Capital punishment in Michigan

Capital punishment in Michigan was legal from statehood in 1837 until it was abolished in 1846 for murder. Michigan is one of the few U.S. states never to have executed anyone following admission into the Union (others include Alaska and Hawaii).

Michigan's death penalty history is unusual, as Michigan was the first English-speaking government in the world to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes. The Michigan State Legislature voted to do so on May 18, 1846, which has remained in law ever since. Although the death penalty was formally retained as the punishment for treason until 1963, no person was ever tried for treason against Michigan. Thus, Michigan has not executed any person since statehood.

With one exception, all executions in areas which are now part of the State of Michigan were performed before the state was admitted to the Union, when Michigan became the 26th State on January 26, 1837.

Approximately a dozen people are known to have been executed from 1683 to 1836. The area that is now Michigan was part of colonial New France from 1612 (first permanent settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, 1668) to 1763, when the Treaty of Paris transferred New France to Great Britain. It was part of British Indian Territory, 1763 to 1774 when it became part of the Province of Quebec. The Treaty of Paris, 1783 legally transferred the area to the new United States of America but Lower Michigan remained under British control until 1796, and Upper Michigan until 1818 (transferred pursuant to the Treaty of Ghent of 1814). In this early period, there were a number of cases where persons who had committed a capital crime in Detroit were transported to Montreal for trial and execution.

The first person known to be executed in Michigan was an Aboriginal North American named Folle-Avoine. The first person executed under US Jurisdiction was a Native American named Buhnah. Two women were executed in Michigan, both during the British colonial period – an unnamed slave (owned by a man named Clapham) in 1763, and an African Canadian named Ann Wyley in 1777, both when Michigan was under British jurisdiction. By race, seven of 15 were Aboriginal Americans; seven were European-North Americans; and one was an African-North American.

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