Capital punishment in Michigan

Capital punishment has been illegal in the U.S. State of Michigan since 1846, making Michigan's death penalty history unusual in contrast to many other States. Michigan was the first English-speaking government in the world to abolish totally the death penalty. [ [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=11&did=276 Information on States Without the Death Penalty ] ] [ [http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/event2/history.html History of the Death Penalty - Faith in Action - Working to Abolish the Death Penalty ] ] The Michigan State Legislature voted to do so on May 18, 1846, and this has remained in law since. [See Caitlin [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=micounty;cc=micounty;rgn=full%20text;idno=APK1036.0001.001;didno=APK1036.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000444 pp. 420-422] ]

History

With one exception, all executions in areas which are now part of the State of Michigan were performed before the state was admitted to the Union. [ [http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/regional_studies_the_midwest.htm Regional Studies The Midwest ] ] Michigan became the 26th State on January 26, 1837.

Approximately a dozen people are known to have been executed from 1683 to 1836, although before 1783 the area of the state was outside U.S. jurisdiction and was de facto under British jurisdiction until 1796. In this early period, there were a number of cases where persons who had committed a capital crime in Detroit were transported to Montreal for trial and execution.

The first person executed in Michigan was a Native American named Folle-Avoine. The first person executed under U.S. jurisdiction was another Native American named Buhnah. Two females were put to death in Michigan - an unnamed slave (owned by a man named Clapham) in 1763, and an African American named Ann Wyley in 1777. By race 7 of 14 were Native Americans, another 7 white and only one black. [Executions is the U.S. 1608-2002: The ESPY File, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ESPYstate.pdf]

Although Michigan had abolished the death penalty, one execution took place after Michigan's statehood, when Anthony Chebatoris was hanged in Milan in 1938, for a murder he had committed while robbing a bank in Midland. [Veselenak, Michigan History Magazine, May 1998] This was a federal execution, outside of the state's jurisdiction, and the last execution to be performed in Michigan.

Methods

The legal method of executions in Michigan was hanging, although two people were executed by shooting, one was bludgeoned and the method of one more execution remains unknown.

List of individual executed

"Source: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ESPYstate.pdf (the Espy File)

Before U.S. juridiction

ee also

*Capital punishment in the United States

Notes

References

*cite book |last=Burton |first=Clarence M. |title=The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922 |origyear=1922 |url=http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bad1447.0001.001 |accessdate=2007-09-08 |year=2005 |publisher=University of Michigan Library |location=Ann Arbor, Mich.
*cite book |last=Catlin |first=George B. |title=The story of Detroit |origyear=1923 |url=http://name.umdl.umich.edu/apk1036.0001.001 |accessdate=2007-09-08 |year=2005 |publisher=University of Michigan Library |location=Ann Arbor, Mich.