kind of converging with a public sentiment against

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Speaker 1: the death penalty in general. So if the public is

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Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, not quite sure, we should be

424
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 1: killing people. I don't. I don't feel very good about this.

425
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,400
Speaker 1: And then news of like botched hangings are coming out.

426
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,880
Speaker 1: Something's going to change. And there are basically two things

427
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: that can happen at a point in history like this.

428
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: Either the society can say, you know what, execution in

429
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: general is just bad, bad news, and let's just not

430
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 1: do that anymore. Or maybe we do need execution, but

431
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: we need to find a better way to do it

432
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 1: in pronto, because this is not okay any longer. Yeah,

433
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: there was there was another kind of hanging. Um. You

434
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 1: always think of the gallows and that trap door, but

435
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: there's something called a suspension hanging where um, the person

436
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 1: is on the ground with a rope around their neck

437
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,719
Speaker 1: and weights are dropped over a pulley and then you

438
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: are jerked up instead of being dropped and that supposedly

439
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: will snap your neck. And that was the case with

440
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: the execution of Roxelanna Drew's seven. Um. She was small

441
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:15,919
Speaker 1: and so when that um, when that rope was jerked up,

442
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: her neck was not snapped and she slowly was strangled

443
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: to death for about twenty minutes. And um, she had

444
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: killed her husband. And that was a case that was

445
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: uh controversial for a lot of reasons. Um. It was

446
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: very much a pre planned killing. But she claimed that

447
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: she had been abused. She had her children involved in

448
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: the killing. Um, it's it was. It's a pretty interesting story. Um.

449
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 1: She sent her ten year old out, uh and then

450
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: had her teenage kids help out. So one of the

451
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: kids tied a rope around her dad's neck. Um. The woman,

452
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: the mother, Roxanna Roxelanna shot him. Um, but I think

453
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: didn't use the gun properly so it didn't kill him.

454
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: Gave the gun to her fourteen year old nephew. He

455
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,880
Speaker 1: shot him a few more times. The husband's laying there

456
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 1: unable to move, pleading for help, and then she comes

457
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: barreling in with an axe and cuts his head off. Jeez. Yeah.

458
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: So uh she takes the head and the body to

459
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: the parlor. Uh. They stayed there for about a day.

460
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: Then she cut the body up, burnt it and got

461
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: rid of the ashes, and then was was found out.

462
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: So um. But the upshot of all this was when

463
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:36,479
Speaker 1: she was executed. She didn't die quickly and humanely. Um.

464
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 1: She died very slowly, painfully, and very important publicly at

465
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: a time when the public in particular. New York was like,

466
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:49,360
Speaker 1: we're better than this, and so, um, not not strictly

467
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:55,200
Speaker 1: from her um her botched execution, but definitely in part

468
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:57,880
Speaker 1: because of it, New York said, we need to find

469
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: a better way to do this. Um, how can we

470
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 1: how can we execute somebody better? And they said, um,

471
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: prominent lawyer Albridge Thomas Jerry go. And so Jerry formed, Well,

472
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: he's like, well, you guys picked me first, So we're

473
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: gonna call the commission, the Jerry Commission, and um he

474
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: assembled two other guys, including a man named Alfred P. Southwick,

475
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: who was a dentist who was interested in this kind

476
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: of stuff. He was like, you know what, being a

477
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: dentist isn't scratching that sadistic itch? Right? He was basically

478
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:35,120
Speaker 1: like the founder of Ohio Art, you know exactly. So

479
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 1: he's so the three of them get together and they

480
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: spent two years figuring out, like looking at different ways

481
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: of execution, and they looked at all of them. Man,

482
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: they released this um this journal report, like a formal

483
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: government New York state government report that details and chronicles

484
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: all the different ways that you could officially kill somebody

485
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: from precipitation, which is pushing him off a cliff to

486
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: um boiling them alive, whether you want it to be

487
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: you know, molten lead or water doesn't really matter at

488
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: that point. UM to crushing from heavy stones. And they

489
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: looked at thirty four different methods of execution in detail,

490
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: and they concluded that none of them we're an improvement

491
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: on hanging. That yeah, some of them would definitely like

492
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: provide the public spectacle that would probably deter other people

493
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: or make them think twice about killing somebody, but um,

494
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:31,239
Speaker 1: definitely no more humane, as inhumane as hanging could be,

495
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: especially a botched hanging. So they said, okay, well we're

496
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: back to square one. But one of us, south Alfred P. Southwick,

497
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: thinks he knows of a method that we haven't hit

498
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: upon yet, and it was electricity. No, he had seen

499
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: a a Marx Brothers movie and he said, maybe we

500
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,239
Speaker 1: should just drop a safe on someone's head as they

501
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: walked down the sidewalk. Right, They're like, yeah, I could

502
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: kind of work, but if you miss, you just really

503
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: maim them terribly. Yeah, So he came upon electrocution as

504
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: a as what he thought was like the best way

505
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: because electricity was, um, this is where we get into

506
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: like kind of things aligning and carbon arc lining becoming widespread,

507
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: and cities and people having um street lights and electricity

508
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: in their houses was in in big cities. Was sort

509
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: of a new thing, but it was super dangerous and

510
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: there were a lot of cases of people getting electrocuted.

