Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Georgia Capital Punishment History

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Georgia Capital Punishment History

    A SHORT HISTORY OF GEORGIA’S DEATH PENALTY FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS:

    “From 1735 to 1924 the legal method of execution in Georgia was hanging. The sheriff in the county or judicial circuit where the crime was committed carried out the execution.

    “The last legal execution by hanging occurred on May 20, 1925. Gervis Bloodworth and Willie Jones (both white males) were hung in Columbus, Georgia for a murder that occurred in Taylor County. The execution was transferred to Columbus, in the same judicial circuit, because the condemned claimed that the hanging would be public (which was against the law) because spectators could stand on the roof of the drug store in Butler, Georgia and see the gallows. It is estimated that over 500 legal hangings occurred in Georgia between 1725 and 1925.

    “On August 16, 1924 an act of the Georgia General Assembly abolished death by hanging and substituted death by electrocution. Thereafter, executions were to be held at one place only, instead of the county or judicial circuit where the crime was committed. “Of the 256 executions carried out at Reidsville, 255 were male and one was female (Lena Baker, a black female, was executed on March 5, 1945 for a murder in Randolph County). The oldest inmate executed was 72, the youngest was 16.

    “In 1964 the Supreme Court suspended all executions in the United States. The Georgia General Assembly passed a new death sentence law that went into effect on March 28, 1973. On July 2, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in Georgia as constitutional (Gregg v. Georgia).

    “The first person executed after the reinstatement of the death penalty was John Eldon Smith. Smith, a white male, was executed on December 15, 1983 for a Bibb County murder.

    “HB 1284, signed into law in 2000, changes the legal method of execution in Georgia to lethal injection effective May 1, 2000. Anyone who commits a capital crime after May 1, 2000, and receives a death sentence, will be executed by lethal injection. In addition, if either the Georgia or Supreme Courts declare death by electrocution unconstitutional, lethal injection will become the legal method of execution for all inmates under death sentence, regardless of the date of their crimes—and in fact, on October 5, 2001 the Georgia Supreme Court did rule executions by electrocution cruel and unusual punishment. HB1284 immediately took effect and the first execution by lethal injection occurred in October, 2001.”

    http://www.wsbradio.com/weblogs/scot...nalty-history/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Milldegeville prison that held first Georgia electric chair being torn down




    Baldwin County Commission began tearing down the Old State Farm Prison in Milledgeville Monday morning.


    A central Georgia county is tearing down an old, empty prison that was home to Georgia’s first electric chair and was linked to an infamous lynching.

    The two-story brick building that anchored the Georgia State Prison Farm in Milledgeville is being torn down by Baldwin County, to the outrage of some locals and history buffs.

    Demolition of the structure on Georgia 22 began last week.

    Built in 1911, the prison was Georgia’s main correction facility for more than two decades. Beset by chronic overcrowding, it was replaced by the Reidsville prison in the mid-1930s.

    In 1924, the Milledgeville prison housed Georgia’s first electric chair, dubbed “Old Sparky.” That same year, Howard Hinton, 22, was the first of 162 Georgia prisoners to die by state-ordered electrocution at the prison, according to a state Department of Corrections history of Georgia’s death penalty.

    The penitentiary’s numerous occupants included Bill Miner, an infamous stagecoach and train robber who was confined there until his death in 1913.

    But its most notorious link was with the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent who was tried in Atlanta amid a climate of anti-Semitic prejudice and convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl. Frank was abducted from the prison and later lynched near Marietta, nearly 120 miles away. It was unclear if the kidnappers, many of them well-to-do Marietta citizens, had help from inside the prison. Frank was posthumously pardoned by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles in 1986.

    No official public announcement was made about the demolition, Baldwin County Manager Carlos Tobar said in an email.

    The building was beyond repair and would’ve cost over $5 million just to stabilize, county commission chairman Tommy French said in a press release that was sent out after demolition began.

    Baldwin County acquired the historic prison in 2013 when it failed to sell at a tax sale.

    Edwin Atkins, who had organized a Facebook group dedicated to preserving the building, is one of the local residents distraught over its demolition. He said locals were unaware of the demolition until someone happened to drive by.

    “It’s part of my family history, but more than that, it’s part of Georgia’s history,” Atkins said. His great-grandfather, the Rev. Edwin C. Atkins, was the prison chaplain. During his 14-year stint there, he preached sermons to the convicts and prayed with death row inmates before their executions. He maintained a detailed journal of daily occurrences in the prison, which Atkins still keeps today as a family heirloom.

    Atkins was part of a grassroots effort to save the prison and the inmate artwork, much of it religious, that was still visible on its walls. Atkins recognizes the grim history of the prison, especially the disproportionate number of black prisoners who were put to death there, but calls it a “landmark in capital punishment.”

    “If you don’t respect and promote your past, you don’t know where you’re going in the future,” Atkins said.

    Historian Hugh Harrington called the disrepair of the prison a “major failing” on the county’s part. Harrington is the author of three books on Milledgeville’s history.

    “I think as a society, we need to know what came before us,” Harrington said.

    Members of the Milledgeville community are currently raising funds for a museum at the site of the Central State Hospital Depot. Baldwin County would “love” to donate the cornerstone of the prison to them, Tobar said. A historic marker for the prison will also be placed on site of the prison.

    Atkins said he’s pushing to have the cornerstone left on the old prison site.

    http://www.augustachronicle.com/news...eing-torn-down
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #3
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Georgia has released the audio of two executions that they carried out in 1984. Videos can be viewed in their corresponding threads. This audio is the only known public recordings of executions in America.

    Ivon Ray Stanley

    Alpha Otis Stephens
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •