Executioner's Current; Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Clifford Kerney (Author photograph). xxii, 271, [5] pages. Illustrations. A Note on Terminology, Notes. Index. Richard Moran is a criminologist and a leading expert on the insanity defense, capital punishment, and the history of the electric chair. "Moran is a wonderful storyteller," said Alan Dershowitz. "The history of the electric chair— with rich AC/DC electric moguls trying to destroy each other's business— makes a fascinating tale of greed, opportunism, and hypocrisy. Thomas Edison's attempt to make George Westinghouse into America's Dr. Guillotine is worth reading by everyone who cares about business ethics, the death penalty, and justice." The author of numerous articles and reviews, Moran has also served as a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition and written op-eds for the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, and Newsweek. In 1981, Moran published Knowing Right from Wrong: The Insanity Defense of Daniel McNaughtan, which was the first detailed study of the nineteenth- century case responsible for the modern insanity defense. He has testified before the Massachusetts Legislature and at Congressional Judiciary Committee hearings. Moran teaches Criminal Law and Justice, the Sociology of Medicine, and Social Problems. The amazing story of how the electric chair developed not out of the desire for a method of execution more humane than hanging but of an effort by one nineteenth century electric company to discredit the other. In 1882, Thomas Edison launched the age of electricity by lighting up a portion of Manhattan with his direct current (DC) system. Six years later George Westinghouse lit up Buffalo with his less expensive alternating current (AC). They quickly became locked in a battle for market share. Richard Moran shows that Edison, in order to maintain commercial dominance, set out to blacken the image of Westinghouse's AC by persuading the State of New York to electrocute condemned criminals with AC current. Westinghouse, determined to keep AC from becoming known as the executioner's current, fought to stop the first electrocution, claiming that use of the electric chair constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The legal battle that ensued ended when the Supreme Court refused to rule. The electrocution of William Kemmler went forward in New York's Auburn
Penitentiary in August 1890, and was horribly botched. Moran makes clear how this industry tug-of-war raised many profound and disturbing questions, not only about electrocution but about the technological nature of the search for a humane method of execution. And the fundamental question, he says, remains with us today: Can execution ever be considered humane? A superbly told tale of industrial and political skullduggery that brings to light a little-known chapter of modern American history.