User:JKBrooks85/Capital punishment in Alaska

Capital punishment in the U.S. state of Alaska has been illegal since 1957. Eight executions took place under civil authority in the Territory of Alaska between 1899 and 1957. As Alaska was not then a state, these executions were conducted by federal officials. Before the establishment of civil law in Alaska by the Act of March 3, 1899 and after the Alaska Purchase of 1869, military courts and miners' courts are believed to have executed an additional eight prisoners. Records of this period are poor. No courts of law were established in Alaska when it was possessed by the Russian Empire and referred to as Russian America. Many extrajudicial killings are known to have taken place during this period, but reliable records are difficult to obtain.

Executions before civil law

On Oct. 18, 1867, a short ceremony in Sitka marked the transfer of authority over Alaska from the Russian Empire to the United States. Immediately after the transfer, authority over Alaska was vested with the U.S. Army, which governed it as the Department of Alaska. The vast majority of the population consisted of Alaska Natives; there were few white inhabitants. No civil law existed; the department was governed by military law exercised by U.S. Army officers.

In June 1877, the U.S. Army soldiers in Alaska left the region under orders from General William Tecumseh Sherman, then commander of the U.S. Army, who believed "that the protection of the Government property and the preservation of public peace and order could be more economically and more efficiently done by naval or revenue vessels." Customs inspectors and the revenue cutters USRC Richard Rush, USRC Thomas Corwin and USRC Oliver Wolcott were the only U.S. government presence in Alaska until 1879 and the arrival of Captain Lester A. Beardslee aboard the USS Jamestown. "I was authorized (there being no governing power or code of laws in existence in the Territory) to use my own discretion in all emergencies that might arise," Beardslee wrote in his report of the situation.

U.S. Navy officers commanding ships remained the highest-ranking U.S. government officials in Alaska until 1884 and the passage of the Alaska Organic Act, but a code of criminal law was not instituted until 1899 and there were no officially recognized jury trials until that year.

Shx’atoo

"Shx’atoo puts on his dancing hat and he dances and sings a song he has composed. As soon as he is finished, he gives his mother his dancing hat. He turns and walks stiff and straight up the steps to the platform where the soldiers are waiting. The soldiers start to put a cloth over Shx’atoo’s face. They have the rope ready. But Shx’atoo will not have a cloth over his head. He tears the cloth away, the soldiers put the rope around his neck. Everything is quiet except for Shx’atoo’s old mother. She is crying and Indians stand around in the rain looking very sad. Shx’atoo is their brother. The soldiers wait a minute. But Shx’atoo does not wait. He does not wait for them to spring the trap. No, Shx’atoo will not wait. He jumps off the high platform [with the rope’s noose around his neck]. And so he dies."

William Tamaree, 1940

The first known judicial execution in Alaska under American authority took place on December Dec. 29, 1869 in the town of Wrangell. On Christmas night, soldiers at Fort Wrangell invited Alaska Natives—particularly women—from nearby Ḵaachx̱an.áakʼw village to the fort for an illegal party. Some of the Native women were unfamiliar with Western dancing, and the soldiers teased them. Kchok-een, wife of Shawaan, was a particular target. After seeing his wife ridiculed, Shawaan forcibly entered the dance floor and threw his wife down a flight of stairs.

The wife of the U.S. Army quartermaster sergeant at the fort intervened after seeing the rough treatment given Kchok-een. Shawaan took offense, and in the scuffle that followed, bit off the middle finger of the quartermaster's wife. When soldiers attempted to arrest Shawaan, a fight broke out and he was shot dead. The Tlingit residents of Ḵaachx̱an.áakʼw were agitated by the incident. Under Tlingit custom, the killing of a clan member was repayable by weregild or the life of a member of the killer's clan. If payment were rejected or postponed, the aggrieved side had the right of vengeance.

Shortly afterward, the soldiers learned that a white trader named Leon Smith had been shot and killed. He died hours later of his injuries, but not before identifying his murderer as a Native named Shx’atoo (Scutdor or Scutdoo, in contemporary American sources). On the morning of the 26th, the Tlingit leaders of Ḵaachx̱an.áakʼw were summoned to Fort Wrangell and ordered to turn over Shx’atoo or the soldiers in the fort would bombard Wrangell with their artillery.

