Historedia
Episode 1 of 2

Legal Appeal Failure

When
October 9 - December 30, 1889
Where
Court
Part of
William Kemmler, first execution by electric chair

Kemmler's legal appeals regarding the electric chair failed in late 1889, enabling his execution.

Westinghouse supported Kemmler's appeal to counter Edison's portrayal of AC as deadly. The appeal failed on October 9, 1889. On December 30, 1889, the writ of habeas corpus was denied by the court, finalizing the legal path to execution.

Sources

  1. William Kemmler Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07
  2. Electric chair Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.