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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. Image File history File links Old_Sparky. ...
Image File history File links Old_Sparky. ...
// A nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or things real name (for example, Bob, Rob, Robby, Robbie, Robi, Bobby, Rab, Bert, Bertie, Butch, Bobbers, Bobert, Beto, Bobadito, and Robban (in Sweden), are all short for Robert). ...
Electric chair at the Kentucky State Penitentiary The electric chair is an execution method in which the person being executed is strapped to a chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body. ...
For other uses, see Texas (disambiguation). ...
This article is about the U.S. state. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Official language(s) None Capital Columbus Largest city Columbus Largest metro area Cleveland Area Ranked 34th - Total 44,825 sq mi (116,096 km²) - Width 220 miles (355 km) - Length 220 miles (355 km) - % water 8. ...
Official language(s) English Capital Springfield Largest city Chicago Area Ranked 25th - Total 0 sq mi (149,998 km²) - Width 210 miles (340 km) - Length 390 miles (629 km) - % water 4. ...
Official language(s) English[1] Capital Frankfort Largest city Louisville Area Ranked 37th - Total 40,444 sq mi (104,749 km²) - Width 140 miles (225 km) - Length 379 miles (610 km) - % water 1. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
The West Virginia State Penitentiary is a retired, Gothic style prison located in Moundsville, West Virginia. ...
Moundsville is a city located in Marshall County, West Virginia. ...
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 Florida Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Florida. ...
The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States...
Lethal injection involves injecting a person with fatal doses of drugs to cause death. ...
Florida State Prison, also known as Starke Prison, is a correctional facility located just outside of Starke, Florida in Bradford County. ...
Starke is a city located in Bradford County, Florida. ...
This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...
May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (125th in leap years). ...
This article is about the year. ...
Pedro Medina (October 5, 1957-March 25, 1997), who was among nearly 125,000 Cubans who came to the United States during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, was executed at Florida State Prison in the north Florida town of Starke for stabbing his former teacher in Orlando in 1982. ...
March 25 is the 84th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (85th in leap years). ...
1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Allen Lee Davis (July 20, 1944 - July 8, 1999) was a mass murderer executed on July 8, 1999, for the May 11, 1982 Jacksonville, Florida murder of Nancy Weiler, who was three-months pregnant at the time. ...
July 7 is the 188th day of the year (189th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 177 days remaining. ...
1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
The statement that the government shall not inflict cruel and unusual punishment for crimes is found in the English Bill of Rights signed in 1689 by William of Orange and Queen Mary II who were then the joint rulers of England following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. ...
The Florida Attorney General is an elected official in the U.S. state of Florida. ...
Robert A. Butterworth (born August 20, 1942) is an American attorney and politician from the U.S. state of Florida. ...
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. An electrode is a conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e. ...
Classes Calcarea Hexactinellida Demospongiae The sponges or poriferans (from the Greek poros pore and ferro to bear) are animals of the phylum Porifera. ...
"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. Allen Lee Davis (July 20, 1944 - July 8, 1999) was a mass murderer executed on July 8, 1999, for the May 11, 1982 Jacksonville, Florida murder of Nancy Weiler, who was three-months pregnant at the time. ...
The Florida Supreme Court is the highest court in the State of Florida. ...
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). The Newgate Calendar, subtitled The Malefactors Bloody Register, was a popular work of improving literature in the 18th and 19th Centuries. ...
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. John Ellis Jeb Bush (born February 11, 1953), a Republican, is the forty-third and current Governor of Florida. ...
This article is about the year 2000. ...
Trivia Old Sparky is made from the wood of the gallows it replaced.[citation needed]
References to Old Sparky Cover of the single volume version of The Green Mile The Green Mile (1996) is a serial novel by Stephen King, later republished with all six volumes in a trade paperback. ...
The Green Mile is a 1999 movie, directed by Frank Darabont and adapted by him from the Stephen King novel The Green Mile. ...
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. ...
See also Until 1991, the State of Louisiana used the electric chair as its sole method of execution. ...
External links - Florida Supreme Court decision in Provenzano v. Moore
- An article describing the Tiny Davis execution
- Florida Juice: The Sunshine State's love affair with the electric chair at Slate.com
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