Capital punishment in Wisconsin

Capital punishment in Wisconsin was abolished in 1853. Wisconsin was one of the earliest United States states to abolish the death penalty, and, along with Michigan, one of only two states that has performed only one execution in its history.

Since its admission to the Union in 1848, as the 30th State, the only execution carried out in Wisconsin was that of immigrant farmer John McCaffary, who was hanged on August 21, 1851 in Kenosha County for drowning his wife.[1][2][3]

Wisconsin abolished the death penalty in 1853, just two years after McCaffary's execution (in part due to the public revulsion at the spectacle which McCaffary's execution became),[4][5] becoming just the second state after Michigan to do so.[6]

In 2006, an advisory referendum gave 55% of the Wisconsin voters favorable to the Wisconsin State Legislature restoring capital punishment; the legislators did not restore capital punishment.[7]

Wisconsin has one of the lowest per-capita murder rates in the Union.[8]

Notes

  1. ^ Regional Studies The Midwest
  2. ^ http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/WISCONSIN.htm
  3. ^ Wisconsin Historical Society | Wisconsin Historical Images
  4. ^ death penality in Wisconsin
  5. ^ Pendleton, Alexander T. & Blaine R. Renfert. "Wisconsin's Legal History: Part IV: A Brief History of Wisconsin's Death Penalty," Wisconsin Lawyer
  6. ^ Report of the Select Committee, to whom was referred, a Bill to Abolish the Death Penalty – Wisconsin Historical Society
  7. ^ http://www.cjlf.org/files/WiscDPresults.htm
  8. ^ Death Penalty Information Center

See also

In depth
Lists of individuals executed
Other