Kentucky

Timeline

1868 — Susan Eliza is the last child to be hanged in Kentucky at thir­teen years old. She was the last female exe­cut­ed by Kentucky.

1928 — Kentucky sequen­tial­ly exe­cutes sev­en men by electrocution.

1936 — Rainey Bethea is exe­cut­ed by hang­ing in the last pub­lic exe­cu­tion in Kentucky, with news­pa­pers at the time esti­mat­ing as many as 20,000 witnesses.

1938 — Kentucky abol­ish­es hang­ings after Rainey Bethea’s public execution.

1974 — Kentucky enacts a new cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing statute call­ing for a manda­to­ry death sen­tence for those con­vict­ed of murder.

1976 — The Kentucky leg­is­la­ture repeals the manda­to­ry death penal­ty statute. The Commonwealth’s cur­rent death penal­ty statute goes into effect.

1989 — In Stanford v. Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that the impo­si­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on an indi­vid­ual for a crime com­mit­ted at 16 or 17 years old does not vio­late the 8^th amend­ment as cru­el and unusual punishment.

1998 — Kentucky adopts the Racial Justice Act, allow­ing judges to con­sid­er whether racial bias played a role in the deci­sion to seek or impose the death penalty.

2002 — Larry Osborne, the youngest man on Kentucky’s death row, is acquit­ted of a crime for which he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed at 17 years old.

2008 — In Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that Kentucky’s four-drug lethal injec­tion process does not vio­late the 8^th amendment.

2011 — Kentucky turns over their sup­ply of sodi­um thiopen­tal, a drug used in lethal injec­tions, to the DEA after Georgia’s sup­ply was seized based on the ques­tion­able legal­i­ty of how it was import­ed. Kentucky obtained its sup­ply from CorrectHealth, a pri­vate Georgia cor­rec­tion­al health company.

2014 — Kentucky drops its pro­posed use of a two-drug exe­cu­tion method, includ­ing mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone, after Ohio and Arizona’s use of mida­zo­lam in a two-drug pro­to­col result­ed in two pro­longed exe­cu­tions where the inmates where report­ed­ly gasp­ing after being injected.

2018 — The Kentucky Supreme Court strikes down the Commonwealth’s death penal­ty intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty law which requires proof of an IQ score of 70 for a cap­i­tal defen­dant to be found inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The court found that a fixed 70-IQ cut­off score is incom­pat­i­ble with the diag­nos­tic frame­work of the medical community.

2019 — Eugene ​“Red” Mitchell is acquit­ted of cap­i­tal mur­der and relat­ed charges after spend­ing near­ly six years in jail due to his inabil­i­ty to afford bail.

2019 — Before leav­ing office, Governor Matt Bevin com­mutes the sen­tences of Gregory Wilson and Leif Halvorsen, two of the state’s longest serv­ing death row pris­on­ers, to life without parole.

2022 — Kentucky becomes the sec­ond state in the U.S. to bar impos­ing the death penal­ty on defen­dants diag­nosed as severe­ly mentally ill.

Famous Cases

Rainey Bethea, exe­cut­ed August 14, 1936 at Owensboro, Kentucky, was the state’s last pub­lic exe­cu­tion. He was pub­licly hanged for rape on August 14, 1936 in a park­ing lot in Owensboro, Kentucky (to avoid dam­age to the cour­t­house lawn by thou­sands of peo­ple who were expect­ed to attend). Bethea, who was black, con­fessed to the rape and mur­der of a 70-year-old white woman named Lischia Edwards but he was nev­er charged with mur­der. Murder was pun­ish­able by death in the elec­tric chair at Eddyville while rape was pun­ish­able by pub­lic hang­ing in the coun­ty where the rape occurred. Prosecutors opt­ed to go with the rape charge only. The spec­ta­cle that attend­ed the hang­ing con­tributed to the end of pub­lic exe­cu­tions in the United States.

Kevin Stanford is one of three juve­nile offend­ers sen­tenced to death in Kentucky since the Commonwealth brought back cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1975. Sentenced to death for a January 1981 mur­der com­mit­ted when he was 17 years old, Stanford’s case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which — in a 5 – 4 vote — upheld the use of the death penal­ty against offend­ers aged 16 or 17. In 2003, Governor Paul Patton com­mut­ed Stanford’s death sen­tence to life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The U.S. Supreme Court over­turned Stanford v. Kentucky in 2005, rul­ing in Roper v. Simmons that the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty against offend­ers younger than age 18 con­sti­tut­ed cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The Kentucky Supreme Court had pre­vi­ous­ly over­turned the con­vic­tion of Todd Ice, who was 15 years old when he charged with the December 1978 mur­der of a sev­en-year-old girl. On retri­al, Ice was con­vict­ed of a lesser offense.

Notable Exonerations

Larry Osborne — then the youngest per­son on Kentucky’s death row — was acquit­ted upon retri­al in July 2002 for the December 1997 mur­ders of two peo­ple. Osborne was 17 at the time of his arrest. The 1998 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence was over­turned by a unan­i­mous vote of the Kentucky Supreme Court and a new tri­al was ordered.

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

In 1880, Kentucky abol­ished pub­lic hang­ing. In 1920, Kentucky restored pub­lic hang­ing for rape and pro­vid­ed that the sen­tence was to be car­ried out in the coun­ty where the rape occurred, although pris­on­ers con­demned for mur­der were exe­cut­ed in prison in the electric chair.

In 1938, Kentucky abol­ished hang­ing after as many as 20,000 peo­ple wit­nessed the August 14, 1936 hang­ing of Rainey Bethea (see above).

In 1974, two years after Furman v. Georgia, Kentucky enact­ed a new cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing statute, Ky. Rev. Stat. § 532.030(1) (1974), that went into effect January 1, 1975. The statute called for a manda­to­ry death sen­tence for those con­vict­ed of mur­der. The three pris­on­ers sen­tenced to death under that statute had their death sen­tences over­turned when the U.S. Supreme Court declared manda­to­ry death sen­tences uncon­sti­tu­tion­al on July 2, 1976.

In a spe­cial leg­isla­tive ses­sion in December 1976, the Kentucky leg­is­la­ture repealed the manda­to­ry death penal­ty statute and enact­ed the Commonwealth’s cur­rent death penal­ty statute, which took effect on December 22, 1976.

Kentucky ​“Firsts”

Kentucky adopt­ed the Racial Justice Act on February 5, 1998, allow­ing judges to con­sid­er whether racial bias played a role in the deci­sion to seek or impose the death penalty.

Other Interesting Facts

Kentucky holds the record for the most judi­cial­ly autho­rized exe­cu­tions in a sin­gle day: on July 13, 1928 sev­en men were sequen­tial­ly elec­tro­cut­ed in ​“Old Sparky” (the nick­name giv­en to the elec­tric chair in Eddyville).

Kentucky has not exe­cut­ed a female in more than 150 years. On February 7, 1868, Kentucky exe­cut­ed a 13-year-old black girl, iden­ti­fied only as ​“Susan.” The youngest per­son (whose age is known) exe­cut­ed in the state was an enslaved 12-year-old boy named Bill who was hanged on July 30, 1791.

Resources

• Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
• American Bar Association Kentucky Death Penalty Assessment
• Department of Corrections
• Prosecutors Advisory Council
• Department of Public Advocacy
• Victims’ ser­vices
• See Roberta M. Harding, Kentucky: Life and Death in Kentucky: Past, Present, and Future, Kentucky Law Journal On-Line, vol. 102 (2013 – 2014).

Kentucky Execution Totals Since 1976