Capital punishment in Michigan was legal from the founding of Sault Ste Marie in 1668 during the French colonial period, until abolition by the state legislature in 1846 (except nominally for treason).

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

is one of three U.S. states (along with Alaska and Hawaii) never to have executed anyone following admission into the Union. The federal government, however, outside Michigan's jurisdiction, carried out one federal execution at FCI Milan in 1938. Michigan's death penalty history is unusual, as Michigan was the first Anglophone jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes. The

Michigan State Legislature The Michigan Legislature is the legislature of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is organized as a bicameral body composed of an upper chamber, the Senate, and a lower chamber, the House of Representatives. Article IV of the Michigan Constitution ...

voted to do so on May 18, 1846, and that has remained the law ever since. Although the death penalty was formally retained as a punishment for

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

until 1963, no person was ever tried for treason against Michigan. Thus, Michigan has not executed any person since before statehood.

History

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. 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 New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...

from 1612 (first permanent settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, 1668) to 1763, when the

Treaty of Paris (1763) The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763 by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, after Great Britain and Prussia's victory over France and Spain during the S ...

transferred New France to

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

. It was part of British Indian Territory, 1763 to 1774 when it became part of the

Province of Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen p ...

. The

Treaty of Paris (1783) The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War and overall state of conflict ...

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 The Treaty of Ghent () was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands (now in ...

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 Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

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 Ann Wyley (or Wiley; died March 26, 1777) was an enslaved woman hanged for burglary in Detroit, at the time part of the British Province of Quebec. She is the only black person and one of the only two women known to have been legally executed in Mic ...

in 1777.See Burto
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. Caitli
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. 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. Consequently, Simmons' was the last execution under Michigan law. The death penalty has been unconstitutional in Michigan since the 1963 constitution took effect on 1 January 1964.

Federal death penalty

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 Anthony "Tony" Chebatoris (May 10, 1898 – July 8, 1938) was a Russian-born bank robber and convicted murderer who is the only person to be executed in the U.S. state of Michigan since it gained statehood in 1837. Although Michigan abolis ...

at the Federal Detention Farm (now Federal Correctional Institution, Milan) near

Milan, Michigan Milan ( ) is a city in Monroe and Washtenaw counties in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 6,079 at the 2020 census. The community was settled as early as 1831. Milan incorporated as a village in 1885 and much later as a city in ...

in 1938, for a murder he committed while robbing a federal bank in

Midland, Michigan Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Michigan. The city's population was 42,547 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area, part of the larger Saginaw-Midland-Bay City Com ...

.Veselenak, Michigan History Magazine, May 1998 The 2002 conviction of

Marvin Gabrion Marvin Charles Gabrion (born October 18, 1953) is an American murderer, rapist, and suspected serial killer convicted of the 1997 kidnapping and murder of 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman, of Cedar Springs, Michigan. Timmerman and her 11-month-old da ...

received national attention when he was sentenced to death for the murder of Rachel Timmerman in Newaygo County, Michigan. Gabrion is 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. U.S. Attorneys (i.e. federal prosecutors) in the latter case relied on the

dual sovereignty doctrine The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: ''" r shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..."'' The four essential protections included a ...

to seek a death sentence because the murder took place on federal land. 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. The sentence was overturned in 2013 by a panel of the

Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of K ...

, but was later reinstated 12–4 by the full court sitting

en banc In law, an en banc session (; French for "in bench"; also known as ''in banc'', ''in banco'' or ''in bank'') is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court (before the entire bench) rather than by one judge or a smaller p ...

Notes

References

* * * {{Michigan

Legal history of Michigan Michigan law

History

Federal death penalty

See also

Notes

References