ELECTROCUTION (from Gk. Outcrpop, elek from amber. electricity; a barbarous formation on the analogy of execution). A method of in flicting the death penalty by passing through the body of the doomed criminal a current of elec tricity. It represents the latest attempt to rob the infliction of the death penalty of the revolt ing features of the prevalent mode of execution by banging. While not entirely successful in this aim, it has in some parts of the United States been accepted as a more humane method of capital punishment than that which it is aimed to supersede. It was adopted in the State of New York its BSA, and in Ohio in IS'90. The legislation which put it into effect in New York upon the recommenda tion of a comini.sion appointed "to investigate and report to the Legislature the most humane and approved method of carrying into effect the -sentence Of death in capital Notwith standing the eminence of the commissioners. the prolonged and careful investigation vvhich they gave to the subject, and the deliberate and cau tions conduct of the Legislature in dealing With the report, the statute adopted for the purpose of giving effect to the conclit,ion Of the com mission, and changing the mode of executing the death from hanging to electrocution, was assailed a- nneonstitutional. on the ground
that it provided for the infliction of a cruel and unusnal punishment. This contention was not sustained by the courts. to the contrary, they agreed with the commission that the application of electricity to the vital parts of the hilimin body, under the conditions and in the manner eon tent plated by the statute, mnst result in instan taneous and painless death, and therefore would be a far more humane method of inflicting the death penalty than that by hanging. See c.r rt./. sliemaller N'. DaINton (11!) New York Re ports, 557, 1S90) 41 Albany Journal (242, 301, 3S•. 425, 4S9, 'stun). Consult also the authorities referred to under PUNISHMENT.