511
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: Um that was a drunken buffalo. A drunk man who

512
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: grabbed hold of a generator, Um, just to sort of

513
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: see what it felt like, died instantly. And that's when

514
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: Southfolk was like, wait a minute, I think we're onto

515
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: something here. If it can kill people just instantly, and

516
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: then that's kind of what we're after. Right. So the

517
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: thing is is like that whole instantly thing, that's a

518
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 1: little subjective. Um, it happened once to this guy, right, Yeah,

519
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: it happened one time. And then also like this is

520
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: what an eyewitness standing, you know, a little ways away says,

521
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: it happened he died instantly. Are you fudging a little bit?

522
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: Because instantly or not really kind of counts when you're

523
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: looking for a new method of execution for a state

524
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: to use over and over and over again and to

525
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: spread through all all fifty states. Basically, Um, it's really

526
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: important that it's instant, and they were like, yea, yeah,

527
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: it's instant. Let's just look into this one because it's

528
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: got to be better than hanging. So they they did,

529
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: and when they found out that, um that when it

530
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: became public and announced that they were um kind of

531
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: forming a sub set to the Jerry Commission called Chuck

532
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: the Electric Death Commission best band name of all time.

533
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: We have arrived at the band name. Everybody, Yeah, there's

534
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: not a lot on this. Even I looked into this

535
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: a little more and it's not. It's not all over

536
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: the internet. Surprisingly, no, it's not. But it's like I've

537
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: seen it in some reputable sources, so it's not like

538
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: it's just totally made up or a myth or a

539
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: legend or something like that. I think I think it was.

540
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: It was basically they said, Okay, the Jerry Commission is

541
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: has done its job. We're gonna set ourselves up in

542
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: this own com it's in the Electric Death Commission, to

543
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: basically show that electrocution is a good and humane way

544
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: to elected to take a life right for the state.

545
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: So um, Alfred Southwick fell in with a guy named

546
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: George Fell. Appropriately enough, George Fell was a surgeon. He

547
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 1: was a tinkerer, an engineer, and um, he became extremely

548
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: interested in the applications of electricity to cause death as well.

549
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 1: And so Southwick and Fell basically got together and formed

550
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: this like weirdo cabal to figure out how to create

551
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: an electric chair. Yeah. This part I don't quite get

552
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 1: because I know that and I can hardly even say

553
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: the sentence out loud. But I know that they practiced

554
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: on stray dogs, like they electrocuted hundreds of dogs. But

555
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: it says here they were supplied by the Buffalo a

556
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: s p c A not knowingly right, Yes, I saw

557
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: somewhere chuck at for at this time. Thanks to these guys,

558
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:06,959
Speaker 1: that became the method of euthanasia that the local animal

559
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: shelters used on stray animals. Yeah, so, I I guess

560
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: they started testing on him and it became like so

561
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: um so useful. I guess that the s p c

562
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: A said, Ay, bring your equipment on over here, and

563
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: they started using it to execute straights. That's what I saw. Wow.

564
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're not proud of that part of their

565
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: history of protecting animals from cruelty. I'm sure that they

566
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: are not actually like please please stop, just keep moving

567
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: on keep going, talk about Thomas Edison. So at the

568
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: end of this uh and all these dogs, they they

569
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 1: basically came to that conclusion that we talked about earlier

570
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: was that electricity will instantly disrupt the heartbeat and the

571
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: rhythm uh, and death will be instant and painless. And uh.

572
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:57,239
Speaker 1: New York passed a state law saying basically that this

573
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: is the way forward for us. Yeah, and again this

574
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: is like, this is long after the time when the

575
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: two guys um Provost and Battelli had shown this is

576
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: like the early I think that you could actually use

577
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 1: electricity to restart somebody's heart. And then also now we

578
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: know that actually electricity doesn't instantly kill you by causing

579
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 1: a heart attack. It does the opposite. The heart becomes

580
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 1: like goes into safe mode to protect itself, and um,

581
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: you have to hit it again to make it spasm

582
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: and go into fibrillation, because that's what fibrillation is. It's

583
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: like an in um uh non rhythmic heartbeat to where

584
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: you can't actually pump any blood out. That's a heart attack, right,

585
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: or that's fibrillation, that's cardiac arrest. That's not what happens

586
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: when you get hit with the first jolt of electricity.

