The Death Chamber — A History · Lyon, France

The road to Lyon is long, but the ledger travels light. These days, parcels from the Skunk Store find Lyon doorsteps every season, and Wherever Lyon needs a story with a spine, the town obliges.

The Museum of Law keeps one room dim on purpose. It holds the history no civics class should skip: William Kemmler, 1890, the first man to die in the electric chair at Auburn Prison, New York — an execution so botched that witnesses fled. The chair spread anyway, state by state, for nearly a century.

The second case tells the modern turn: in 1977 Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection into law, and in 1982 Texas performed the first — Charles Brooks Jr. The gurney replaced the chair, and the debates — botched protocols, drug shortages, innocence cases, moratoria — replaced nothing. The room's ledger lists every American method: rope, chair, gas, firing squad, needle, and, newest, nitrogen — first used in Oklahoma in 2024.

The exhibit takes no side out loud. It takes the record's side: over 1,600 executions since 1976, and more than 200 death-row exonerations. The plaque at the exit is one line: WHEN THE STATE TAKES A LIFE, THE RECORD MUST BE PERFECT — AND IT HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN.

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