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"Electrocute" and "Electrocuting" redirect here. For the band, see Electrocute (band).


Medical aspects[edit]

Main article: Electric shock


Execution by electrocution[edit]

Main article: Electric chair

Execution by electrocution, using an electric chair, has been employed as an official method of capital punishment in only two countries, the United States and the Philippines, and is now almost obsolete. It was invented in the United States in 1881 as a more humane alternative to hanging. It was promoted by inventor Thomas Edison, who built the first electric chair, and conducted many public tests on animals, using alternating current (AC) electricity. Part of Edison's motivation was to make AC electricity look dangerous in the public eye, to give his competing DC electric distribution system an advantage in the war of the currents. The first person to be executed by electrocution was William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; 1000 volts was applied to his body for 17 seconds, but he was found still to be breathing after it and a second shock of 2000 volts was required to kill him.

The electric chair became the dominant method of execution in the United States around 1900, and remained so until the 1980s, when lethal injection became widely accepted on the grounds that it was more humane. Today in the United States electrocution is only an option in five states (Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Virginia) and only as a secondary method, which a condemned prisoner may choose as an alternative to lethal injection. The last use of the electric chair was on January 16, 2013, when Robert Gleason elected to be executed with it in Virginia.[3] The Philippines adopted electrocution in 1924 under US occupation, and used it until 1979.

See also[edit]