Minnesota

History of the Death Penalty

The death penal­ty in Minnesota has been abol­ished since 1911. In his 1911 speech in favor of the abo­li­tion bill, Rep. MacKenzie stat­ed, ​“Let us bar this thing of Vengeance and the Furies from the con­fines of our great State; Let not this har­lot of judi­cial mur­der smear the pages of our his­to­ry with her bloody fin­gers, or trail her crim­son robes through our Halls of Justice, and let nev­er again the Great Seal of the Great State of Minnesota be affixed upon a war­rant to take a human life.…” Read more

Famous Cases

Between 1860 and 1906, the State of Minnesota exe­cut­ed twen­ty-sev­en peo­ple by hang­ing, although more were exe­cut­ed under ter­ri­to­r­i­al gov­ern­ment. The exact num­ber of state-sanc­tioned exe­cu­tions is unknown because the Office of Governor Execution only has com­plete records from 1889 to 1910. Below are three of the more famous cases.

• Ann Bilansky: One of the ear­li­est record­ed exe­cu­tions in Minnesota’s his­to­ry was Bilanksy, who was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing her hus­band by arsenic poi­son­ing. Though even the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney in Bilansky’s case told Governor Alexander Ramsey the day before Bilansky’s exe­cu­tion that he had ​“grave and seri­ous doubts as to whether the defen­dant had a fair tri­al,” the Governor refused to stay the exe­cu­tion. On March 23, 1860, Bilansky was exe­cut­ed by hang­ing. The exe­cu­tion took twenty minutes.
• Mass Execution of the Dakota: On December 26, 1862, thir­ty-eight mem­bers of the Dakota tribe were exe­cut­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in the largest mass hang­ing in United States his­to­ry. Though three hun­dred and three peo­ple were orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death in rushed crim­i­nal tri­als that had, in some cas­es, last­ed less than five min­utes, President Lincoln stayed the exe­cu­tion of all but thir­ty-eight. Of those thir­ty-eight, some were lat­er deter­mined to be vic­tims of mistaken identity.
• William Williams: Williams was con­vict­ed of a con­tro­ver­sial 1905 dou­ble mur­der of a moth­er and her 16-year-old son. Sentenced to death by hang­ing on February 13, 1906, Williams’ exe­cu­tion­ers failed to con­sid­er the stretch length of the rope. Newspapers of the day pub­lished the grue­some details of Williams’ feet hit­ting the ground, the fran­tic efforts of deputies to haul the rope upward, and the four­teen and one-half min­utes it took for Williams to die by stran­gu­la­tion. Public inter­est in the botched exe­cu­tion set in motion a six-year move­ment to abol­ish the death penal­ty, cul­mi­nat­ing in Representative George MacKenzie’s impas­sioned intro­duc­tion of the suc­cess­ful 1911 abo­li­tion bill in the Minnesota State House.

Attempts at Reinstatement

Minnesota has seen a num­ber of unsuc­cess­ful attempts to rein­state the death penal­ty since 1911, includ­ing bills in 1913, 1915, 1919, 1921, 1923, 1927, 1931, 1933, 1937, 1974, 1975, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2005. Many of these efforts arose out of high-pro­file homi­cides. For exam­ple, the 2003 rein­state­ment bills were intro­duced in response to a triple mur­der in Long Prairie, Minnesota. Nevertheless, due to the efforts of leg­is­la­tors and orga­ni­za­tions such as The Advocates for Human Rights and Minnesotans Against the Death Penalty (MNADP), attempts at rein­state­ment have thus far failed to pass the legislature.

Resources

• The Advocates for Human Rights Death Penalty Project
• Department of Corrections
• Office of the Minnesota Attorney General
• State of Minnesota Board of Public Defense
• Victims’ ser­vices