Yellow Mama is the nickname given to the Alabama electric chair, used for execution from 1927-2002.
First installed in Kilby State Prison in Montgomery, Alabama, the chair was painted yellow when painted on a road line paint from an adjacent State Highway Department lab. This chair was built by a British prisoner in 1927 and was first used to execute Horace DeVauhan in the same year.
Video Yellow Mama
Background information
Prior to 1923, execution in Alabama was the state's responsibility and was done by hanging on a personal gallows. In 1923, the law provided for state-run execution by electricity. In Kilby Prison in Montgomery, a special room is intended for this purpose. Inmate Ed Mason, an accomplished carpenter who trades for 60 years for theft and theft, builds Yellow Mama. The electric chair remained until 1970, when it was transferred to Holman Prison.
The first execution with electricity in Alabama was conducted in Yellow Mama on April 8, 1927. Between 1930 and 1976 there were 135 executions completed using Yellow Mama. In 1983, the State Senate Honorary Committee chose to use lethal injections in place of electricity. However, the bill failed. In 1997, a bill was discussed which would allow condemned prisoners to be executed with lethal injection options.
Maps Yellow Mama
Problems with Yellow Mama
Alabama has experienced several problematic executions involving the chairman. On April 22, 1983, John Louis Evans, the first post-Furman prisoner executed by the state, was hit with an electric shock, which lasted 30 seconds. Evans's body tightened, causing the electrode on his left leg to stray. Soon smoke and flames came out from under the hood that covered his head. When two doctors enter the death room they find him alive. Ignoring Evans's lawyer's plea, a third electric jerk was applied and he died. The execution took a total of 14 minutes and his body was left to burn and burn. In 1989, the state executed Horace Dunkins, who has an IQ of 69 and was convicted of killing Lynn McCurry. In Dunkins's execution, the first electric shock just made him faint. Charles Jones, the warden at the time, said that since the jack that connects the power to the seat has been reversed, there is not enough tension to kill him on the first try. Therefore, it took 19 minutes for Dunkins to die.
Today
Yellow Mama is now housed in the attic above the execution room at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. The last execution that took place was Lynda Lyon Block on May 10, 2002. On July 1 of that year, Alabama's death sentence revision came into effect allowing a prisoner to choose the execution by lethal or electric injection. Mama Kuning remains in storage at an event where a death row inmates in the future elects to have the death penalty committed by electricity.
Cultural reference
Dale Watson and Will Kimbrough have each made a song about Yellow Mama.
See also
- Gruesome Gertie , the nickname given to the Louisiana electric chair
- Old Smokey , nicknames given for New Jersey and Pennsylvania electric chairs
- Old Sparky , nicknames are assigned to some state 'power seats'
- Old Betsy , the nickname was given to Indiana's electric chair
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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