After Shx’atoo failed to appear by a prearranged deadline, the fort opened fire on Ḵaachx̱an.áakʼw. Natives returned fire with small arms, and the American soldiers returned fire, but there are no known casualties. After dark on the 26th, Shx’atoo was turned over to the U.S. Army soldiers within the fort after his mother and a sub-chief had been taken hostage. On Dec. 28, he was tried and sentenced by court-martial, and at noon Dec. 29, he was hanged until dead.

John Boyd

Alaska's second known execution of the American era took place on Dec. 16, 1878. John Boyd was a miner involved in the Cassiar Gold Rush who decided to winter in Wrangell rather than in British Columbia. On Dec. 13, 1878, Boyd shot and killed Thomas O'Brien in Daicker's Saloon, an establishment at Wrangell, in a dispute over a woman. Contemporary reports state that the attack was unprovoked and took place suddenly.

Patrons of the saloon seized Boyd and threatened to lynch him but failed to follow through on their threats until they spoke with the customs agent at Wrangell. The agent declined to take charge of the case, saying he had no jurisdiction. After that ruling, the white residents of Wrangell convened a miners' court on Dec. 17 to try the case against Boyd. Three judges were selected and a jury was impaneled. Boyd was appointed a defense attorney, and a prosecuting attorney presented the case against Boyd. After a trial lasting less than a day, the jury needed three-quarters of an hour to deliberate and return a guilty verdict. Boyd was sentenced to death by hanging at 9:15 the following morning.

More than 800 Alaska Native residents of Wrangell attended the hanging, as did almost the entire white population of the area. To keep the peace during the execution, an armed group of 40 town residents was on hand. Boyd was executed and his body buried after it had hung for one hour.

Sad Kajun and Kakusakuch Kajun

"Mr. Fuller (I think that was the leader's name) then said, 'We have no court, no judge, no marshal, here. The government gives us no protection, and we are obliged to protect ourselves. We are daily exposed on our way to and return from the mining-camp; and we must punish the murderers of our comrades, or be ourselves murdered.'"

Edward Pierrepont, Fifth Avenue to Alaska p. 214

The first and thus far only double execution in Alaska history took place on July 30, 1882 in Juneau when two Alaska Native men were lynched following an escape from the U.S. government jail in Juneau. Sources vary on the names of the executed. Accounts published in a Juneau newspaper 35 years after the execution—there was no newspaper in Juneau in 1882—give the names of the deceased as Charley Green and "Boxer," presumably a nickname. A document of unknown origin in the files of the Alaska State Library's historical collections division and cited by the Alaska Legislative Research Service states the name of the hanged as Sad Kajun and Kakusakuch Kajun, "Mrs. Jackson's brothers."

Despite the confusion over the names of the hanged men, multiple sources agree on the events surrounding their deaths. On July 18, 1882, two Native men identified as "Cut Nose" Jim and Charley Green attacked a liquor store owner named Richard Rennie, striking him in the head. Rennie died of the injury, and a group of Juneau miners obtained the assistance of U.S. Marines acting as law enforcement in Juneau to arrest "Cut Nose" Jim and Charley Green. During the arrest, a third Native man, identified as "Boxer," had helped "Cut Nose" Jim resist being taken into custody. "Boxer" was also arrested.

The three men were confined in the Marines' guardhouse, pending the arrival of a steamship or a U.S. naval vessel to convey the three to authorities. On July 29, the three men somehow broke free of captivity and stole one or more pistols that had been stored in the guardhouse. During their escape, they killed their guard, a man identified only as "Dennis." Another man, Major Givens, was also shot and killed as he ran to the guardhouse after the first shots were fired.

Charley Green was quickly recaptured by miners and other Juneau residents, but "Cut Nose" Jim committed suicide rather than be recaptured. At 10 a.m. July 30, a miners court was convened and Charley Green was convicted of being an accomplice to the murder of Richard Rennie. He was hanged at noon that day on an impromptu gallows erected at the shoreline. "Boxer," who had initially escaped recapture, was caught by other Alaska Natives and turned over to the miners. "Boxer" was hanged at least one day after Charley Green.

