Most state laws provide for capital punishment, usually by hanging.
Unfortunately, hangmen's ignorance produced horrific scenes of slow strangling deaths and gruesome decapitations. 1881 - Dr. Albert Southwick, a dentist and former steamboat engineer, sees elderly drunkard touch terminals of electrical generator in Buffalo, New York. He is amazed at how quickly and apparently painlessly the man is killed and describes episode to friend State Senator David McMillan. 1881 - McMillan speaks to Governor David B. Hill. Hill asks state legislature to consider how modern day electricity might replace hanging.