Name |
State |
Date of Execution |
Short description |
Justification of notability
|
James Willis Cobern |
Alabama |
1964-09-04 |
James Cobern was executed for breaking into a woman's house and robbing her. (He also sexually assaulted and murdered the victim, but he was only ever convicted for the robbery, which is what makes his execution a landmark.) He was the last person to be executed in the United States not just for robbery, but for any non-murder crime. |
Cobern's execution was a historical landmark; in addition, I've seen a lot of misinformation about his case, including sooooo many people who misspell his name. I feel that a Wikipedia article could address those issues.
|
John Snowden* |
Maryland |
1919-02-28 |
He is largely believed to have been innocent today. His arrest, trial, and execution were rife with racism. He was convicted of murdering Lottie Mae Brandon in her home on August 8, 1917; police extracted a confession from him by brutally beating him for several hours. |
This case is noteworthy enough to earn its own page on the official website of the State of Maryland (Here - John Snowden MSA). His case still generates conversation to this day. He was also one of very few executed inmates in the United States to receive a posthumous pardon.
|
Alpha Otis O'Daniel Stephens |
Georgia |
1984-12-28 |
He was executed for murdering Roy Asbell during an attempt to rob him. What made his case particularly noteworthy was his inclusion in an NPR story 16 years after his execution, as his execution was recorded in its entirety on audio tape. His execution was also horrifically botched, to the point of being one of Georgia's main motivators to switch to lethal injection as a method of execution. |
I feel like the NPR story, as well as the many articles written about his case at the time of his execution, warrant him receiving his own article. As a staunch death penalty opponent, I would also like to alert the people out there about how the electric chair essentially tortured him to death while he was conscious; the state Supreme Court ruling that abolished electrocution in Georgia, Dawson v. State (2001), goes into some detail. His execution pokes holes into the myth that the electric chair reliably renders inmates unconscious in 1/240th of a second.
|
Eugene LaMoore* |
Alaska |
1950-04-14 |
He was executed for robbing a store and murdering the storeowner. His co-defendant, Austin Nelson, was executed two years prior, on March 1, 1948. |
He was the last person executed in the Alaskan territory prior to them abolishing the death penalty. (Alaska never carried out an execution as a state.) As LaMoore was black, his case also raised questions regarding the racial disparity in the death penalty's application in Alaska, as the territory executed black and Native American murderers at an extremely disproportionate rate compared to white murderers.
|
James Dukes |
Illinois |
1962-08-24 |
He was executed for the murder of Detective John Blyth. |
He was the final person executed in Illinois prior to their death penalty moratorium.
|
Brian Keith Terrell* |
Georgia |
2015-12-08 |
He was executed for the murder of John Henry Watson in 1995. |
There is a lot of evidence that Terrell may not have been the perpetrator in the crime and that he was a victim of the racially biased legal system in Georgia. His execution was also slightly botched.
|
Nelson Charles* |
Alaska |
1939-11-10 |
He was executed for the murder of Cecelia Johnson, his mother-in-law. |
His case was fairly controversial at the time due to Charles's history of mental illness and addiction, as well as the racial disparities in Alaska's death penalty system, which tended to target Native American and black murderers more than white murderers. (Charles was Native American.)
|
Frank Henry Burness |
New York |
1904-06-27 |
He was executed for murdering a man; I'm pretty sure that sometime before his execution, he confessed to several other murders committed on prior occasions. |
This was a moderately notable case at the time, but the other murders on prior occasions seem to qualify Burness being classified as a serial killer. Adding his article could help out with that WikiProject related to serial killers.
|
Lauren Porter |
Georgia |
1947-04-25 |
He (yes, he) was executed for the murder of his neighbor, William Roderic Cofer; I think the motive was robbery/burglary. |
I've only ever seen one source on this, and I somewhat doubt the validity of the source based on other mistakes I've seen from the same author, but Porter was allegedly responsible for about 4-5 other scattered and somewhat random murders in his area a few years prior to Cofer's murder - thus classifying Porter as a serial killer (if I can find other information to confirm this, and if not, I will delete him from my page because he isn't noteworthy enough to receive an article otherwise).
I also feel that it is worth mentioning (here, not on his page) that the name "Lauren" used to be more masculine/male-coded than it is today.
|
Jack Trawick*
|
Alabama
|
2009-06-11
|
He was executed for the murder of Stephanie Gach, who, prior the murder, he did not know.
|
He was a self-confessed serial killer. He admitted to murdering at least four women. Especially as a modern one, he definitely deserves his own article.
|
Marie Porter (murderer)
|
Illinois
|
1938-01-28
|
Don't know much about the murder she committed, either, but I know it involved her brother-in-law, and she hired a hitman who was executed alongside her.
|
I'm iffy about this one, but since executions of women have been so rare in this country (they make up approximately 3% of all executions, including ~1% of modern executions since 1976), I think that gives her some degree of notability. ...Maybe. (I also think she was the only woman executed in Illinois in the 20th century; I think she may have been the final execution of a woman in Illinois.)
|
Earl Gardner (murderer)*
|
Federal/Arizona
|
1936-07-12
|
Not 100% sure, but I think he murdered his wife? I know Gardner was a member of the Apache Nation, so I'm assuming that he murdered her on a reservation, thus making it a federal case. He was executed by the U.S. federal government in Arizona.
|
Gardner was hanged at a time when Arizona had already fully transitioned to using the gas chamber to carry out executions. Back when he was executed, federal executions were required to be carried out by hanging regardless of the method that a state had adopted and grown accustomed to using (which explained why, for instance, James Alderman was hanged in Florida despite Florida having used the electric chair for 5 years). Gardner's hanging was so notoriously, horrifically botched and mishandled, that it inspired federal authorities to amend the laws regarding the methods that states could use. Federal executions from then on out were carried out with the method that each state was used to utilizing, which, considering the sheer number of botched executions by other methods, is like placing a bandage on a bullet wound. But anyway, Gardner's was the last under the mandated hanging statute.
