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 In 1965, the State of New York repealed the death penalty, except for cases involving the murder of a police officer. Although the legislature never fully repealed the death penalty statute, and the state even expanded it in 1995, there were no further executions because of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 and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.
Louisiana State Penitentiary
In 1972, in the US Supreme Court decision in "Furman v. Georgia", the court found application of the death penalty so arbitrary under existing state laws that it was unconstitutional. It suspended executions for all persons on death row in the United States (slightly more than 600, overwhelmingly male) under current state laws in the United States, and ordered state courts to judicially amend their sentences to the next lower level of severity, generally life in prison. Louisiana passed a new death penalty statute, which was overturned by the state supreme court in 1977 for its application to convictions for rape. The death penalty statute was amended again, effective September 1977. Louisiana did not execute any prisoners until 1983.