http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gilbert-king/the-us-supreme-court-clea_b_95334.htmlThe Supreme Court hasn't shown much interest in examining the constitutionality of methods of execution, and has done so only a handful of times over the last 117 years. But in the cases that it has, the Court boasts an absurd and uncanny knack of deciding that various methods of execution are not cruel and unusual punishment, only to see those very executions prove otherwise, with horrific results. In March of 1879, (Wilkerson v. Utah) the Supreme Court considered and upheld Utah's right to execute Wallace Wilkerson by firing squad. Three months after the Court's decision, Wilkerson, wearing a white felt hat and carrying a cigar, was lined up before sharpshooters. He refused a blindfold because he wanted to "die like a man" and look his executioners "right in the eye." The sheriff relented, placed a bull's-eye over the condemned man's heart, and commanded the sharpshooters to fire. Four heavy slugs ripped into Wilkerson, but none struck his heart. Wilkerson jumped from the chair, screaming, "Oh, my God! My God! They have missed!" Witnesses watched in revulsion as the wounded man, "writhing and gasping" bled on the ground for nearly half an hour before he was pronounced dead.
Afterward, one Utah newspaper sarcastically commented, "The French guillotine never fails."
The next time the Supreme Court considered whether a method of execution was cruel and unusual punishment was in 1890 after convicted murderer William Kemmler was sentenced to death in the electric chair. The chair had never been used in an execution before, and Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were engaged in a bitter "war of currents." Edison, promoting his direct current (DC) power system, waged a campaign to convince Americans that Westinghouse's alternating current (AC) system was more lethal for killing criminals (or "Westinghousing" them, as he liked to say). Westinghouse was understandably livid and contributed $100,000 to Kemmler's legal defense to prevent Kemmler's death and the bad publicity for his D.C. system. Westinghouse failed and the Supreme Court cleared the way for New York State to execute Kemmler in the chair. On August 6, 1890, the switch was thrown and the current surged through Kemmler for 17 seconds. Dr. Alfred Southwick, a Buffalo dentist and "father of the electric chair" who had been campaigning for a more humane method of execution than hanging, announced to witnesses in attendance, "We live in a higher civilization today."
But behind him, Kemmler was gasping for breath. "Great God!" a witness screamed. "He's alive!"
The current was immediately switched back on and Kemmler began shaking and moaning in the chair. A "purplish foam" dribbled from his mouth as his head began to smoke and his coat caught fire. Witnesses fainted and vomited and ultimately, Kemmler was pronounced dead. "It was a brutal affair," Westinghouse said. "They could have done better with an ax."
The last time the U.S. Supreme Court considered a significant question of cruel and unusual punishment was in 1946, after the stuttering, 17-year-old Negro Willie Francis was convicted in a sham of a trial for the murder of a Cajun pharmacist in St. Martinville, Louisiana. A few months later, Willie was strapped into the portable electric chair known as "Gruesome Gertie" and had a leather mask thrown over his face. The gasoline-powered generator was fired up, the executioner said, "Good-bye, Willie," and threw the switch. Willie began to rock and slide in the chair, convulsing and yelling, "Take it off! Take it off! Let me breathe!"
"You're not supposed to breathe," his executioner snapped, and continued to let the current surge. Finally, Willie painfully stuttered, "I am N-N-Not dying!" That was enough for the sheriff to call off the execution of Willie Francis. Willie was unbuckled and dragged back to a cell, where an incredulous Louisiana Governor Jimmie Davis (known for his hit song, "You Are My Sunshine") ordered the chair fixed and Willie returned to it in six days. Willie thought the whole experience was "plumb miserable," and remarked that "the electric man could have been puttin' me on a bus to New Orleans the way he said good-bye." Appalled by what he had witnessed at the jail across the street from his house, a Cajun lawyer named Bertrand DeBlanc stepped in and managed to obtain a stay, and Willie's case of double jeopardy and cruel and unusual punishment worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case was deadlocked at 4-4 until a reluctant Felix Frankfurter cast the deciding vote, allowing Louisiana to return Willie to the chair. But Willie still had a chance. DeBlanc filed last-minute affidavits with statements from two eyewitnesses who claimed that Willie's botched execution was "the most disgraceful and inhuman exhibition" they'd ever seen, and that the executioners (a guard and an inmate from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola) were "so drunk that it was impossible for them to know what they were doing." Indeed, one irate executioner told Willie he'd be back to "kill you next week if I have to use a rock." The Supreme Court took note of DeBlanc's affidavits and the "grave nature of the new allegations" of negligence on the part of the State of Louisiana. No longer could Willie's attempted execution be termed, "an innocent misadventure" as Justice Frankfurter had described it in his concurring opinion. Frankfurter was so tortured by his own decision that he quietly worked behind the scenes (and unbeknownst to his fellow Justices) to secure an 11th hour pardon, believing that the re-execution of Willie Francis was "a barbaric thing to do" and would "needlessly cast a cloud on Louisiana for many years to come." At the same time, blacks and whites alike became caught up in the teenager's fate as front-page headlines across the country trumpeted each and every twist in Willie's ultimately heart-wrenching case.
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