The John Bremner case

In June 1888, prospector and pioneer John Bremner was killed by an unidentified young Native man and an older medicine man on the Hogatza River, a tributary of the Koyukuk River in Interior Alaska. Bremner was well-known in Alaska from his time serving as a guide during the expedition of U.S. Army Lt. Henry Tureman Allen, who in 1885 explored the Copper, Tanana, and Koyukuk rivers on a 1,500 miles (2,400 km) expedition.

White-Native conflicts were unusual, and word of Bremner's death spread quickly to the gold miners of the Fortymile River country. In July 1888, they formed a posse of 19 white men and two Native men and traveled downriver to the site of the murder. Using the Natives as translators, they sought Bremner's murderer. At a Native village near Bremner's camp, they found a 20-year-old man and an older man who fled into the woods at their approach. The younger man admitted killing Bremner, and the older man was the village's medicine man and accused of goading the young man into killing Bremner. After the two were captured, the posse and conducted an impromptu trial. The younger man, when asked why he killed Bremner, said he wanted Bremner's gun, blanket, and tobacco. He added that he wished he could kill more whites as they were no good anyway.

The posse could not find evidence connecting the medicine man to Bremner's death, so he was released. The younger Native man was hanged from a tree: "There was a big tree being over the river. We made a noose, tried it and it worked too slow, that is, it didn't slip so well, so Hank sent me for axle grease or lard to grease the rope and it worked fine. We again put it on the Indian and everybody pulled on the rope and tied him up and started for home. Everybody was satisfied and in good spirits."

Subsequent to the hanging, the young man's family attacked the medicine man and his family, saying the medicine man had forced their kin to kill Bremner. The resulting feud resulted in six deaths, including that of the medicine man.

The 'Frenchy' case

In the same summer as the murder of John Bremner, a miner known only as "Frenchy" was killed as he traveled up the Yukon River with his partner, Tom O'Brien. Stampeding prospectors en route to the Fortymile gold fields found Frenchy's body and investigated who had killed him. At a nearby Alaska Native fish camp, they met a young Native man who readily admitted that he had killed Frenchy because he believed that in doing so, he would be taken to San Francisco for trial, and that he wanted to go to San Francisco. Instead, the informal posse hanged the young man from a tree, then shot his dead body with revolvers as an example.

Millard Fillmore Tanner

Millard Fillmore Tanner, better known as "Doc" Tanner, was a Klondike Gold Rush stampeder from Lexington, Kentucky who traveled to Valdez, Alaska with a party of other prospectors. In Seattle, the group's setting-off point, leader B.F. Haines agreed to land each man at Orca, Alaska with six months' supply of food, clothing and prospectors tools. At the time, some prospectors believed that the Copper River valley was the preferred route to the Klondike gold fields. In return for their supplies, each man agreed to contribute $250.

After arriving at Orca, the men were convinced to travel on to Valdez by agents of the Pacific Steam Whaling Company, which advertised that traveling over the Valdez Glacier Trail was the quickest way to reach central Alaska and the Yukon. Upon arriving at Valdez, Tanner and other members of his group found they only had enough supplies to give each man three months' worth of rations instead of the six months' worth they had paid for. This led to frequent disputes among the men, even as they built a cabin in Valdez to wait out the remaining months of winter.

On Jan. 2, 1898, the men met and decided that to quell the unrest, Tanner should be given his share of supplies and the men could go on their separate ways. Tanner overheard their conversation and entered the tent they were living in. "No **** man can bring me up here and throw me out into the cold," he declared, then opened fire on his partners.

The shots killed two of his partners, and the remaining men in the tent scattered. After ceasing fire, Tanner was confronted by nearby miners who took him into custody. A miners' court was convened with 38 jurors, one judge, and defense and prosecuting attorneys. The trial lasted seven hours, and the jury voted unanimously at 4 a.m. Jan. 3, 1898 to sentence Tanner to hang by the neck until dead. The hanging took place at 10:30 that morning, and Tanner's body (after hanging for a few hours) was buried in sand nearby.

