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 In 1965, the State of New York repealed the death penalty, except for cases involving the murder of a police officer. Although the legislature never fully repealed the death penalty statute, and the state even expanded it in 1995, there were no further executions because of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 and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.
Marvin Gabrion
The case received national attention both for the brutality of the crime and for the controversial sentence. The crime was committed in Michigan, which does not have the death penalty, but prosecutors in federal court were able to seek a death sentence because the murder took place on federal land. Gabrion is the first person in the United States to receive the death penalty for a crime committed in a non-death penalty state since federal capital punishment was reinstated in 1988 as well as the first person to be sentenced to death in the state of Michigan since 1937.