Old Sparky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Old Sparky is the nickname of the electric chairs of Texas, New York, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida. It was also the nickname of the long-retired electric chair at the now-closed West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville, West Virginia; the electric chair is still at the prison, which is now a tourist attraction.[1] It is sometimes used to refer to electric chairs in general, and not one of a specific state.
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[edit] Florida's
It was the sole means of execution in Florida from 1924 until 2000, when the Florida legislature under pressure from the U.S. Supreme Court replaced it with lethal injection. Florida death row inmates now may be executed in the electric chair only if they choose it. It was located in Florida State Prison in the north Florida town of Starke. It was notorious for malfunctioning in its final years, namely in the cases of Jesse Tafero (executed May 4, 1990), Pedro Medina (executed March 25, 1997), and Allen Lee Davis (executed July 7, 1999). Reportedly flames shot out of the convicts' heads during the execution of Tafero and Medina, raising the question whether use of the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment. After the Medina execution, then Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth commented, "People who wish to commit murder, they'd better not do it in the state of Florida because we may have a problem with the electric chair." [2]
The malfunctions probably were due to practices of the prison staff and not because of the electric chair itself. There was evidence that the first two malfunctions occurred because of how sponges were used in the headpiece containing an electrode. To assure proper contact between the inmate's head and the electrode, a saline-soaked sponge stuffed between the two was necessary. In the Tafero incident, a natural sponge was replaced with a synthetic sponge that caught fire during the execution. For Medina, prison officials apparently did not properly soak the sponge in saline, and it caught fire, too. Tiny Davis' execution photographs clearly showed that his nose had been severely compressed by a badly fitted headstrap.
[edit] "Tiny" Davis execution
The 1999 execution of Allen Lee Davis, also known as "Tiny" Davis, created international news after witnesses saw his white shirt rapidly turn red with blood during his execution. Prison officials later determined the blood came from an unusually profuse nosebleed most likely caused by an improperly fitted headstrap. The source of the blood was not evident to witnesses during execution, because Davis' head was covered with a traditional hood. A prison inspector general took photographs of Davis body, still bloody and strapped in the chair, shortly after execution. These photographs later became key evidence in several cases mounting yet another challenge to the constitutionality of Old Sparky. These lawsuits ultimately came to the Florida Supreme Court in the fall of 1999, when a bare majority (4 of the 7 Justices) found that the electric chair was constitutional in a case brought by death row inmate Thomas Provenzano. One of the dissenting Justices, Leander J. Shaw, Jr., took the extraordinary step of attaching to his opinion three color photographs of Tiny Davis' bloody body in the chair. This publication marked the first time those photographs had appeared on the Internet or, for that matter, anywhere outside of court and prison files.
The effect was to create an immediate and sometimes macabre international debate over the death penalty in general and Florida's adherence to electrocution in particular. The Florida Supreme Court's web servers repeatedly crashed under the demand for access to the photographs, reputed to be the first actual photographs of an American state execution in decades. Many Europeans saw in these photographs evidence of American barbarism, and they were actually used during a protest demonstration in Madrid in support of a Spaniard on Florida's death row. Some death penalty supporters in the United States viewed the photographs as a deterrent, apparently believing they had been posted on the Website as a warning to all would-be murderers. A few parents even reported showing the photographs to their children to warn them against the ways of crime (Compare The Newgate Calendar).
[edit] Political response
Some Florida politicians vowed never to eliminate the electric chair despite the debate, but events rapidly changed after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from the Florida Supreme Court's split decision upholding electrocution. This action stunned some in Florida's leadership. The nation's high court had declined to review appeals after the prior two malfunctions, so observers concluded that the nation's high court now had come to view Florida's death penalty problems more dimly. Partly on the advice of Attorney General Butterworth, Florida's Governor Jeb Bush summoned the legislature into special session, and in early 2000 it quickly approved lethal injection as the means of execution that must be used unless the inmate asks to be electrocuted. The Attorney General then notified the Federal court and it agreed to dismiss the case based on the change in law.
[edit] References to Old Sparky
- The Green Mile by Stephen King and its movie The Green Mile use Old Sparky as the official method of execution.
- In an episode of King of the Hill, Dale Gribble, excited about being on the executioner list as a new employee of a local prison, asks the prison warden where Old Sparky is. The warden explains that Old Sparky is no longer, replaced by lethal injection. Dale then asks where Old Squirty is, a variation on the original title.