Martin Severts

During the winter of 1899–1900, Martin Severts was one of five people—four men and one woman—employed by the Lituya Bay Gold Placer Mining Company to carry on gold mining operations during a season when most mining operations shut down. On Oct. 6, 1899, the five were eating dinner together when Severts got up and went outside. When he re-entered the group's cabin, he was carrying a handgun and shot one man, killing him. He attempted to kill two other people in the cabin but only succeeded in injuring one and himself before he was restrained.

Severts subsequently confessed that he planned to kill his partners for the $800 in gold they had accumulated. He would then return to Juneau and blame the deaths on the Native inhabitants of the area. The Lituya Bay survivors attempted to flag down a passing steamer to take Severts—who remained in captivity—away, but without success. For several weeks, he remained under guard in an isolated cabin and began pleading to die because his wound was festering and he thought that confinement and restraint was worse than death.

Eventually, at Severts' request, the surviving miners held an election incorporating Lituya Bay as a community. They then elected a judge and a prosecutor in order to conduct an official trial. Severts signed a confession, and the court returned a guilty verdict. Severts was hanged from a tree at the mouth of Lituya Bay. The story of Severts' death was first published in spring 1900, but it became famous in fall that year when the San Francisco Examiner ran a lurid story about the hanging entitled "Woman Hangs a Man and the Law Upholds Her". Writer Jack London, inspired by the account, fictionalized it in his story "The Unexpected," which was first published in McClure's Magazine in August 1906.

Executions under civil law

Attempts were made to bring Alaska under civil law almost from the time of the Alaska Purchase, but these were not fully executed for a variety of reasons including insufficient funding, insufficient staffing, and lack of interest in both Congress and Alaska. The Act of July 27, 1868 extended the laws "relating to customs, commerce, and navigation" over Alaska and set the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in charge of significant cases violating those laws. Other crimes were left in the hands of military courts.

The Alaska Organic Act of 1884, later known as the First Organic Act, created the District of Alaska and defined Alaska as a separate civil and judicial district from Oregon, with its seat temporarily established in Sitka. The civil laws of that district, however, were those of Oregon. Alaska was not granted authority to craft its own laws, nor was there any ability to conduct criminal jury trials because Oregon law permitted only taxpayers to serve on juries, and no system of taxation was in place in Alaska until 1899. The Act of March 3, 1891 extended the authority of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to cover Alaska, providing for appeals from United States District Court for the District of Alaska, but unique laws for Alaska were not implemented by Congress until the Act of March 3, 1899 was prompted by an influx of gold miners during the Klondike Gold Rush. That act created the Code of Criminal Procedure for the Territory of Alaska, which permitted legal jury trials, defined new crimes and provided for additional judges, marshals, and district attorneys. The Act of June 6, 1900 further expanded the previous year's legislation by allowing the appointment of additional judges.

The Second Organic Act for 1912 passed Congress in response to Alaska's growing population and cries for self-government. Approved on Aug. 24, 1912, it established the Territory of Alaska and Alaska Legislature, providing a legal means for the residents of Alaska to create and modify the laws in effect in the territory. The authority of the territorial legislature was limited by the Second Organic Act, however, which led to calls for still more self-government. These were not resolved until the passage of the Alaska Statehood Act and the admission of Alaska as the 49th U.S. state on Jan. 3, 1959.

Fred Hardy

The first legal execution in Alaska was that of Fred Hardy, a gold miner who murdered three people on June 7, 1901 on Unimak Island, off the western shore of the Alaska mainland. According to the story told by Owen Jackson, the sole survivor of the attack, Hardy ambushed a four-man gold prospecting expedition on Unimak in order to steal the party's supplies. Jackson, who hid in a burrow within the island's tundra, survived for almost three weeks alone on the island before he was rescued by another prospecting party.