587
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: So I don't know if Fell and Southwick were just

588
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: making this up or if it just happened that it

589
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,359
Speaker 1: did kill dogs like that or what. Maybe they were

590
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: using a massive amount or maybe they we're using just

591
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,760
Speaker 1: the right level of amps. I don't know, but um,

592
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 1: they definitely demonstrated that this was this was something that

593
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:10,800
Speaker 1: could be done. But it wasn't just them. Simultaneous to

594
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,479
Speaker 1: Southwick and Fell, who from everything I could tell, we're

595
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: aside from the fact that they killed a lot of

596
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: dogs with electricity, were legitimate um scientists who were doing

597
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: this to find a humane alternative to hanging. There was

598
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: another guy who was the opposite of legitimate, wasn't a

599
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: scientist and was a fairly shaded character named Harold Brown. Yeah.

600
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: So uh, off to the side. You know, fell in

601
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: Southwick built the first actual chair. So just park that

602
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 1: there for a moment and then we have to just

603
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: pop a squat, take a seat and that no, don't

604
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: sit there, sit in the other chair. Um, So we

605
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: have to talk about the war of currents, which we've

606
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:55,879
Speaker 1: talked about on this. I think we did a whole

607
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 1: podcast on this, right, Yeah, we did, like did did

608
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:03,360
Speaker 1: Nicola Tesla change the way we use electricity? Answer? Yes, yeah,

609
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:05,360
Speaker 1: so we don't need to go over all that again.

610
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: But um, just very quickly the war of currents. There

611
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 1: was a big war between uh, whether or not we're

612
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: going to move forward as a nation with a C

613
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:16,440
Speaker 1: power or DC power. Uh. Thomas Edison UM wanted that

614
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: DC power. That was he had invested heavily in that,

615
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: so he was trying to make that one out. Uh.

616
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 1: And then George Westinghouse, of course, on the other side,

617
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: was working U had invested in a C power and

618
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 1: Brown who you mentioned he actually worked for Edison? Is

619
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,439
Speaker 1: that right? Yes? But supposedly unbeknows he even testified under

620
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: oath that he did not work for Edison when he

621
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: very well, very much did and had for years by

622
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 1: that time. How interesting. Yeah, yeah, who, here's a shade ball.

623
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: And I the one thing that I can't figure out, Chuck,

624
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 1: is whether he was truly a UM crusader against Westinghouse

625
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 1: and a C power like he genuinely thought it was

626
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 1: dangerous and then he fell in with Edison, or if

627
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: he was in edis an operative from the outset. That's

628
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: what I've not been able to establish, but he was

629
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: definitely working for Edison secretly. Interesting, So the Electric Death

630
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: Commission gets in touch with Edison, and then the Grabster

631
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:16,800
Speaker 1: put this together for us, and I thought, this is

632
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: a very kind of great comparison. He said, you know,

633
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: what happened next is sort of like if the government

634
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: said to Pepsi, Hey, you guys are experts on soda, um,

635
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: how how should we kill someone with a soda And

636
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: Pepsi was like, here, we'll do lots of experiments that

637
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: will prove to you that coca cola will kill somebody

638
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: very easily. And that's basically what happened is is Harold Brown,

639
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 1: working with Edison, did all these gruesome, uh public electrocutions

640
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: to show how dangerous a C current was so they

641
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 1: would adopt it for the electric chair, which would in turn,

642
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 1: in his mind, give a C current a bad name.

643
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,879
Speaker 1: I mean, that's as underhanded as it gets. Like, if

644
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,760
Speaker 1: you are in competition and business, that's like Uber calling

645
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: fake lift rides um when they started out, do you

646
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: remember that? But this is way way worse. But it's

647
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: still in the same wheelhouse. But but that's what that's

648
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:17,760
Speaker 1: what Edison was doing. He was like, oh yeah, totally.

649
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: This is a great Apparently, he declined first that participate

650
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: have anything to do with this Electric Death Commission, and

651
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: then he was like, oh wait, yes, actually I have

652
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: a great idea. I would like to be involved. I

653
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: really I suggest that a C current be used. And

654
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 1: he used Harold Brown to to just basically carry out

655
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: this whole thing, so much so that Harold Brown managed

656
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 1: to convince the Electric Death Commission that not only should

657
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: a C current be used for the first electrocution in

658
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: the state of New York, a Westinghouse generator should be

659
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: used to generate that electrical current. And he tried to

660
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: buy some generators from Westinghouse and they're like, uh, no, no,

661
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:56,959
Speaker 1: you can't, we know what you're gonna do with those.

