Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2015. The Free Press is republishing it, slightly updated, after Michigan’s only death row inmate recently had his death sentence commuted by President Joe Biden. Michigan has a long history of banning the death penalty at the state level.
Michigan lawmakers voted to abolish the death penalty 178 years ago, becoming the first state to ban the death penalty. In fact, it was the first English-speaking government in the world to ban executions.
On May 18, 1846, the legislature passed a law banning the death penalty, setting the maximum penalty for murder in Michigan at “solitary confinement with hard labor … for life.” Yet many of those who served that sentence became insane in solitary confinement, leading to a new law in 1861 that gave more leeway in convicting murderers.
So who was the last person executed in Michigan?
Well, not counting federal executions, that would be on September 24, 1830, when Michigan was still a territory. Detroit was a dusty city with only about 2,200 residents. The killer was Stephen Simmons, an innkeeper convicted of murdering his wife during a drunken argument. He was sentenced to death.
Within days, a gallows was built not far from Campus Martius, near Farmer Street and Gratiot, near the downtown library and the Compuware Building. There was a viewing area for the performance, a stage for a band and even a concession area. It looked like Detroit was throwing a party for the occasion.
As Simmons stood on the gallows, he was asked if he had any last words. Instead of speaking, the story goes, he sang “Show Pity, Lord, O Lord, Forgive”:
“Have mercy Lord, O Lord forgive/Let a repentant rebel live.” Are not your mercies full and free?/May not a sinner trust in You? “My crimes are great, but cannot surpass/The power and glory of your grace “Great God, your nature knows no bounds/So let your forgiving love be found.”
Whether moved by the hymn, by the horror of the spectacle that accompanied the hanging, or by the sight of him swinging from the noose, a major effort to abolish the death penalty soon began in the area . Religious leaders in Detroit denounced the executions as unchristian. Newspapers shouted loudly about the barbarity. Then, a few years later, it was learned that a Detroit man had been executed in Windsor for a crime he did not commit. Another man confessed to the crime after the innocent man was put to death.
All this contributed to the legislature passing the law banning the death penalty in the newly created state. The law went into effect on March 1, 1847, ten years after Michigan joined the union.
In 1881, a movement grew to reintroduce the death penalty. In June, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, who lived in Battle Creek, spoke to the legislature: “It shocked me worse than slavery. I hear you’re going to have to hang again in this state… Where is the man or woman who can condone such a thing? We are the makers of murderers if we do it.”
The last person executed under the federal death penalty in Michigan was Anthony Chebatoris, who was hanged at the federal prison in Milan on July 8, 1938 after being convicted of killing a bystander during a bank robbery in Midland.
Staff writer Zlati Meyer contributed to this report.
Dan Austin was assistant editor for digital/interactive opinions at the time of this article’s original publication.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan was the first state to ban the death penalty