Following Jackson's rescue, Hardy was found in a salmon saltery on Unimak with another man. Confronted with accusations of murder, Hardy admitted stealing from the prospectors' camp but said the other man had killed the prospectors. On Aug. 19, 1901, Judge James Wickersham convened a trial at Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutian Islands, to determine Hardy's guilt or innocence. Hardy's defense was by two lawyers from Nome, and they attempted to blame the murders on the man found with Hardy. This strategy was foiled when the man was found to have a firm alibi backed by multiple witnesses. On Sept. 7, 1901, the trial's jury returned a guilty verdict against Hardy on three counts of first-degree murder. The sentence was death by hanging.

After unsuccessful appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, Hardy was executed on Sept. 19, 1902. The hanging took place in an addition to the Nome ice house, which was located across the street from the jail. Hardy's neck was broken and his pulse stopped 9 minutes and 48 seconds after his hanging. To the end, Hardy protested his innocence. "My case at Dutch Harbor was railroaded through," he said a few days before his execution, "and I was convicted entirely on the evidence of Aston."

Homer Bird

In 1898, Homer Bird was one of tens of thousands of stampeding gold prospectors who attempted to use the Yukon River as a route to the gold of the Klondike. Bird and a group of two other men and one woman sailed up the Yukon on a steamboat towing a barge with enough provisions to last the party two years. Like many of the Klondike stampeders, however, the party failed to reach Dawson City before the arrival of winter and the freezing of the Yukon River. In September 1898, they reached a point 85 miles (137 km) upriver of Anvik, Alaska, the nearest settlement, and decided to erect a cabin.

Bird, formerly a prosperous businessman in New Orleans, was "very disagreeable" during the trip of the Yukon and became even more belligerent after the party went into winter quarters. In late September, three members of the party informed Bird that they intended to set off on their own, taking three-fifths of the group's supplies. Bird, who had contributed more money to the expedition than any other member, objected. On Sept. 27, 1898, Bird shot and killed J.H. Hurlin, one of those who intended to strike out on his own. A second man was critically wounded by Bird.

The dead man was buried, and the wounded man was kept confined to bed to heal. Bird spread a story that the dead man had gone off on his own. The story lasted until spring, when other miners learned of the wounded man's condition. The wounded man died in Anvik in April 1899, but not before spreading the word about the murder of the previous fall. Bird was arrested, confined, escaped, re-arrested, and taken to trial in Juneau in November 1899. On Dec. 6, 1899, a jury in St. Michael, Alaska found Bird guilty of murder, and one week later, he was sentenced to hang in February.

Bird objected to the sentence and appealed it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that the presiding judge had given the jury improper instructions and that the court had made several other legal errors during the trial. The Supreme Court sent the case back to U.S. District Court for a new trial, and on Christmas Day, 1901 in Skagway, a jury again returned a guilty verdict.

Bird once more appealed his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Act of March 3, 1899 and the Act of June 6, 1900 had abolished the District Court for Alaska, and thus that court had no standing to try him for murder. On Nov. 17, 1902, the Supreme Court rejected that argument and upheld both Bird's conviction and his sentence. Bird appealed to President Theodore Roosevelt for clemency, but Roosevelt did not respond. On March 6, 1903, he was hanged to death in Sitka on a second-hand gallows that had been purchased from King County, Washington.

Mailo Segura

On May 5, 1918, a Montenegrin immigrant to Alaska named Mailo Segura shot and killed J.E. "George" Riley at a gold-mining camp near the town of Flat, Alaska. Segura, a wood-cutter, had been employed by Riley for two years. During that time, Riley had refused to pay Segura, who repeatedly prompted him for a receipt listing all the wood he had bought from Segura (who kept no records of his own). In May 1918, tensions reached a breaking point. According to an admission he made in court, Segura tracked Riley to his workplace and shot him three times in the back. After the shooting, a witness testified he heard Segura say in regard to the dead man, "There is my $2,000. It is worth $2,000 to me."

Segura was arrested and put on trial in Flat by a judge of the Fourth District of the Alaska Territory. A jury duly found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Newspapers covering the murder and trial repeatedly referred to Segura as a "bohunk" and a "black fellow." Segura appealed the judgement of the district court to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of appeals. On Oct. 29, 1919, Segura's conviction was upheld by the appeals court. Segura unsuccessfully attempted to appeal his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he was hanged to death at noon in Fairbanks on April 15, 1921. Authorities constructed a makeshift scaffold between the second floor of the Fairbanks courthouse and the bank building across the street, with the hanging taking place above the middle of the street to provide elevation for the fatal drop. According to accounts of the hanging, Segura was so terrified that he had to be tied to a board in order to restrain him before the gallows' trap door opened.