662
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 1: So he ended up buying second hand ones and that

663
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: kind of sets the stage for the first execution, which,

664
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: if you ask me, is a really good point to

665
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: take our second break. So, Chuck, We're in Auburn State Prison.

666
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: It's August of eighteen nine, and there's a guy named

667
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: William Kemmler who was convicted of murdering his common law

668
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: wife Tilly with an axe, and uh when he was caught,

669
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: he apparently had done it in a drunken range. And

670
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: I don't know if he felt remorse or guilt or

671
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 1: was just bored with the whole thing, but he had

672
00:39:56,360 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 1: a quote where he said something like, um, uh, yes,

673
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: I I struck her with a hatchet. I intended to

674
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: kill her. Um. The sooner I am hung, and it's

675
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:10,520
Speaker 1: over with the better hanged, hanged. I always get that

676
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:15,839
Speaker 1: wrong tonight, So the sooner I'm hanged, uh, and it's

677
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: over with the better and uh. I guess he was

678
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: not afraid of the noose. But when he found out

679
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: that they were going to use electrocution and that he

680
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,320
Speaker 1: would be the first ever human being to be executed

681
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: by the state with electric electricity, he was like whoa, whoa, whoa, wa, whoa,

682
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 1: what are you talking about again? And started to file lawsuits.

683
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: So he actually also became the first person to challenge

684
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: the constitutionality of the electric chair as a means of execution. Yeah,

685
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 1: that's kind of a crazy fact. I think the very

686
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 1: first person to go to the electric chair was the

687
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 1: first person to be like, I don't think this is right. Yeah,

688
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: it's true. Uh, But the Supreme Court said no, no,

689
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: They rolled against Kimbler and said it does not violate

690
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:02,319
Speaker 1: the eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Um, And he went,

691
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:05,919
Speaker 1: what about the excessive bail? And they went, I thought

692
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 1: you were talking about cruel and unusual punishment, and he

693
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: went out, whatever you want to hear. Uh. So his execution, uh,

694
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: the very first one, was by all accounts botched pretty

695
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: severely in and of itself. Yeah, so you remember how

696
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: um uh what was his name? Harold Brown managed to

697
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: get Westinghouse generators used for that first execution, but he

698
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 1: had to buy secondhand ones. The first jolt of electricity

699
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: that was sent through William Kemmeler to kill him only

700
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: lasted for seventeen seconds because one of the belts started

701
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: to fall off the generator, so they had to stop

702
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:44,880
Speaker 1: before it had killed him. And by all accounts, he

703
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: was sitting there struggling with life left in him. And

704
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: the New York Times reported that quote strong men fainted

705
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 1: and felt like logs on the floor at the site.

706
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: It was a terrible thing to see. And also if

707
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 1: you look at the drawings of them of the execution

708
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: that we're used in the newspapers of the day, he's

709
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 1: just sitting there in a chair surrounded by people like

710
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: Harold Brown and George Fell and Alfred Southwick, and then

711
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 1: the witnesses are all just milling around, like standing around

712
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:16,800
Speaker 1: watching them, like they're watching some guy like in a

713
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 1: drinking contest or something, and that's how he was executed.

714
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: So I would imagine, like, you know, it's it would

715
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: be bad enough to be a witness to an execution

716
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,879
Speaker 1: today where it's real sterile in the it's really um

717
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: clinical and there's a glass glass thick glass window between

718
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:35,839
Speaker 1: you and the curtain. Comes down to standing in the

719
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: same room with somebody who's being electrocuted just a few

720
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 1: feet away. That's gotta be that's gotta make it even worse,

721
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And so you know, clearly not a

722
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: more humane way after this first execution, but they press

723
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: forward because um and I think Ed points out very

724
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: astutely that there was something about the fact that it

725
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 1: was a use of technology that wasn't tie a rope

726
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: around someone's neck or just put a bullet in their

727
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: head that it seemed less offensive to the public at large.

728
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: I think, um, because it's not the kind of thing

729
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:13,879
Speaker 1: like they didn't if you're not a witness to it

730
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: and you just read about something in the paper, it

731
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: may seem like there is a um an acceptable moral

732
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:25,240
Speaker 1: distance because of this technology, right right, right, So like hanging,

733
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: when hanging came when hanging was under fire for you know,

734
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: not being humane, new technology that kind of put more

735
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: distance between you, that just seem more advanced. And because

736
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: it was more advanced in this kind of technocratic way

737
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: of thinking, it was more humane, it was more high tech,

738
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: so it must just be better. That was kind of

739
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:47,959
Speaker 1: how the electric chair came to replace hanging. But even

740
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 1: though that first one was simply botched, the idea of

741
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: it just made it. It made it allowed it to spread.

