Willie Francis - Execution, Appeal, and Second Execution

Execution, Appeal, and Second Execution

On May 3, 1946, the electric chair failed to kill Willie Francis. Witnesses reported hearing the teenager scream from behind the leather hood, "Take it off! Take it off! Let me breathe!" as the supposedly lethal surge of electricity was being applied. It turned out that the portable electric chair known as "Gruesome Gertie" had been improperly set up by an intoxicated prison guard and inmate from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. The sheriff, E.L. Resweber, was later quoted as saying: "This boy really got a shock when they turned that machine on."

After the botched execution, a young lawyer, Bertrand DeBlanc, who was best friends with the victim, decided to take Francis's case, much to the dismay of the small Cajun town. He appealed to the Supreme Court in Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947), citing various violations of his Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. These included violations of equal protection, double jeopardy, and cruel and unusual punishment.

The preliminary vote was in Francis' favor. A court clerk mistakenly informed Francis' legal team he had won his appeal. In fact, in a 5-4 decision, the appeal was rejected. The dissenting opinion asked just how many attempted executions it took before it became cruel and unusual punishment. Behind the scenes, Justice Felix Frankfurter, who cast the deciding vote to re-execute Francis, asked his old college roommate to secretly petition the Governor of Louisiana for a commutation, which failed.

Subsequently, Willie Francis was executed at 12:05 pm (CST) on May 9, 1947.