New York State Electrician

State Electrician of New York
	Seal of New York
Term length	Indeterminate
Inaugural holder	Edwin Davis; 1890
Salary	$150 per execution (plus $50 for any additional executions on the same day)

New York State Electrician was a title given to the chief executioner of the State of New York during the use of the electric chair from 1890 to the state's last execution in 1963, although the final State Electrician, Dow Hover, remained on call for any future executions until the United States Supreme Court briefly abolished capital punishment with its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia.[1][2]

The State Electrician was contracted by the state at an unchanged rate of $150 per execution (with $50 added for any additional executions performed on the same day) for the duration of the position's existence. New York did not prohibit the officeholder from performing executions for other states or for the federal government, and such arrangements were common, with the New York State Electrician being retained to conduct notable executions such as that of Lindbergh baby killer Richard Hauptmann by the State of New Jersey, Sacco and Vanzetti by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the Rosenbergs by the United States.[1]

List of State Electricians

Name	Took office	Left office	Governors
Edwin Davis	August 6, 1890	1914	David B. Hill Roswell P. Flower Levi P. Morton Frank S. Black Theodore Roosevelt Benjamin Odell, Jr. Charles Evans Hughes John Alden Dix William Sulzer Martin H. Glynn
John Hulbert	1914	January 29, 1926	Martin H. Glynn Charles S. Whitman Al Smith
Robert G. Elliott	January 29, 1926	August 24, 1939	Al Smith Franklin D. Roosevelt Herbert H. Lehman
Joseph Francel	August 24, 1939	August 5, 1953	Herbert H. Lehman Thomas E. Dewey
Dow Hover	August 5, 1953	August 15, 1963 (de facto) June 29, 1972 (de jure)	Thomas E. Dewey Averell Harriman Nelson Rockefeller

gollark: In things not seen by other people much!

gollark: Expensive watches are status symbols. People probably know at some level that they are getting a status symbol.

gollark: If they wanted it for *function* they would buy a cheap digital one as I did.

gollark: But they probably do know that it's a high-status watch.

gollark: They might not know or care what would be a technically superior watch.

References

Walsh, Robert. "NEW YORK'S 'STATE ELECTRICIANS'". Sword and Scale. Sword and Scale. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
Gonnerman, Jennifer. "The Last Executioner". The Village Voice. The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 14 October 2008. Retrieved 18 January 2018.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[swordandscale-1] Walsh, Robert. "NEW YORK'S 'STATE ELECTRICIANS'". Sword and Scale. Sword and Scale. Retrieved 18 January 2018.

[2] Gonnerman, Jennifer. "The Last Executioner". The Village Voice. The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 14 October 2008. Retrieved 18 January 2018.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)