Posted on 05/25/2024 3:56:32 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1979, John Spenkelink was electrocuted in Florida — the first man executed involuntarily in the U.S. since 1967.
A series of court decisions in the 1970’s had scrapped the country’s old death penalty institutions and obliged legislators to restructure the process. Now, the new architecture was in place and the decade-long hiatus in actual executions was drawing to a close.
Gary Gilmore had earned trivia-question notoriety as the first put to death under the new regime two years before, but Gilmore was always an outlier, a bizarrely active exponent of his own death who greased the skids for himself.
Spenkelink was the true harbinger. For six years, a span which seemed long then but would today rate on the speedy side, Spenkelink resisted death with every tool at his disposal. Florida officials fought just as stubbornly to kill him.....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Six years is nothing these days.
Liberal sentiment and presidential ambitions ruled out the many black convicts on death row, so, for the first execution in decades, Askew picked Spenkelink a small, nerdy white guy on death row with a troubled childhood and long criminal record. Askew is thought to have slyly chosen Spenkelink as the least likely to be executed. Askew apparently expected state or federal court intervention to prevent the execution of a white man.
Spenkelink had claimed self-defense based on supposedly being propositioned by a gay male. The facts though were that Spenkelink picked up his victim as a hitchhiker and recruited him to a spree of armed robberies. Along with a confederate, Spenkelink killed the victim with a gun and hatchet in a Tallahassee hotel room as part of an argument over the division of robbery proceeds.
The gay angle, even if true, never made sense as a defense because Spenkelink freely left the hotel room of his victim and returned armed and ready to kill. Even if Spenkelink's victim had propositioned him, the law simply does not permit one to leave and exact lethal revenge.
Rejecting a plea offer, Spenkelink went to trial and was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. On the law and the facts, the conviction and death sentence were fully merited. Spenkelink was also an especially nasty sort and was said to be disliked on death row.
Spenkelink's lawyers and spiritual advisers led him to believe that the execution would be stayed. As it was, he had to be forcibly hauled out of his cell and strapped into the electric chair against his will. In the end, those who claimed to serve Spenkelink had deprived him of preparation for death and of dignity in his last moments.
Although a Southerner was seen as the Democrat's best hope in 1976, the stiff-mannered Askew's presidential campaign never caught on. Jimmy Carter came out of nowhere to take the prize. After leaving the Governor's mansion, Askew moved to Orlando for a state university gig with minimal demands. My mother used to see Askew shopping in the neighborhood Publix, a distinguished, well-dressed gentleman who looked out of place comparing prices and eyeing over the produce on weekday mornings.
There was a controversial DJ out of Jacksonville, The Greaseman, who described the execution as frying Spenkelinks.
I was in school and one student flicked the lights on and off at the moment of the execution. We all cracked up.
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