742
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,439
Speaker 1: And from like all not all the accounts, but most

743
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: of the accounts that I saw um of that first execution,

744
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: We're just like, this is terrible, this is gruesome. This

745
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: will probably never happen again. And then other states were like, oh,

746
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: you cook him with electricity, huh, Like I like that idea,

747
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:13,240
Speaker 1: Let me try that too, And it spread fairly quickly

748
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: and became far and away the dominant method of execution

749
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: in the United States in the twentieth century. Yeah, and

750
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: there have been many many and you know, at the

751
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: end we'll talk about some some more botched executions. But UM,

752
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,839
Speaker 1: I don't think there are any more UM legendary than

753
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: Willie Francis in nineteen UM. He was executed in Louisiana

754
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 1: for a murderer that uh. To call his trial UM

755
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: questionable and suspect is like an understatement. UM. It seems

756
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: like this guy was just totally railroaded. UM. And you

757
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: mentioned gruesome girty earlier. That was the name of the

758
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: electric chair in Louisiana in this case for his execution.

759
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: It was set up by a drunk prison guard UM

760
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: who apparently didn't add it up correctly. It was total

761
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 1: human heir. So he goes down in history, as to

762
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: my knowledge, the only person who has ever been executed

763
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 1: uh technically twice or because he survived his botched execution

764
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:19,879
Speaker 1: such that he lived completely through it, they couldn't use

765
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:25,760
Speaker 1: the chair anymore and he actually lived to fight to say, hey,

766
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: you can't do this again, because that is totally that

767
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 1: is the definition of cruel and unusual. You tried to

768
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: kill me once and it didn't work, and I'm here

769
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: in court again and the Supreme Court said, now, sorry,

770
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to go to the chair again. And't

771
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 1: the craziest thing you've ever heard crazy. So so the

772
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: guy this wasn't like the guys survived and they're like, quick, quick,

773
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 1: throw the switch again. He's still alive. We need to

774
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: we need to you know, finish the job or whatever

775
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:57,320
Speaker 1: you want to call it. This was the electric chairs

776
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: broke after going through a full execution. The guy still

777
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: alive and lives for another year before they're like, all right,

778
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: we fix the electric chair. It's time for you to

779
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: die again. And they did it twice in that second time.

780
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:12,399
Speaker 1: That was that. But he um, that's that is that's

781
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: the definition of cruel and unusual. I agree with you entirely. Yeah.

782
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing though is if you look, there

783
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 1: were statistics put together about four or five years ago

784
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: that shows that the electric chair, and you know, like

785
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 1: you said, we did one on lethal injection UM that

786
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: starting in the late seventies kind of became UM one

787
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:35,760
Speaker 1: of the more preferred choices for most states. But uh,

788
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: as far as what you would consider botch percentage UM,

789
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: the electric chair kind of leads the way except for

790
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: the firing squad UM. Only one point nine to electrocutions

791
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: are UM categorized as botched, compared to seven point one

792
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: two percent for lethal injection. Yeah, which is that's a

793
00:46:55,719 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 1: pretty pretty good track record comparatively speaking, I guess. But

794
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: then there's a really big point here too. It's like,

795
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: um in a botched lethal injection, at least from the

796
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 1: perspective of the witnesses, that's vastly preferred to a botched

797
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: electrocution where the person catches fire something like that. But

798
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: here's the problem with all of these, with comparing like

799
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 1: botch nous and what's preferred and all that one's much

800
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 1: more that's a much more tasteful botched execution than this one.

801
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: We because the medical profession has said, well, we don't

802
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 1: have anything to do with this, Like yeah, doctor can

803
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: be present to pronounce the person dead, but the doctor

804
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: is not going to insist, assist in any way, shape

805
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: or form and still keep the medical license. We we

806
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:44,799
Speaker 1: cause no harm, so we can't assist in executions. Right.

807
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: Our understanding of execution is coming. It's like anecdotal, like

808
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: how to carry out an execution? What protocol you should use,

809
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 1: Like it's it's done by the people who are doing

810
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: this almost through trial and error or from people's day

811
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 1: to where they executed dogs a hundreds something years ago. Um,

812
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:08,240
Speaker 1: and that was what was used to kill you know, hundreds,

813
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: if not a thousand plus humans in actually, yeah, probably

814
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,400
Speaker 1: more than thousands humans in the United States in the

815
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Um. The thing is this chuck. So, so

816
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 1: you can stop there pretty easily and just say like, so,

817
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: we we don't know if it was ever humane. We

818
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:27,919
Speaker 1: don't know if it does caused instant death people catch

819
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 1: on fire or whatever. But you actually we've never known

820
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 1: whether it does cause instant death because when you when

821
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:39,320
Speaker 1: you are autopsied after your execution, your brain is cooked,

822
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: um like invariably, that's one of the by products of

823
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: uh a electrocution. Your brain gets cooked basically through and through.

824
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 1: It can be like a hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit

825
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 1: at autopsy. Still, you know, um, dozens of minutes or

826
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: an hour or so later, when your brain is removed,

827
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: it's still that right. So we don't actually know if

828
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,959
Speaker 1: the electric chair isn't humane or isn't painless, We don't

829
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: really know. Um. But then at the same time, an

830
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:15,799
Speaker 1: execution and whether it's tasteful or appears humane, it's it's yes,

831
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 1: it's meant to be that way for the the inmate.

832
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: But it really is meant to be that way for

833
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: society because it has to be palatable and tasteful for society,

834
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 1: or else society is gonna be like, no, we can't

835
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:29,759
Speaker 1: do that anymore, like we did with hanging. And that

836
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:32,800
Speaker 1: is what happened actually with execution. Because of some botched

837
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: executions in Florida in the nineties, UM, society said like,

838
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,360
Speaker 1: we've got to find another way. I've heard about this

839
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: lethal injection thing. Let's try that instead. Yeah, I mean,

840
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:46,439
Speaker 1: should we talk about some of these uh awful stories? Yeah,

841
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: so let me see here UM October in Indiana, UM

842
00:49:55,000 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: electrocution of William van Diver uh first administrat volts. He

843
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: was still breathing. The execution took a total of five

844
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:10,439
Speaker 1: volts I'm sorry, five jolts uh in seventeen minutes UM.

845
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: The smell of smoke of hair and flesh burning. The

846
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,799
Speaker 1: Department of Corrections said this quote the execution did not

847
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 1: go according to plan. Yeah, they like to be droll.

848
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 1: It sounds like how about Horace Franklin Duncan's Jr. Nine

849
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: in Alabama, UM. Two jolts of electricity nine minutes apart um.

850
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 1: The first jolt failed to kill him, and the captain

851
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: of the prison guard opened the door to the witness

852
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: room and said, I think we've got the jack's on wrong. Uh.

853
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,520
Speaker 1: They reconnect the cables correctly and death was pronounced nineteen

854
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 1: minutes after the first charge. But the first charge, it's

855
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: not like it wasn't painful. If it was probably more

856
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:55,800
Speaker 1: painful than the second one because the second one produced death.

857
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 1: But um, it was not. It couldn't possibly produce the

858
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: kind of voltage that would kill a person. It was

859
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 1: just basically torture, like a little a little torture starter

860
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:08,359
Speaker 1: like they have a t g I Fridays. And then

861
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 1: that was followed by the entree, which was death, um,

862
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: which is not supposed to happen. So again, if you'll

863
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:18,919
Speaker 1: kind of harken back to um, the all these news

864
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: stories coming out like, oh, this is not how we're

865
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: supposed to be executing people. What's going on? This is

866
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,760
Speaker 1: starting to go on in the eighties and then early

867
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:31,400
Speaker 1: nineties around the United States with with electrocution. Yeah, this

868
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 1: one in Georgia, Alpha otis stevens Um. The first charge

869
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,839
Speaker 1: failed to kill him. He struggled to breathe for eight minutes. Uh,

870
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:43,399
Speaker 1: and they carried out the second charge. After the first

871
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 1: two minute power surge, there was a six minute pause

872
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 1: so his body could cool enough so physicians could examine him.

873
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: And in that six minute period he took twenty three breaths,

874
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 1: which if you do the math, you know, and think

875
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 1: about how intermittent those breaths are. Uh. And then the

876
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 1: quote from the or your prison official was Stevens was

877
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 1: just not a conductor of electricity. But how about that?

878
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 1: And then there were three chuck, There were three um

879
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: in Florida that really kind of galvanized public opinion against electrocutions.