'John Doe' Hamilton

On Oct. 7, 1921, an Alaska Native man whose name is listed only as Hamilton became the second person executed in Fairbanks. According to contemporary accounts, Hamilton shot his cousin in 1920 near Shageluk, Alaska and hid the body. The cousin's wife had complained to Hamilton about being beaten by the cousin. Hamilton was arrested, tried in Fairbanks and found guilty. After his sentencing, Hamilton said through an interpreter (he spoke little, if any, English) that he was ashamed of his crime and requested that he be hanged in Alaska. No appeal was requested, and the sentence was executed that year. According to at least one account, the people in charge of the hanging built the gallows too tall, and the force of the hanging decapitated Hamilton.

Constantine Beaver

On Sept. 7, 1929, an Alaska Native man named Constantine Beaver became the third and last person to be executed in Fairbanks. That year, Beaver had been arrested for shooting one of his friends in an alcohol-fueled fight. The trial was hasty—his lawyer, Thomas Drayton, was appointed one week before the trial. Drayton attempted to delay the proceedings in order to coordinate the defense but was denied. Beaver, who did not speak English, was furnished with an interpreter during the brief trial.

After he was found guilty, his jury was given two ballots: one that sentenced Beaver to life imprisonment and another that made no judgment as to punishment. The jury returned the "silent" guilty verdict, and the judge sentenced Beaver to hang. A week later, three jurors submitted sworn statements saying they had not realized that a "silent" verdict mandated the death penalty — they thought it meant the decision was up to the judge. The statements were rejected by the court because they were filed three days after the final deadline for trial motions.

Until his hanging, Beaver proclaimed his innocence and believed his sentence would be commuted by President Herbert Hoover. On the date of his execution, he went to the gallows singing a song in a Native language. Due to poor construction of the gallows, Beaver died of strangulation nine minutes after his hanging. Frank P. Young, a deputy U.S. Marshal in Fairbanks, described Beaver's hanging as "one of the saddest affairs I ever had to witness. I left the marshal's office shortly after that."

Nelson Charles

November 10, 1939

Austin Nelson

March 1, 1948

Eugene LaMoore

April 14, 1950

In 2009, historian Averil Lerman testified before the Alaska Legislature that LaMoore's hanging generated "anger, bitterness, and resentment" among those close to the execution. "Doesn't anybody think about the people who have to do these things?" remarked the wife of a patrolman involved in the hanging.

Capital punishment legislation

The executions of Nelson and LaMoore raised significant concerns among some Alaskans who feared the penalty was being applied unfairly to those who were disadvantaged by class, race, or culture. Rep. Vic Fischer (Democrat, Anchorage), one of the drafters of the Alaska Constitution and a representative to several territorial and state legislative sessions, said those factors were significant in 1957 when Rep. Warren Taylor (Democrat, Fairbanks) proposed abolishing death by hanging as the state's most severe penalty.

According to contemporary accounts, arguments over the measure were fierce, with a day and a half of floor debate before the Alaska House voted 14–9 in favor of Taylor's bill. Testifying in support of his bill, Taylor said he wanted to avoid "the hideous mistake of executing an innocent man." "I have been unfortunate enough to witness execution," he said, "and the cold-blooded, methodical way they are carried out makes you wonder if it isn't legal murder."

Counter-arguments came from legislators including Rep. Dora M. Sweeney (Democrat, Juneau), who said some crimes and criminals warrant the death penalty. "Remember Winnie Ruth Judd," she testified. "A Juneau girl who horribly hacked up two persons and tried to ship their bodies all over everywhere in a trunk; she lives today in an institution from which she has escaped several times."

After gaining approval from a majority of the Alaska House, the death penalty bill was passed by the Alaska Senate and signed into law by Gov. Mike Stepovich following the end of the 27th Territorial Legislature. In the years after his retirement, Rep. Seaborn J. Buckalew Jr. (Democrat, Anchorage) said his vote against Taylor's bill in the House was "the only vote I made that I now regret." A former Alaska Superior Court judge, Buckalew said he learned to question whether the death penalty harms more than it benefits.

