Hangings Execution Photos

Hanging was an 'outrageous spectacle'

This murder prompted one gang member to turn against the gang and to identify other members, including Hall and Smith. When the gang was rounded up, a lynch mob gathered. Only a personal appearance and plea by Gov. Albert Marks convinced the mob to leave the matter to the court. The arsonists were eventually convicted and given long sentences. Hall and Smith were convicted of first-degree murder and given the death penalty. The sheriff, however, could not find a suitable place for the executions within a mile of the courthouse, as required by law. Public grounds were deemed inappropriate, and private landowners refused. Finally, a Stones River island was made available by H.H. Kerr, a prosperous landowner. (Kerr owned a large tract extending west from the Nashville Pike. The gallows was in the river near the Tuckertown community, northwest of the courthouse.) As the gallows was constructed, Kerr built grandstands and concession booths. Meanwhile, local doctors and preachers became involved. Revs. G.D. Olden and Dempsey Childress performed full immersion baptisms on the condemned at the jail with a large congregation and choir attending. Both condemned men gave permission to local doctors to attempt to revive them with electricity after the hanging. On Feb. 20, 1880, a crowd of some 15,000 gathered to enjoy barbecue, peanuts, lemonade and liquor. Kerr sold tickets for grandstand seating. The condemned arrived by wagon wearing black shrouds. Smith entertained the crowd by requesting some cake from a concessionaire, saying he would die in peace if his request were granted. His lusty eating and expressions of pleasure brought cheers and laughter. The "semi-private" hangings continued until the adoption of House Bill No. 72 in 1909. This act provided that "the execution of all persons condemned to death by the courts of this State shall be held within an enclosure of the penitentiary, at Nashville, in privacy and seclusion ... no witnesses shall be admitted except a priest or minister of the gospel, the prison physician, the Sheriff of the county in which the crime was committed, and such attendants as are necessary to properly carry out the execution." The new rule further provided that "members of the family of the condemned prisoner may be present to witness the execution." E.S. Vanderford also owned a store and Squire H. William Hindman, another boarding house patron, was the store manager. On April 24, 1908, Mitchell shot and killed Hindman during a store robbery. Mitchell was convicted in a Murfreesboro trial under the felony murder doctrine since the killing occurred in the act of armed robbery. Mitchell claimed that he shot in self-defense. Legal execution by hanging ended in Tennessee in 1913 when the legislature replaced the old frontier method with new technology. Beginning with a 22-year-old Dyer County rapist in 1916, condemned Tennessee criminals died by electrocution. Among them was Albert "Bantam" Dubois. Executed in 1948, Dubois was the last from Rutherford County to die in "Old Sparky," the Tennessee electric chair. The crime was committed on Feb. 20, 1946, in the office of the Deluxe Cab Company, 118 W. Vine St., Murfreesboro. The office was in a 9-by-12 foot shed with one door, two chairs, a couch and a telephone. It was known as the "797 office" (the company telephone number was 797). Claude W. Holt and "Rooster" Messick were co-owners. The victim was Albert Willis, a cab driver. Before stabbing Willis, Dubois, described as a "town bully, morphine addict and bootlegger," bragged that he had "killed three men, cut twenty-seven, and had never served much time." (In 1936 Dubois was convicted of manslaughter in the knife slaying of George G. Snow during an argument at the City Café on the Public Square. Sentenced to 10 years, Dubois was paroled after 14 months.) Believing that Willis had "turned him up" to the police for a minor infraction (for which Dubois received nothing more than a warning), the "Bantam" spent a week brandishing a 10-inch blade and telling of his intent to kill the coward that had "turned him up." On the day of the killing, Dubois told Messick his plan and spent most of the day with buddies at the barber shop/pool hall on the square drinking and threatening. That evening Dubois and two of his cronies, Claude Higdon and James "Wren" Miller, went to the "797 office" where Willis, Messick, Buck Climer (another cabbie) and David Smithonson, the dispatcher, were working. Dubois, goaded on by Higdon and Miller, began accusing, threatening and haranguing Willis. According to trial testimony, Willis denied the accusations, remained calm, said he wanted no trouble, and started up from his chair to go home.

Should photos, video of executions be shown?

The images would be the ultimate in “reality� programming: A TV broadcast or online streaming video of an actual execution.

Would you watch? Would you want news organizations—or anyone with a computer, for that matter—to broadcast or stream it on a live or delayed basis?

On July 22, Georgia prison officials complied with a request from Andrew Grant DeYoung’s attorneys for a video of Young’s death by lethal injection for killing three people in 1993.

There are no plans for the DeYoung tape to be aired anywhere—yet. The video, being held by a court, could be evidence in a future lawsuit over execution methods.

But the incident and predictions of more such requests by death-row inmates raises the possibility that such a video could be leaked and posted on the Web before authorities could react. And, days ago, a university professor and a former federal prosecutor co-authored a commentary in The New York Times Sunday Review that cited the DeYoung taping as they called for executions to be televised. The pair said it was the only way for the public to get firsthand information on whether or not the practice is “cruel and unusual punishment,� given that we now get only “vague contours� from news media or family observers.

According to a display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. (see newseum.org/news/2008/01/the-daily-newss-front-page-photo-of-ruth-snyders-execution-new-york-daily-news.html), the only news photo of the exact moment of an execution was taken Jan. 12, 1927, against prison rules, by a photographer at the electrocution of convicted murderer Ruth Snyder. The front-page photo helped the New York Daily News sell 1 million extra copies—and caused a number of states to enact laws forbidding such photos.

The last public execution in the United States took place in 1936, in Owensboro, Ky.—reported as a sunrise hanging before a crowd of 20,000 and “hundreds of news reporters and photographers.�

News organizations today, however, will be caught in ethical and First Amendment free-press crosscurrents in deciding whether to show an execution. Virtually no news organization, as a matter of policy, prints, airs or posts grisly photos or video of the instant of death or dead bodies. Such policies, though, have been formulated in response to car chases, suicide attempts, storm damage, traffic accidents and the like. No such strictures exist on most websites.

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