commentary by Patrick H. Moore
When you live in the USA, as many of us do, you live with the realization that American sentimentality is a powerful, and sometimes, corrosive force.
I mean, check it out trumpet fanfare! People are even sentimental about the Civil War. My beloved niece and her husband play Civil War games. They design apparently authentic clothes from that era which they wear proudly at their retreats. North vs. South, brother vs. brother, and a great good time is had by all. But don’t think I’m knocking it. Hell, I’m sentimental too only it’s the Revolutionary War that I get off on. Though I got over carrying my flintlock around on my shoulder by the age of 11…
Now we hear that the hot town of McAlester, OKLA, is waxing nostalgically over “Old Sparky”, its faithful electric chair that it last used in 1966.
Or rather I should say that the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, which sits within the city limits, last used the “hotseat” in 1966. According to Wikipedia, Oklahomans sometimes refer to the state prison simply as “Big Mac” or “McAlester,” and the town is referenced in that manner in the opening pages of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath when Tom Joad is released from there. The prison features an “inside the walls” prison rodeo from which ESPN’s SportsCenter once broadcast. That was perhaps on one of its better days. The prison was also the site of a 1973 riot that lasted for days and is generally regarded as one of the worst in American prison history.
Although the city of McAlester is very eager to gain custody of Old Sparky, the state is dragging its feet because it thinks they need to hang onto the old relic just in case it needs to put in a guest appearance as an execution machine.
John Johnson of Newser writes:
It is one of the craziest custody disputes you could imagine. A city in Oklahoma wants the state to give it back “Old Sparky,” an electric chair last used about 50 years ago. McAlester officials want to put it on display as a piece of history. But the state says it’s keeping Old Sparky in storage, just in case the relic needs to be fired up again. “That would be possible,” a state DOC spokesperson tells the McAlester News-Capital. Old Sparky had its heyday from 1915 to 1966, when it was used to execute 82 inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
It now sits mothballed in a state facility, as the city and the DOC bicker over who owns it.
And don’t think that the state is just coming out of left field with this hardline position. Oh no, Legal Execution is a serious business in those states that make it their business to legally executes some of its inmates with disturbing regularity.
The McAlester News-Capital cites a letter from the DOC to the city in 2010 in which it explains why the state needed to keep the chair. “In the event our lethal injection protocol is ruled unconstitutional, the electric chair must be used by the state as the back-up method of execution.” That position might have seemed far-fetched at the time, but given the fact that the Sooner state’s botched lethal execution of inmate Clayton Lockett in April is now under review, whoever crafted the letter back in 2010 now seems like a genius.
And keep in mind that the nearby Volunteer state, Tennessee, just voluntarily brought back its electric chair.
All of this is duly noted, says McAlester’s mayor, Steve Harrison, in a conversation with the Guardian, but he is downright dubious about Old Sparky.
“That chair has not been used since 1966. My assumption would be if it ever got to the point the electric chair was needed again they would start with a new one.” (Click to read about how lawmakers elsewhere prefer the return of the firing squad.)
I know next to nothing about Mayor Harrison, but he does have a very good point about the need to – in the event a “hotseat” execution is scheduled in the Dustbowl state – get a new freakin’ electric chair. I mean do we really want a repeat performance of earlier botched “hotseat” executions. For example, consider the death by electrocution of William Kemmler, in Auburn Prison in Buffalo, New York in 1890. Sure, it was a long time ago, but it’s foolhardy to deny that Old Sparky is also a little long in the tooth. A few months ago, Darcia Helle described William Kemmler’s ill-fated grand finale in her post, “The Electric Chair: An Infamous and Agonizing History.”
On August 6, 1890, William Kemmler made history at Auburn Prison in Buffalo, New York. A group of doctors and reporters gathered anxiously to watch the historic event. Kemmler was strapped into the electric chair and jolted with 1,300 volts of electricity for 17 seconds. Just as the group was about to celebrate their success, someone yelled, “Oh my God! He’s breathing!” The warden immediately ordered the current to be restarted. A full two minutes passed while they waited for the charge to reach the full 2,000 volts of electricity. All the 
while Kemmler’s chest continued to heave as he gasped for breath, frothed at the mouth, and moaned. Finally, Kemmler was given another 70 seconds of electricity. He thrashed and convulsed in the chair, as the electrodes seared his head and arms and the room filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh. His body began to smolder, then caught fire. Some witnesses fainted, while others fled from the room in desperation to escape. In the end, the state-sanctioned “humane” murder turned into several minutes of torture. The autopsy later revealed the electrode that had been attached to Kemmler’s back had burned all the way through to his spine.
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You know what they say about the “best laid plans…” Personally, if I was to be a designated victim of state-sanctioned execution, I would use every ounce of persuasive power I could muster to convince them to line me up before the firing squad. If you must go, go nobly, and, at the risk of stating the obvious, there’s nothing noble about hanging (strangling), the “hotseat” (frying), or lethal injection. Whereas, it must be admitted, that if a man or woman can bravely face the firing squad and await his/her allotment of hot lead with equanimity, then that dude/lady has indeed shown real courage at the final reckoning.