Since 1957, the Alaska Legislature has repeatedly debated the merits of reinstating the death penalty. Research conducted by the Alaska Legislature's Legislative Research Services found in 2009 that Alaska lawmakers had considered 23 bills pertaining to the death penalty between 1974 and 1999. Another bill was proposed in 2009 but defeated, bringing the tally of death penalty bills to 24. Of the 24 bills, 18 died in committee without a floor vote. Thirteen died without a hearing or in the first committee. Six died in the second committee. Of the six bills that reached a floor vote, one failed and five passed but failed to receive a floor vote in the other body.

In 1985, the Alaska Division of Elections certified a ballot initiative that proposed to put a death penalty measure before voters on the 1988 state primary ballot. In order to have the measure appear on the ballot, supporters needed 21,317 signatures by Oct. 9, 1986. They collected only two-thirds that total, and the initiative did not make the ballot. During the 1980s, the financial cost of the death penalty was a significant argument against its institution. To combat these arguments, death penalty supporters proposed contracting with other states to execute Alaska's prisoners. The corrections departments of Georgia, Florida, and Virginia were contracted, but no corrections administrators expressed interest due to political repercussions, legal issues, a lack of facilities, and a lack of equipment.

In January 1997, Sen. Robin Taylor (Republican, Wrangell) introduced a bill into the Legislature that called for an advisory vote to be added to Alaska's 1998 ballot. Senate Bill 60, as Taylor's measure was known, would have asked Alaskans, "Shall the Alaska State Legislature enact a law providing for capital punishment for murder in the first degree and establishing procedures for the imposition of capital punishment that are consistent with the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court?"

The measure would have been non-binding; it would have not automatically implemented the death penalty in Alaska. Despite this restriction, Taylor's measure was opposed by those who saw it as a first step toward the implementation of the death penalty in Alaska. On April 30, 1997, the Alaska Senate voted 13-6 in favor of Taylor's bill. The measure moved on to the Alaska House of Representatives, where it encountered greater opposition due to concerns about the cost of implementing the death penalty in Alaska. It did not pass the House in the first session of the 20th Alaska Legislature, and it stalled in the House Finance Committee during the second session and failed to reach a vote of the full House before 20th Alaska Legislature ended.

In January 2009, Rep. Mike Chenault (Republican, Nikiski) introduced House Bill 9, which would have authorized capital punishment in Alaska for people convicted of certain first-degree murders. It was co-sponsored by Rep. Jay Ramras (Republican, Fairbanks) and had the support of Gov. Sarah Palin, but it failed to gain traction in House committees and never received a floor vote.

