Ohio's Electric Chair
1897 - 1963

315 Executions
including 3 women

"Old Sparky"

Charles Justice was a prisoner who helped build and install Ohio's electric chair. He served his time, was released from prison, but returned to prison 13 years later convicted of murder. and on on Nov. 9, 1911 died in the same electric chair that he helped build.

The Electric Chair was an option (along with Lethal Injection) available to condemned prisoners in the Post-Furman era until a condemned man decided to exercise his option in 2001. John Byrd Jr., in an effort to make his execution as difficult and traumatic as possible for the prison staff, chose electrocution as the means for his demise. This earned him a reprieve while the legislature changed the law. John Byrd Jr. was executed by lethal injection on  February 19, 2002.

According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, "On February 26, 2002, Ohio’s electric chair, nicknamed “Old Sparky,” was decommissioned and disconnected from service.  The original electric chair was donated to the Ohio Historical Society on December 18, 2002, and a replica electric chair was donated to the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society."