Kentucky
Kentucky's electric chair which would be known as "Old Sparky" is located at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Kentucky. It was first used on July 8, 1911; the first inmate to die in the chair was James Buckner, convicted of killing a police officer several weeks earlier. On July 13, 1928, Kentucky set a record by electrocuting eight men in its chair, each immediately after the other, more than any other state has electrocuted in a single day. The state has decommissioned the electric chair except for those whose capital crimes were committed prior to March 31, 1998 and choose death by electrocution rather than death by lethal injection. Prior to this legislated date, 163 deaths had occurred in Kentucky's electric chair. The last such execution by electric chair occurred on July 1, 1997, when convicted murderer Harold McQueen was executed in it.
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Famous quotes containing the word kentucky:
“The head must bow, and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darkey may go;
A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
In the field where the sugar-canes grow.
A few more days for to tote the weary load,—
No matter, ‘t will never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road:—
Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!”
—Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1884)
“The pure products of America go crazy—mountain folk from Kentucky or the ribbed north end of Jersey with its isolate lakes and valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“He believes without reservation that Kentucky is the garden spot of the world, and is ready to dispute with anyone who questions his claim. In his enthusiasm for his State he compares with the Methodist preacher whom Timothy Flint heard tell a congregation that “Heaven is a Kentucky of a place.””
—For the State of Kentucky, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)