880
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 1: Joseph or Jesse Joseph Tafaraoh, Pedro Medina and a guy

881
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:21,799
Speaker 1: named Allan Lee Davis and Ta. Pharaoh and Medina both

882
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: caught on fire. Um I think to Pharaoh's head had

883
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: like six inch flames shooting out from under the crown

884
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 1: um under the electrode on his head, and um Medina

885
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: had like a foot flames and like so much that

886
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 1: his whole he was just charred. His head was charred

887
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: during the execution. Again, we don't know that he actually suffered,

888
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:42,880
Speaker 1: but that's not what the public wants to see or

889
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:45,400
Speaker 1: read about. When we're when we leave it to the

890
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 1: state to execute people humanely, that's not supposed to happen.

891
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: And then Alan Lee Davis very famously had photographs taken

892
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 1: of him after his execution, and his face seems to

893
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:59,399
Speaker 1: be very clearly contorted in in a look of pain.

894
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: He was a very big man, like pounds and a

895
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:04,879
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of blood loss. It looks like it came

896
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: out of his mouth and maybe even his chest, but

897
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 1: they later determined that it was um, it came out

898
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:13,400
Speaker 1: of his nose. Um. But there's just a lot of blood.

899
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 1: And they also said, like, well, the guy was on

900
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 1: blood thinners, so this is pretty clear has happened, but

901
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,239
Speaker 1: it doesn't really mean anything. He got a nosebleed during

902
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,960
Speaker 1: the electrocution, and the public said, we don't care. That's

903
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 1: number three on in Florida alone. Go find something else.

904
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 1: Let's try this lethal injection thing. Yeah. Um, I did ah,

905
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:36,160
Speaker 1: I did a list. Actually, I think Nebraska in two

906
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 1: thousand and eight was the last state to UH stop

907
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:43,040
Speaker 1: using the electric chair as their primary source. UM. But

908
00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 1: I was curious, like, which state just has executed the

909
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:52,399
Speaker 1: most people period by whatever means? And um, Texas leads

910
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:57,839
Speaker 1: away what Uh, they have two stats since nineteen thirty

911
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 1: and since nineteen seventy six, but Texas has executed eighteen

912
00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 1: hundred I'm sorry, eight hundred forty one people since nineteen thirty.

913
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:09,360
Speaker 1: George's number two actually with four d and thirty six,

914
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 1: but since nineteen seventy six, um, Georgia has executed seventy

915
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 1: four people to Texas is five hundred and sixty three.

916
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And since seventy six, Virginia is actually

917
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: second and then Florida is third. Both have over a hundred.

918
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: Would not have guessed Virginia Florida. I probably would have

919
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:35,319
Speaker 1: guessed Texas. I knew, but wow, that's a significant that's

920
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:39,399
Speaker 1: a that's a long gap between number one and two. Yeah,

921
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: and Texas has always you know, been criticized as uh

922
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: death penalty. Um happy, I would say that's a fair characterization.

923
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 1: Sadly prove us wrong in Texas, you can't do it? Yeah,

924
00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 1: um so. So remember we said that everybody was like, no,

925
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 1: no more electrocutions, let's find something else. When they went

926
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:04,239
Speaker 1: to the lethal injection, which is supposedly more humane. I

927
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 1: was reading this article by a law professor named Austin

928
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:11,439
Speaker 1: Austin Surat who basically said, you know, those two two

929
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 1: prisoners in Tennessee in December of two thousand eighteen alone

930
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 1: opted for the electric chair because they didn't have faith

931
00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:22,360
Speaker 1: that UM lethal injection was going to be less painful

932
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: or less prolonged. They wanted the electric chair instead, and

933
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 1: that up to this point, every time we've changed UM

934
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:35,720
Speaker 1: what our method of execution is, it's been technologically speaking,

935
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 1: socially speaking, a step forward in that in that kind

936
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:42,839
Speaker 1: of area, and that going back to the electric chair

937
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: is a huge step backwards. Into him, it represents a

938
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:50,399
Speaker 1: major crisis in the legitimacy of the death penalty. And

939
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: he was, I guess kind of wondering without saying it, like,

940
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:54,840
Speaker 1: is this is this the beginning of the end for

941
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 1: the death penalty in the United States? Again? Interesting, I

942
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:03,279
Speaker 1: thought so too. But that's electric chairs. You can buy one,

943
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 1: or you could. I think it's sold. One sold in

944
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. Tennessee's old Sparky sold in two thousand twelve,

945
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:12,759
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, Yeah, on an online auction for

946
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:17,200
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars. Marilyn Manson, I don't know. I

947
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 1: heard it was being put in a museum in Tennessee,

948
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:25,400
Speaker 1: so probably not um. But that's electric chairs. Like I said, everybody,

949
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: and if you want to know more about them, you

950
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:29,480
Speaker 1: can go look around the internet. You can also just

951
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:32,560
Speaker 1: leave this behind forever. It will kind of be nice

952
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:34,960
Speaker 1: to shed this one because it was some grim research.

