Talk:Rainey Bethea

A fact from Rainey Bethea appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 August 2005. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that on 14 August 1936 Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, thus becoming the last person to be publicly executed in the United States?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2005/August.

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Motivation of second set of lawyers

"something they saw as their ethical duty for the indigent defendant"

Reverse the races and I'm sure it would be defined as looking out for one of their own. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.46.245.146 (talk) 08:07, 10 June 2007

More than just their ethical duty to defend the indigent, the appeal lawyers were also remedying what is widely regarded as incompetent counsel during his trial. As for "one of their own", clearly we know that's how local *white* lawyers felt, as none of them lifted a finger during the appeal. And what's your motivation, anonymous? Huangdi (talk) 06:35, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: The Last Public Execution in America by Perry T. Ryan, 1992. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

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Time frame between sentence and execution

Rainey Bethea spent only nearly two months on death row. It would be interesting if he had spent a year or more on death row, probably because his lawyers filed only one appeal. Cookfoodchef1 (talk) 21:18, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1906 law

In 1906, a law passed in Kentucky required a prisoner to be executed in exactly a month. Was it like this if the prisoner did appeal? Cookfoodchef1 (talk) 21:19, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious

Rainey Bethea was not the last person to be publicly executed in the United States. Bethea was publicly hanged on August 14, 1936 in Kentucky; however, two Missouri men (including Roscoe "Red" Jackson) were both publicly hanged on May 21, 1937.

I propose updating the article to reflect this information accurately.

Bethea's article can be updated to be "last public execution in Kentucky" or "last public execution of an African-American".

GuyBanks (talk) 13:22, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I addressed this concern on Roscoe Jackson's talk page. I think it's worth discussing, but in summary, I actually do think that under most people's understanding of what constitutes a public execution, Rainey Bethea's execution was indeed the final public execution in the United States, and those of Missouri figures like Hurt Hardy and Roscoe Jackson were not legitimate public executions. Afddiary (talk) 14:01, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]