Alaska capital punishment bills since 1973

Legislature	Bill number	Status	Details
8th Legislature (1973–1974)	HB 675	Failed in the House.	Authorized the death penalty for certain murders.
12th Legislature (1981–1982)	SB 73	Failed in Senate State Affairs committee.	Classified first-degree murder as a capital crime; established sentencing procedures.
	HB 458	Failed in House Judiciary committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.
13th Legislature (1983–1984)	SB 121	Failed in Senate Judiciary committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.
	HB 140	Failed in House Finance committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.
	HB 235	Passed the House, failed in Senate State Affairs committee.	Provided for an advisory vote of Alaska residents on the death penalty for first-degree murder.
14th Legislature (1985–1986)	SB 119	Failed in Senate Health, Education, and Social Services committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.
	HB 163	Failed in House Health, Education, and Social Services committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.
15th Legislature (1987–1988)	SB 7	Failed in Senate Judiciary committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.
	SB 31	Failed in Senate Health, Education, and Social Services committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.
16th Legislature (1989–1990)	SB 17	Passed the Senate, failed in House Judiciary committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures and called for a statewide vote to determine whether the law should take effect.
17th Legislature (1991–1992)	SB 13	Failed in Senate Finance committee.	Provided for an advisory vote of Alaska residents on the death penalty for first-degree murder.
18th Legislature (1993–1994)	SB 127	Failed in Senate Judiciary committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures and called for a statewide vote to determine whether the law should take effect.
	HB 162	Failed in House Finance committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures and called for a statewide vote to determine whether the law should take effect.
19th Legislature (1995–1996)	SB 52	Passed Senate, failed in House Finance committee.	Provided for an advisory vote of Alaska residents on the death penalty.
	HB 45	Failed in House State Affairs committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures and called for a statewide vote to determine whether the law should take effect.
	HB 481	Failed in House Judiciary committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, allowed the death penalty for certain first-degree murders of children, established sentencing procedures and called for a statewide vote to determine whether the law should take effect.
20th Legislature (1997–1998)	SB 60	Passed Senate 13–6, failed in HouseFinance committee.	Provided for an advisory vote of Alaska residents on the death penalty.
	HB 131	Failed in House Judiciary committee.	Provided for an advisory vote of Alaska residents on the death penalty.
	HB 166	Failed without a hearing.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, allowed the death penalty for certain first-degree murders of children, established sentencing procedures and called for a statewide vote to determine whether the law should take effect.
21st Legislature (1999–2000)	HB 20	Failed without a hearing.	Provided for an advisory vote of Alaska residents on the death penalty.
	HB 48	Failed without a hearing.	Provided for an advisory vote of Alaska residents on the death penalty.
	HB 75	Failed after two hearings.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, allowed the death penalty for certain first-degree murders of children, established sentencing procedures and called for a statewide vote to determine whether the law should take effect.
26th Legislature (2009–2010)	HB 9	Failed in House Finance committee.	Authorized capital punishment, classified first-degree murder as a capital crime, established sentencing procedures.

References

• Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The History of Alaska: 1730-1885. San Francisco, California: A.L. Bancroft and Company, 1886.
• Emmons, George Thornton. The Tlingit Indians. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1991.
• Green, Melissa S. "The Death Penalty in Alaska," Alaska Justice Forum. Vol. 25, No. 4. Winter 2009.
• Green, Melissa S. "A History of the Death Penalty in Alaska." Focus on the Death Penalty. July 20, 2001; revised July 31, 2013. Retrieved Dec. 25, 2014.
• Grinev, A.V. The Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741-1867. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
• Heller, Herbert, ed. Sourdough Sagas. New York: Ballantine Books, 1967.
• Jones, Zachary Ray. "Fort Wrangell’s 1869 Bombardment of Ḵaachx̱an.áakʼw: The U.S. Army Response to Tlingit Law," National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program. Juneau, Alaska: Sealaska Heritage Institute, 2015.
• Lerman, Averil. "Death's Double Standard: Territorial Alaska's experience with capital punishment showed race and money mattered," The Anchorage Daily News. May 1, 1994. We Alaskans section, Pages 3–4.
• U.S. Government. Alaskan Boundary Tribunal: The case of the United States before the tribunal convened at London. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903.
• Wickersham, James. Old Yukon, Terrence Cole ed. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, Alaska: 2009.
• Young, Patricia. "Capital Punishment in the U.S. and in Alaska," Legislative Research Report. Alaska Legislature, Legislative Research Services Report No. 09.135. Feb. 23, 2009. Retrieved Jan. 3, 2015.

Additional Reading

• Andrews, Clarence L. Wrangell and the Gold of the Cassiar. 1937.
• Baker, David V. "American Indian Executions in Historical Context," Criminal Justice Studies. Vol. 20, No. 4, Dec. 2007, pp. 315–373.
• Espy, Major Watt and Smykla, John Ortiz. "Executions in the United States: 1608–2002," Death Penalty Information Center. 2002. Retrieved Dec. 25, 2014.
• Hunt, William R. Distant Justice: Policing the Alaska Frontier. University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. Norman, Oklahoma.
• Jones, Zachary Ray. "By the Blood of Our Shaman: The U.S. Army’s 1869 Bombardment of Alaska’s Wrangell Tlingit Indian Village," paper presented at the 2011 Alaska State Historical Society conference in Valdez, Alaska.

Alaska Category:Alaska law