953
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: And since I say sorry for putting us through this one, chuck,

954
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 1: this is a Josh pick everybody, since I mean, like

955
00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: halfway through great research to today, I was like, god, man,

956
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:49,400
Speaker 1: I just feel just bad right now, you know. And

957
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:53,000
Speaker 1: then he had a panini and everything was okay. Yeah,

958
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: it was a good panini for sure. Uh. Well, since

959
00:56:56,120 --> 00:57:01,440
Speaker 1: we said panini, it's time for listener mail. I'm curious

960
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 1: if you're gonna this is the one, Josh, but here

961
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 1: we go. Hey, guys, I just recently I listened to

962
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:11,680
Speaker 1: the started listening to podcasts because apparently I'm a luddite,

963
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:14,759
Speaker 1: so I've been waiting my way through the old episodes.

964
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: I listened to the one on saunas uh, and I

965
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know there is a holiday inn

966
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 1: just outside of Toledo in Perrysburg. Did you see this email? Yeah?

967
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: I did, I responded, Actually, okay, well, I can't wait

968
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 1: to hear what happened. Um. It's it's called the holiday

969
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:34,920
Speaker 1: in French Quarter, which used to be a holid dome

970
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 1: and to which it is possible to have or was

971
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 1: possible to have a pool membership. In addition to three

972
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 1: pools in a large hot tub, the hotel has a

973
00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 1: large sauna and I am positive that this is the

974
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:48,920
Speaker 1: holiday end that Josh's dad took him to when he

975
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: was a kid, staple for over fifty years. Unfortunately, the

976
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 1: hotel will be closing at the end of the month

977
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: after losing its holiday in flag to a new build

978
00:57:56,640 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 1: that is from Deanna Pollen. Is that the one? No,

979
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 1: it's not, but my family here. My family used to

980
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 1: go on staycations at that French Quarter holiday. It was

981
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 1: like two towns over and it was like it was

982
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 1: pretty awesome when you were a kid. I think she's

983
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: kind of underselling at the three pools in the hot tub.

984
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:20,720
Speaker 1: Like the pools were meandering and went all over the place.

985
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 1: They were like bridges over them, so you swam under bridges.

986
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 1: They would go out, so they were like indoor outdoor pools.

987
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 1: It was pretty awesome. But my um pool membership and

988
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:33,919
Speaker 1: saw a membership was at the Holiday Inn near Southwick Mall,

989
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:38,480
Speaker 1: which that Holiday Inn is now a um an assisted

990
00:58:38,560 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: living tower, I believe, but for a little while in

991
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:43,959
Speaker 1: between being a holiday Inn and being an assisted living tower,

992
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:47,480
Speaker 1: it was abandoned and one of the coolest, like photos

993
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 1: that she can look at her abandoned hotels and somebody

994
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 1: went to the trouble of getting photos inside this abandoned

995
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: holiday and it's really cool, including the pool. So just

996
00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 1: look up I think abandoned holiday in Toledo. I O

997
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:03,360
Speaker 1: Southwick Mall. Maybe you know, probably bring it up. Well,

998
00:59:03,360 --> 00:59:06,200
Speaker 1: maybe you'll end up there one day, bring it full circle. Yeah.

999
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 1: I was depressed of the French Quarters going under though.

1000
00:59:08,640 --> 00:59:11,480
Speaker 1: That was a great, great little place. I was talking

1001
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:13,160
Speaker 1: to UM. I was like, oh, man, did I ever

1002
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 1: tell you about my family staying at the French Course.

1003
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 1: She's like, yes, you told me your family went on

1004
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: vacation two towns over a holiday and I was like, yeah,

1005
00:59:22,360 --> 00:59:24,880
Speaker 1: it was great though. I think the best one was

1006
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 1: the pool that was in the Highway median. What was

1007
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: that one? I just thought that was like the fourth pool.

1008
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 1: Right to use it your own risk pool. It was disconnected,

1009
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:39,280
Speaker 1: you'd run like heck to get to it. That's right. Uh, well, Chuck,

1010
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 1: you got anything else? Well, if you want to get

1011
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 1: in touch with this to let us know about some

1012
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 1: part of my childhood being shut down forever, we love

1013
00:59:46,640 --> 00:59:49,440
Speaker 1: hearing about that kind of stuff. You can go to

1014
00:59:49,520 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know dot com and look for our

1015
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: social links, and you can also send us an email

1016
00:59:54,520 --> 01:00:00,400
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Stuff

1017
01:00:00,400 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How

1018
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:05,640
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit

1019
01:00:05,640 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1020
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.