In the United States, members of minority groups have less economic resources and thus usually can't afford the best possible defense and therefor have been disproportionately affected by the death penalty. Those who were often sentenced to death were considered to be "outsiders," or foreigners, minorities and people who were not from the immediate community. .
By the 1830s and 1840s, the anti-death-penalty movement began to have a significant impact. More states began to reduce the number of capital crimes and made laws more flexible. By 1846 in Michigan, treason was the only capital crime. In 1852 Rhode Island eliminated capital punishment for everything except murder committed by a convict already sentenced to life in prison. By 1861, three-quarters of the states had removed burglary and robbery from their lists of capital crimes. By the turn of the century, 18 states and U.S. territories allowed juries to grant life imprisonment for capital crimes. In 1853, Wisconsin eliminated capital punishment entirely and from the years 1897 to 1917, ten more states followed suit. In Minnesota, in 1906, a man was hanged with a rope that was too long and instead of dying instantly from a broken neck, the man dangled in the air for more than 14 minutes until he died by strangulation. So many people were appalled by the execution that it led to the 1911 repeal of Minnesota's death laws. Some people in the states where capital punishment no longer existed took the law into their own hands and killed criminals with guns and beatings. In part to reduce the number of lynching, 8 out of 10 states that had already abolished the death penalty from 1897 to 1917 reinstated it within only a few years. .
The electric chair was first used on August 6, 1890, to execute William Kemmler of Buffalo, New York. Kemmler was convicted of murdering his girlfriend with an axe. Kemmler's right leg and head were shaved and a white paste that enhances the flow of electricity was rubbed onto his head.
