capital punishment in Michigan

All executions in areas which are now part of the State of Michigan were performed before the state was admitted to the Union, when Michigan became the 26th State on January 26, 1837.{{Cite web |url=http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/regional_studies_the_midwest.htm |title=Regional Studies The Midwest |access-date=2007-08-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070920183605/http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/regional_studies_the_midwest.htm |archive-date=2007-09-20 |url-status=dead }}

About a dozen people are known to have been executed from 1683 to 1836. The area that is now Michigan was part of colonial New France from 1612 (first permanent settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, 1668) to 1763, when the Treaty of Paris (1763) transferred New France to Great Britain. It was part of British Indian Territory, 1763 to 1774 when it became part of the Province of Quebec. The Treaty of Paris (1783) legally transferred the area to the new United States of America but Lower Michigan remained under British control until 1796, and Upper Michigan until 1818 (transferred pursuant to the Treaty of Ghent of 1814). In this early period, there were a number of cases where persons who had committed a capital crime in Detroit were transported to Montreal for trial and execution.

The first person known to be executed in Michigan was an Aboriginal North American named Folle-Avoine. The first person executed under US Jurisdiction was a Native American named Buhnah. Two women were executed in Michigan, both during the British colonial period – an unnamed Native American slave (owned by a man named Clapham) in 1763, and a black slave named Ann Wyley in 1777.See Burton [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=micounty;cc=micounty;idno=bad1447.0001.001;size=l;frm=frameset;seq=193;page=root;view=image pp. 193–195] for an account of Contincineau's trial. The presiding judge Philip Dejean was subsequently indicted for the murder of Contincineau. According to the account in Burton, Contincineau's accomplice, the slave woman Ann Wyley, was freed by Dejean on the condition that she act as executioner on Contincineau. Caitlin [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=micounty;cc=micounty;rgn=full%20text;idno=apk1036.0001.001;didno=apk1036.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000092 p. 68] notes that Dejean later went back on his offer and had Wiley hanged. By race, seven of 15 were Native Americans; seven were European-Americans; and one was an African-American.Executions is the U.S. 1608-2002: The ESPY File, {{cite web |url=http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ESPYstate.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2005-12-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050910230042/http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ESPYstate.pdf |archive-date=2005-09-10 }}

The 1830 hanging of a tavern keeper, Stephen Gifford Simmons, who had in a drunken fit killed his wife, generated more popular opposition to the death penalty than the prior hanging of Native Americans.America Without the Death Penalty: States Leading the Way John F. Galliher, Larry W. Koch, David Patrick Keys –1555536395 2005 Page 12 "The execution of Stephen Simmons generated considerably more outrage in Michigan than did the execution of the two Native Americans who preceded him to the gallows." Consequently, Simmons' was the last execution under Michigan law.Richard Adler Cholera in Detroit: A History 2013 – Page 93 "Knapp was an unwilling participant in what had been the last execution under Michigan law. Stephen Simmons, a local tavern keeper, was convicted in 1830 of the murder of his wife, and was sentenced to be hanged. Knapp, as the sheriff, ..."{{cite book|last1=Carr|first1=Tom|title=Blood on the Mitten|date=2016|publisher=Chandler Lake Books / Mission Point Press|isbn=9781943338078|pages=10–11|edition=1st}} In 1840, the people of Michigan learned that an innocent man had been hanged across the river from Michigan, in what is now Windsor, Ontario, as the true perpetrator of the crime had made a deathbed confession.{{Cite journal |last=Wagner |first=Eugene |date=September 2002 |title=Michigan Capital Punishment |url=https://www.michbar.org/file/barjournal/article/documents/pdf4article487.pdf |journal=Michigan Bar Journal}}

The death penalty has been unconstitutional in Michigan since the 1963 constitution took effect on 1 January 1964.{{cite web|url=http://law.onecle.com/michigan/1-constitution-of-the-state-of-michigan-of-1963/mcl-iv-46.html|title=Death Penalty – Mich. Comp. Laws IV § 46|access-date=2010-05-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100718194038/http://law.onecle.com/michigan/1-constitution-of-the-state-of-michigan-of-1963/mcl-iv-46.html|archive-date=2010-07-18|url-status=dead}}

