Capital punishment in Michigan was legal from statehood in 1837 until it was abolished in 1846 for murder. Michigan is one of the few U.S. states never to have executed anyone following admission into the Union (others include Alaska and Hawaii).
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Michigan's death penalty history is unusual, as Michigan was the first English-speaking government in the world to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes. The Michigan State Legislature voted to do so on May 18, 1846, which has remained in law ever since. Although the death penalty was formally retained as the punishment for treason until 1963, no person was ever tried for treason against Michigan. Thus, Michigan has not executed any person since statehood.
History
With one exception, 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.
Approximately 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 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 slave (owned by a man named Clapham) in 1763, and an African Canadian named Ann Wyley in 1777, both when Michigan was under British jurisdiction. By race, seven of 15 were Aboriginal Americans; seven were European-North Americans; and one was an African-North American.
The 1830 hanging of a white tavern keeper, Stephen Gifford Simmons, who had in drunken fit killed his wife, generated more popular opposition to the death penalty than the prior hanging of Native Americans. Consequently, Simmons' was the last execution under Michigan law.
Although Michigan had outlawed the death penalty after becoming a state, the United States Government hanged Anthony Chebatoris at the Federal Correctional Institution, Milan near Milan, Michigan in 1938, for a murder he had committed while robbing a federal bank in Midland.
The death penalty has been unconstitutional in Michigan since the 1963 constitution became effective in 1964.
The conviction of Marvin Gabrion received national attention when he was sentenced to death for the murder of Rachel Timmerman in Newaygo County, Michigan. Prosecutors were able to use the Dual Sovereignty Doctrine to seek a death sentence because the murder took place on federal land. Gabrion is 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 as well as the first person to be sentenced to death in the state of Michigan since 1937. The sentence was overturned before being reinstated in 2013.
Methods
The legal method of executions in Michigan was hanging, although two people were executed by shooting, one was bludgeoned, and the method of one other execution remains unknown.
Lists of individuals executed
Source: "ESPYstate.pdf-pages 166–167" (PDF). (1.67 MB)