Michigan abolishes the death penalty (1846)

Michigan abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 1846, becoming the first Anglosphere jurisdiction to do so. The state legislature voted on May 18, 1846, ending capital punishment except for treason, which remained nominally retained until 1963. The legacy date of March 1, 1847, is unsupported by the provided passages, which specify the 1846 legislative vote.

Episodes

Background and detail

Background. Capital punishment in Michigan was legal from the founding of Sault Ste Marie in 1668 during the French colonial period. The 1830 hanging of tavern keeper Stephen Gifford Simmons, who had killed his wife in a drunken fit, generated more popular opposition to the death penalty than the prior hanging of Native Americans. Michigan was admitted as the 26th state on January 26, 1837, entering as a free state.

Legislative Action. The Michigan State Legislature voted to abolish the death penalty on May 18, 1846. This action made Michigan the first Anglosphere jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes. The abolition remained the law, although treason was nominally retained as a capital offense until 1963.

Legal Status. The death penalty was formally retained as a punishment for treason until 1963, though no person was ever tried for treason against Michigan. The death penalty became unconstitutional in Michigan when the 1963 constitution took effect on January 1, 1964. Federal executions could still occur, as seen in 1938.

People involved

Sources

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.