Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [113]
HAVING FAILED IN HIS BID to save Kemmler, Roger Sherman reappeared as the attorney for Shibuya Jugiro, a Japanese immigrant convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In November 1890 Sherman presented Jugiro's case before the U.S. Supreme Court, offering Kemmler's death as a "practical illustration" of the cruelty of electrocution. Without issuing an opinion, the Supreme Court rejected Jugiro's appeal on the authority of its decision in Exparte Kemmler.12
During the oral arguments in the Jugiro case, one of the Supreme Court justices provided a clue to his reasoning. When Roger Sherman claimed that electricity could not be counted on to destroy life, the justice pointed out that "in New-York City persons have been killed in a short time by accidental contact with electric wires."13
The Supreme Court's decision ended the hopes of the men awaiting death in New York penitentiaries. Sing Sing's warden decided that all four murderers on his death row—Jugiro, Harris Smiler, James Slocum, and Joseph Wrood—would die on the morning of July 7,1891. When tests showed that the Sing Sing ammeter was faulty, it was sent to Arthur Kennelly at the Edison laboratory, who recalibrated the device and sent it back. Dr. MacDonald also made some changes in the apparatus. Rather than electrodes at the crown of the head and base of the spine, as in Kemmler's execution, the Sing Sing chair featured a larger head electrode that covered the forehead and temples and a second electrode to be affixed to the calf.
The details of how these new arrangements worked were kept secret, because the warden prohibited witnesses from speaking to the press after the executions. "I cannot give you any minute particulars," Dr. A. D. Rockwell told reporters upon emerging from the prison, "but they were all highly successful." Although newspapers grumbled about the gag law, most accepted the official line that the executions went off flawlessly "A proud day for the Empire State!" the Herald crowed.14
A more complete picture emerged months later, in Dr. MacDonald's official report. All of the prisoners received shocks ranging from 1,400 to 1,700 volts. James Slocum, the first in the chair, survived an initial shock of twenty-seven seconds, with a strong pulse and "noisy respiration." A second shock of twenty-six seconds was required to kill him. MacDonald and the other doctors present conferred and decided that several shorter shocks, rather than one long one, might kill more quickly. Harris Smiler, the next victim, received three contacts of ten seconds each, with a pause between shocks just long enough to rewet the sponges. Even after these shocks, however, "the pulse was beating so firmly and regularly" that a further contact of nineteen seconds was required to kill him. The doctors consulted again, deciding that the first two experiments had shown that "the duration of the current was quite as important an item as the making and breaking of the contact." In the next execution, therefore, Joseph Wood took three contacts of twenty seconds each. Afterward doctors detected a faint heartbeat, but it disappeared within twenty seconds. The final prisoner, Shibuya Jugiro, received three contacts of fifteen seconds, after which "a very slight fluttering was felt at the wrist." This pulse disappeared within fifteen minutes, and Jugiro was pronounced dead.15
MacDonald's report highlighted the experimental nature of electrocution. The press gag law gave the physicians and prison officials the secrecy they required to improve the killing process free from the threat of public criticism.16
ALTHOUGH THE LAST of these four victims died rather quickly, his body nonetheless had been scorched and burned. Hoping