John McCaffary (died August 21, 1851) was
the last defendant executed in the State of Wisconsin. He was executed
by hanging for the murder of his wife.
On 23 July 1850, Bridgett McCaffary was drowned in
a backyard cistern in Kenosha, a newly incorporated town in Kenosha
County, Wisconsin. John McCaffary, an immigrant farmer from Ireland,
was arrested and charged with the first degree murder of his wife. His
trial began on May 6, 1851, and on May 23, 1851 the jury convicted him
of willful murder. The judge sentenced him to death by hanging.
McCaffary was hung from a tree on August 21, 1851
before a crowd of 2000 to 3000 people in front of then Kenosha
courthouse and jail. The hanging was initially unsuccessful, and
McCaffary remained alive and struggled on the end of the rope for
approximately 20 minutes as he was slowly strangled. McCaffary was
buried in the Green Ridge Cemetery in Kenosha. He was the first person
executed by Wisconsin after it became a state of the United States in
1848.
The spectacle of McCaffary's slow death in front of
thousands led reformers in Wisconsin to press for abolition of the
death penalty. On July 12, 1853, Wisconsin Governor Leonard J. Farwell
signed a law that abolished the death penalty in Wisconsin and
replaced it with a penalty of life imprisonment. The law is still in
effect and no one has been executed by Wisconsin since McCaffary's
death.
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