YOUNG NEGRO EXECUTED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25181, 12 May 1947, Page 3

YOUNG NEGRO EXECUTED

SECOND COMMITTAL TO ELECTRIC CHAIR (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, May 9. Willie Francis, an 18-year-old negro, was electrocuted to-day on his second condemnation to the electric chair at St. Martinville, Louisiana. He first went to the chair in May, 1946, but the electricity failed and later it was alleged that the executioner was drunk. Francis was convicted of robbery and murder, by which he gained four dollars and a watch. The defence attorney, relying on the ancient rule that an accused person cannot be sent to execution a second time if a first attempt fails, unavailingly appealed to Louisiana courts and three times to the United States Supreme Court: An eleventh-hour appeal was made to the Supreme Court yesterday on the ground that when the allegedly drunken executioner found the current switched off he cursed Francis and told him that if the electricity did not kill him he would kill him with a Francis had practised walking “the short last mile.” so that he could “die like a man.” Francis told his attorney this morning not to make any further effort to halt the executioner. He went calmly to the same chair in which he had sat a year ago, carrying a crucifix which the Catholic chaplain had given him. Smiling, he settled himself into the chair at 12.2 p.m. The switch was thrown at 12.5, and Francis was pronounced dead at 12.10 p.m.