Colonial Beginnings 1600-1700s:

The death penalty in America has had a long and tumultuous history. Usage of capital punishment dates back to pre-colonial beginnings. The first recorded execution took place in the settlement of Jamestown, where in 1608, Captain James Kendal was executed for allegedly spying on behalf of Spain. Such incidents were rather limited, with early colonists using it sporadically, the most famous instance of capital punishment was perhaps the witch trials of Salem, leading to a number of hangings. In these early incidents the need for public example created a spectacle of death, employed on a limited basis. To the early colonists executions provided not only deterrence but retribution as well.

 

The Transformation during the 1800s:

During the 1800s capital punishment slowly phased out from an increasingly inefficient public spectacle, to a desired efficient and private event. By the early  1800s public executions in America and Europe became huge spectacles. Interestingly the public interactions within these events eventually led to calls for reform from opponents to be taken seriously by the state. Public executions became means employed by the state to bring about swift justice, and also to warn and scare people from replicating capital crimes making executions act as a deterrent. Processions were tightly choreographed and scripted often involving a long and familiar ritual employed many times over. Prayers to start the execution, followed by a long procession to the gallows, a confession or time for the condemned to express remorse or regret, followed by more prayers, terminated with a drop and death by hanging, all done with the aim to showcase the power of the state, as well as to give the event divine sanction, culminating with swift justice for the condemned.  While the state’s usage of the death penalty to bring about order and justice were reasonable, increasingly the system had the opposite effect. The condemned, as well as the crowds, challenged the scripted ritual at times, undermining the entire process. At times the condemned took the opportunity to denounce the government instead of asking for penitence, in the process achieving hero status, dying like a martyr; crowds also grew rebellious at times leading to chaos and rioting having the exact opposite effect of the execution’s intended consequences.  Public executions were causing social disorder and with each execution there grew the chance of it being botched, prolonging or making the spectacle of death gruesome, adding furthermore to calls for the practice to be abolished or reformed. By the end of the 1800s reform had arrived in the form of the electric chair. Chosen by a New York Commission appointed to look into all capital punishment methods from across the globe and choose the best for the state, the electric chair symbolized the new technological advancement in capital punishment. It was also a product of the progressive movement that would come to dominate the following century, a movement that at its core stressed technicians improving various aspects of society, such as efficiency, through science. The chair allowed its proponents to introduce a tool of death that killed humanly and efficiently.

 

 

 

 

The Rise, The Fall, and the Resurrection of the Death Penalty in the 1900s:

During the early 1900s the age of progressivism had given supporters of the death penalty a new tool, the electric chair, to bolster their argument that this new method of state killing was humane and efficient. Early usage, however, were not as successful, most prominent was the botched execution of William Kemmler. Trends in the popularity of the death penalty in America swung wildly in both directions, pre-WWI decline to post-WWI positive views. By the 1960s, the era of the Civil Rights movement, death penalty became one of many issues that activists sought to fix. With the belief that the death penalty was unjust, as well as cruel and unusual punishment, lawsuits brought the practice to a halt in 1968. The official moratorium followed four years later when Furman v. Georgia officially halted executions in America. The pause was relatively short, and four years later the Supreme Court allowed for states to kill again. During the 1980s states which administered the death penalty switched to what was then perceived as a more humane method, the lethal injection option. Lethal injection has continued all the way to the present to be the main method of execution in America.

Present Battles over the Death Penalty 2000s:

During the present debate the introduction of DNA technology has led to an increase in popularity of the calls for the abolition of the death penalty in America. As more and more inmates are exonerated and released from death row some states have begun the process of dismantling a system that could in fact execute innocent people. Illinois being one such state, which abolished the death penalty in 2011. Wrongful convictions, especially when race is taken into the account, has galvanized the anti-death penalty movement to seek an end to the practice. Today the battle over executions in America is no longer about improving methods of killing, but rather a debate over it becomes necessary for the state to take a life.