In a rare case, Michigan-born convicted killer Demetrius Terrence Frazier, who was serving life in prison for the 1992 murder of Crystal Kendrick in Detroit, was transferred to another prison in Alabama, where he was sentenced to death for the 1991 rape-murder of Pauline Brown at the Alabama city of Birmingham. When Frazier's death sentence was scheduled to be carried out in February 2025, his lawyers filed an appeal a month prior, seeking Frazier's return to Michigan to serve his life sentence, which would possibly spare his life since there was no capital punishment in Michigan. Subsequently, the Michigan authorities refused to apply for Frazier to come back to Michigan, and the Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer chose to not intervene in the execution. Frazier, who was executed on February 6, 2025, in the Holman Correctional Facility of Alabama, was the first inmate under the Michigan prison system to be executed in another state.{{cite news|url=https://www.al.com/news/2025/01/a-sexual-predator-michigan-prisons-dont-want-alabama-death-row-inmate-back.html|title=‘A sexual predator’: Michigan prisons don’t want Alabama death row inmate back|work=Alabama Local News|date=January 23, 2025}}{{cite news|url=https://www.al.com/news/2025/01/alabama-death-row-inmates-lawyers-drop-effort-to-move-him-to-michigan.html|title=Alabama death row inmate’s lawyers drop effort to move him to Michigan|work=Alabama Local News|date=January 24, 2025}}{{cite news|date=February 6, 2025 |work=Associated Press |title=Alabama puts man to death for a 1991 murder in the nation’s 4th execution using nitrogen gas|url=https://apnews.com/article/alabama-execution-demetrius-frazier-nitrogen-gas-e1b391e1e157f2815be1baa248737778 }}

Even though Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1846, the federal death penalty can still be imposed. Thus, the United States was able to execute Tony Chebatoris at the Federal Detention Farm (now Federal Correctional Institution, Milan) near Milan, Michigan in 1938, for a murder he committed while robbing a federal bank in Midland, Michigan.Veselenak, Michigan History Magazine, May 1998

The 2002 conviction of Marvin Gabrion received national attention when he was sentenced to death for the murder of Rachel Timmerman in Newaygo County, Michigan. Gabrion was also suspected of four other killings but was never tried for them, including the murder of Rachel Timmerman's 11-month-old daughter Shannon Verhage. About 22 years after he was first sent to death row, Gabrion's federal death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole by outgoing President Joe Biden, who granted clemency to 37 out of 40 inmates on federal death row.{{Cite web|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/michigan-man-death-penality-sentence-commuted-to-life/|title=Biden commutes Michigan man's death penalty sentence to life in prison|work=CBS News |date=December 23, 2024}}

U.S. Attorneys (i.e. federal prosecutors) in the latter case relied on the dual sovereignty doctrine to seek a death sentence because the murder took place on federal land.{{cite news|title=Court divided on Marvin Gabrion death penalty appeal|newspaper=The Grand Rapids Press|date=March 14, 2008}} Gabrion was the first person in the United States to receive the federal death penalty for a crime committed in a non-death penalty state since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988.{{cite web|title=First Federal Death Sentence in Non-death penalty state overturned|url=http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/first-federal-death-sentence-non-death-penalty-state-overturned|publisher=Death Penalty Information Center|access-date=16 May 2014}} The sentence was overturned in 2013 by a panel of the Sixth Circuit, but was later reinstated 12–4 by the full court sitting en banc.{{cite news|last=Agar|first=John|title=Marvin Gabrion's death penalty reinstated in 1997 killing of young mother|url=http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/05/marvin_gabrions_death_penalty.html|newspaper=MLIVE|date=May 28, 2013}}{{cite news|last=Associated Press|title=Appeals court affirms death sentence for marvin gabrion, convicted of killing Michigan woman in 1997|url=http://www.hollandsentinel.com/article/20130528/News/305289942|newspaper=Holland Sentinel|date=May 28, 2013}}

{{Portal|Michigan|Law}}

• List of people executed in Michigan
• Crime in Michigan
• Law of Michigan

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Chardavoyne |first=David G. |title=A Hanging in Detroit: Stephen G. Simmons and the Last Execution Under Michigan Law |url=https://archive.org/details/hangingindetroit0000char |url-access=registration |year=2003 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit, Mich. }}
• {{cite book |last=Burton |first=Clarence M. |title=The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701–1922 |orig-year=1922 |url=http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bad1447.0001.001 |access-date=2007-09-08 |year=2005 |publisher=University of Michigan Library |location=Ann Arbor, Mich. }}
• {{cite book |last=Catlin |first=George B. |title=The story of Detroit |orig-year=1923 |url=http://name.umdl.umich.edu/apk1036.0001.001 |access-date=2007-09-08 |year=2005 |publisher=University of Michigan Library |location=Ann Arbor, Michigan }}

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Michigan

Category:Legal history of Michigan

Category:Michigan law