Willie Francis was convicted of murder in 1945 and sentenced to death. The following year, on May 3, 1946, he was strapped to the electric chair. The executioner threw the switch, but Francis was not killed. Instead, he got a jolt only strong enough to scare him half to death. The prison authorities thereupon unstrapped him and returned him to his cell.
His lawyers, in a case that went to the Supreme Court, argued that a second attempt to execute him would violate constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment and against double jeopardy. But they lost (Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 1947), and Francis was executed by Louisiana on a second attempt.
The decision had been made by the Supreme Court in spite of the fact that in the lower court there had been no cross-examination, no defense, and no ballistics report, as all of the ballistic evidence had been lost. It is interesting and important to note that the Supreme Court rejected the argument based on the non-existent record of the trial court's proceedings. How can one present an appeal when there is no record?
In response to the argument of cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court found that it would accept the use of due process standards. (Due process is the principle that the government must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person according to the law of the land, instead of respecting merely some or most of those legal rights.) However, when applying the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments, one can still find that there was no cruel and unjust punishment in the execution, because there was a mistake — what was characterized as an accident, rather than a purposeful act. In doing so the Court suggested that if it had been a purposeful act, then it might be deemed as cruel and unusual punishment.
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