Eddie Lee Mays
Mays would become the last person to be executed by "Old Sparky", New York State's electric chair at Sing Sing prison. The State Electrician was Dow Hover. The electric chair had been the sole method of execution in the State since 1890 (hanging had been abolished in 1888). In 1965, the State of New York repealed the death penalty, except for cases involving the murder of a police officer. Although the legislature never fully repealed the death penalty statute, and the state even expanded it in 1995, there were no further executions because of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 and the New York Court of Appeals in 2004.
Capital punishment in Kansas
After the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision in "Gregg v. Georgia" permitted states to reinstate the death penalty, the Kansas legislature made numerous attempts to do so, but Governor John W. Carlin vetoed such legislation in 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1985. The death penalty was eventually reinstated on April 23, 1994. Of states that still allow the death penalty, Kansas was the last to reinstate the death penalty in the modern era. The law became effective on July 1, after then-Governor Joan Finney, despite her proclaimed opposition to capital punishment, decided to allow the bill to become law without her signature. The first degree murder with the aggravating factors is the only crime punishable by death. Despite reinstatement, no one has been executed since.