|
G. Phil Hanna*
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
N/A - wouldn't say he committed a crime, although I think his line of work should be illegal.
|
Not a person who was executed this time, but a very famous executioner who was active in the American Midwest in the early 20th century. Considering that less prolific executioners have pages on Wikipedia, I think Hanna might deserve one as well.
|
Vincent Ciucci
|
Illinois
|
1962-03-23
|
He was executed for murdering his wife and children. (You could class him as a mass murderer.)
|
This was an extremely notorious case at its time; this may have gotten more press than James Morelli, who, by virtue of notoriety alone, absolutely earned his own article. Ciucci also postponed his execution for 7 years (which, at the time of his execution, was nearly unprecedented). Arguably, all of Illinois's final three executions before the death penalty moratorium were massive press events deserving of their own articles.
|
Richard Carpenter (criminal)
|
Illinois
|
1958-12-19
|
He was executed for murdering Chicago police detective William J. Murphy.
|
One of Illinois's last three executions, this was a massive press event on a similar level as Vincent Ciucci. One only has to Google his name to see that there has been plenty written about him already. This case is long overdue an article.
|
Something about the 1926 Will County prison escape? IDK about the title yet
|
Illinois
|
1927-07-15
1928-10-10
|
As far as I know, 7+ inmates escaped from (I THINK) the Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, and in the process, they murdered the warden, Peter Klein. Four of the inmates were executed. One of them, Charles Shader, was the last person to ever be executed by hanging in Illinois.
|
This made front-page news at the time that it occurred; I just don't know much about it at all, but the escape attempt, the murder, and its aftermath are definitely noteworthy enough to earn its own article. I'll think of an appropriate title to frame the case once I learn more about it.
|
Mecklenberg death row escape
|
Virginia
|
1984-05-31
|
Six Virginia death row inmates—Linwood and James Briley, Earl Clanton, Derick Peterson, Willie Leroy Jones, and Lem Tuggle—escaped from death row at the now-closed Mecklenburg Correctional Center in Virginia.
|
This was very big news when it occurred, and it is the biggest death row escape in American history. I've even seen several documentaries about it. The Mecklenberg Correctional Center page does mention the escape, but I think the escape itself warrants having its own page due to its uniqueness and notoriety.
|
Lem Tuggle
|
Virginia
|
1996-12-??
|
He was executed for murdering Jessie Havens. Prior to that, he served time in prison for murdering a teenager named Shirley Brickey.
|
He participated in the Mecklenberg escape, and besides the Briley Brothers, I think he's the only Virginia death row escapee whose notoriety warrants him having his own article. (The others' cases received far less press, and I don't know why.)
As an update to this, I still think Lem Tuggle's case was noteworthy enough to warrant an article, but I also think most Mecklenberg escapees had cases noteworthy enough to warrant articles.
|
Willie Lloyd Turner*
|
Virginia
|
1995-05-25
|
Don't know much about his crime; he was executed for murdering a man during a robbery.
|
He had a similar role in the Mecklenburg escape as Wilbert Lee Evans, helping guards. Aside from that, Willie Turner was well-known for two big reasons. First, while he was awaiting execution, he lobbied for better treatment and conditions for death row inmates (and, really, inmates in the Virginia Department of Corrections as a whole) by filing several complaints and lawsuits about the cruel treatment inmates received, including having to occupy death watch cells days after other inmates' executions by electric chair and having to be exposed to the smell of burning flesh in the hallways. (Virginia switched to lethal injection shortly before his execution.) Second, after his execution, there was a very highly publicized controversy wherein his attorney reported finding a typewriter in his cell with a loaded gun hidden inside.
|
Dennis Stockton
|
Virginia
|
1995-09-27
|
Don't know much about his crime, except that he was executed for his part in a murder-for-hire scheme that resulted in the murder of a 17-year-old teenage boy.
|
While on death row in Virginia, Dennis Stockton wrote very well-publicized journals about day-to-day life on death row; these journals became well-publicized after he released them to the Virginia press. He also revealed information in his journals about the Mecklenburg escape. I've just read so much about him, that it makes it clear that he was a very noteworthy inmate from Virginia's death row in the 1990s.
|
Earl Clanton
|
Virginia
|
1988-04-14
|
He was sentenced to death and executed for the murder of Wilhelmina Smith in 1980.
|
He ALSO participated in the Mecklenberg escape - and I regret saying Tuggle's case was the only one besides the Briley case that received noteworthy levels of press; ever since I wrote that, I have found that Clanton got significant amounts of attention before his execution, mostly due to his rehabilitation behind bars (despite the fact that he was executed anyway), Clanton's participation in multiple initiatives to convince young people not to turn to a life of crime, and the fact that an actor who once played the title character in Dennis the Menace lobbied against Clanton's execution.
In fact, I could argue that the only one of the six escapees who was likely not notable enough to warrant an article was Willie Leroy Jones, because Derick Lyn Peterson received significant levels of press due to his botched electrocution in 1991.
|
Bertram Spencer*
|
Massachusetts
|
1912-09-17
|
I have no idea what crime he committed. I know nothing about this case right now.
|
His case got loads of press and controversy at its time because of Spencer's well-documented struggles with mental illness. (I have no idea what specific mental issues he had.) Given that his execution occurred in 1912, I understand that society's understanding of mental illness probably wasn't all that great, but the amount of press he got warrants him getting an article, as well as some coverage to underscore how executions are still disadvantaging and failing those who struggle with mental illness.
|