Hanging in the United States

Hanging was one method of execution in Colonial America. According to the Espy file, Daniel Frank was hanged in 1623 for cattle theft in the Jamestown colony.[4][5] John Billington is thought to be one of the first men to be hanged in New England; Billington was convicted of murder in September 1630 after he shot and killed John Newcomen.[6]

Execution of Ann Hibbins on Boston Common, June 19, 1656. Sketch by F.T. Merril, 1886

During the Salem witch trials of the early 1690s, most of the men and women convicted of witchcraft were sentenced to public hanging. It is estimated that seventeen women and two men were hanged as a result of the trials. However, modern scholars maintain that thousands of individuals were hanged for witchcraft throughout the American colonies.[7]

Hangings during the colonial era of America were mostly performed publicly in order to deter the behavior for which the criminals were hanged. Thousands of townspeople would gather around the gallows to hear a sermon and observe the hangings of convicted criminals. Such experiences were deemed to be good lessons on morality for the children and townspeople.

Following the American Revolution led by the Continental Congress and the subsequent ratification of the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights was signed into law and became the first ten amendments to that constitution. The eighth amendment of the Bill of rights states that cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted. During this time period, hanging was not considered to be cruel and unusual, yet almost two hundred years later, this amendment was key to the temporary suspension of capital punishment by the Supreme Court. Today, the eighth amendment is still an essential argument employed by those in favor of abolishing capital punishment.

During this time of political unrest, some prominent members of society believed that capital punishment such as hanging ought to be abolished. One such man, Benjamin Rush, published a pamphlet in 1807 speaking out against the death penalty. In the pamphlet Rush often raises religious arguments such as, "The punishment of murder by death is contrary to reason, and to the order and happiness of society, and contrary to divine revelation."[8] Individuals like Benjamin Rush laid the foundation for death penalty abolition movements that are still carried on today.

Hangings were common during the early part of the nineteenth century. Just as in Colonial America, hangings were still conducted in public for all to witness. However, unlike the colonial era, men and women were no longer hanged for offenses like adultery. In fact, by 1836 Pennsylvania only hanged criminals convicted of murder in the first degree.[9] In New York, the number of capital crimes were brought down from nineteen to just two. By 1815, other states like Vermont, Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Ohio (with the slaves)also drastically decreased their number of capital offenses, usually lowering the number down to just two or three.[10] Because of these changes in law, hangings began to decrease in some regions of the country. However, some states went in the opposite direction. Most of the southern states in addition to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island actually raised their number of capital offenses.[10]

Starting in the early 1830s, public hangings were considered by many to be cruel. Many others considered them a major community event and still others took to them as an opportunity to become unruly as with modern sporting events: "Sometimes tens of thousands of eager viewers would show up to view hangings; local merchants would sell souvenirs and alcohol. Fighting and pushing would often break out as people jockeyed for the best view of the hanging or the corpse. Onlookers often cursed the widow or the victim and would try to tear down the scaffold or the rope for keepsakes. Violence and drunkenness often ruled towns far into the night after 'justice had been served."[11] By 1835, five states – Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts – had enacted laws providing for private hangings. Fourteen years later in 1849, fifteen more states also enacted such laws. However, most opponents of hanging opposed these laws. These abolitionists believed that public execution would eventually lead the general population to cry out against the capital punishment, eventually putting an end to hanging in the United States.

In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln sanctioned the hanging of 39 Sioux Indians convicted of murdering white settlers in Mankato, Minnesota.[12] This mass execution remains the largest of its kind in United States history.[11]

Four people were hanged for their participation in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Mary Surratt, one of the four, was the first woman to receive capital punishment by the United States federal government.

The Electric Chair

Old Sparky, the electric chair used at Sing Sing prison

In 1890, New York became the first state to use the electric chair as a means of execution. Though it took two surges of electricity lasting nearly two minutes to kill William Kemmler, the electric chair replaced hanging as the most efficient and preferred method of execution in the United States. This was the first time in United States history that a method other than hanging was the leading means of execution.[15]

Since the introduction of the electric chair in 1890, the number of hangings have steadily decreased. The introduction of the gas chamber in 1924[16] further reduced the number of hangings in the United States, as many states in the West, like Nevada, California, and Arizona, opted to replace hanging with the gas chamber throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

In 1936, Rainey Bethea was hanged after he was convicted of rape; over 20,000 people came to Owensboro, Kentucky, to witness Bethea's execution. Many scholars maintain that the unprecedented nationwide attention and coverage the execution received caused the United States to outlaw public executions. Therefore, Bethea was the last individual to be hanged publicly in the United States.[17] In the decades preceding and following Bethea's execution, states had been eliminating hanging as means of execution altogether until the death penalty was de facto suspended in the late 1960s.

When the death penalty was restored in 1976 following the Gregg v. Georgia ruling, most states that had executed inmates primarily by hanging prior to the ruling implemented lethal injection instead.[3] Delaware's Billy Bailey was the last criminal to be hanged in the United States, in 1996. Bailey was just the third criminal to be hanged since 1965,[18] the other two being Charles Rodman Campbell in 1994 and Westley Allan Dodd in 1993, both in Washington State.[19][20]

The hanging of Billy Bailey is likely to be the final hanging in the United States, considering that all three of the states that maintained hanging as a secondary method of execution alongside lethal injection after the 1976 restoration of the death penalty have now abolished executions. Delaware's Supreme Court declared the death penalty to be in violation of their state constitution in 2016,[21] Washington abolished executions in 2018,[22] and New Hampshire abolished executions in 2019.[23] However, the last man on death row in the three states is Michael Addison in New Hampshire, after murdering a police officer on 16 October 2006. He may be executed by hanging if lethal injection is unconstitutional or inefficient, or if he chooses to be executed by hanging.