Rhode Island Capital Punishment Laws

In 1979, Rhode Island's Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional. Five years later, the state's general assembly removed capital punishment from its penal code. Although there have been several attempts to reinstate the death penalty, none have made it through both the state's house and the senate.

States can choose to have the death penalty or not. Many, including Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oregon, Missouri, California, and Texas, still have executions. Others, including the District of Columbia, Delaware, Colorado, Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, have abolished it. Most states use lethal injection, but there are other methods of execution allowed.

The chart below offers information about the state of capital punishment laws in Rhode Island.

Note: State laws are always subject to change through the enactment of newly signed legislation and voter-approved ballot initiatives, decisions from higher courts, and other means. While we strive to ensure the accuracy of these pages, you may also want to contact a Rhode Island criminal defense attorney or conduct your own legal research to verify the state law(s) you are researching.

Rhode Island's Death Penalty: Historical Background

Per the Death Penalty Information Center, Rhode Island has executed 52 people in its history. The last execution was in 1845. The public outrage following the execution played a role in state legislature abolishing the death penalty — for the first time, at least — in 1852.

The last execution in Rhode Island was of an Irish man, John Gordon. Police arrested Gordon and his two brothers, Nicholas and William, for the murder of a prominent member of the Cranston, R.I., community: Amasa Sprague.

Sprague was a wealthy and influential man. He owned the town's largest industrial plant, company housing, the general store, and the farms that supplied the store. His brother was a U.S. Senator and the former governor of Rhode Island. Sprague also employed hundreds of people, many of whom were of Irish heritage.

On Dec. 31, 1843, Sprague left his mansion to walk to a nearby town. Later that day, one of Sprague's employees found his dead body. Someone had shot and beaten him to death. Because Sprague's dead body still had $60 in a pocket, authorities believed the motive was revenge or hatred rather than robbery.

Authorities immediately suspected the Gordon family. Nicholas Gordon had emigrated from Ireland in the 1830s and opened a store in Cranston. Among other things, Nicholas sold liquor at his store. He made enough money to eventually move his family, including his brothers, John and William, to Rhode Island.

Nicholas Gordon and Sprague had quarreled over the liquor sales. Sprague believed selling liquor to his employees lowered their productivity and his bottom line.

In 1843, Sprague used his influence to prevent Nicholas Gordon from renewing his liquor license. At one point, Nicholas yelled at Sprague, "I'll get you for this," for the blocked liquor license. Given the history between Sprague and Gordon, authorities arrested Nicholas, John, and William Gordon for his murder.

Nicholas and William Gordon had alibis. Nicholas was in Providence, R.I., on the day of Sprague's murder. At trial, William Gordon "definitely established that he was elsewhere when the crime was committed," according to an article on "Small State Big History." The prosecution then turned its attention to John Gordon, who couldn't prove or remember where he was on the day of Sprague's death.

Legal scholars and historians argue that John Gordon's trial was unfair and biased against Irish Catholics. The jury was 12 men, none of whom were Catholic. The judge told the jury to give more credibility to "Yankee witnesses" than Irish witnesses.

The Irish Catholic community in Cranston rallied around the Gordons. They raised money for the brothers to hire an attorney. Their attorney argued that the real killer was a man named Big Peter, whom Sprague had fired three days before his murder. Big Peter vanished on the day of the murder and was never found. Their attorney also had John Gordon try on a coat left at the murder scene, which apparently "wrapped around [John] about three times, proving it belonged to a person much larger than the defendant," the blog said.

The jury found John Gordon guilty of Sprague's murder and sentenced him to death. While John was on death row, his attorney appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, but it affirmed the death sentence. The attorney appealed to the Rhode Island General Assembly and asked it to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. The general assembly rejected the argument. The state hanged John in 1845.

The execution triggered a backlash by Rhode Island's labor movement. Seven years after John Gordon's execution, the general assembly repealed its death penalty statutes for all capital offenses. In doing so, Rhode Island became the second state to abolish the death penalty.

In 2011, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee issued a posthumous pardon to John Gordon.

Later Developments

In 1873, the general assembly reinstated the death penalty. But, it only applied when a person already serving a life sentence committed murder.

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Furman v. Georgia. The Court found that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment, which violated the Eighth Amendment. The decision had the effect of placing a moratorium on the death penalty throughout the United States. The case stood for four years until the Court’s decision in Gregg v. Georgia (1976).

Rhode Island had a similar law for murder committed by inmates in state prisons. In 1979, Rhode Island's Supreme Court ruled that the law imposing the death penalty for murder committed by inmates in state prisons was unconstitutional. In 1984, the general assembly abolished all instances of the death penalty from its penal code.

In 2011, Chafee refused to transfer a murder suspect to the federal authorities. The man accused of murder, Jason Pleau, pleaded guilty to murder and robbery charges in Rhode Island and was set to get a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. But federal authorities wanted the state to transfer the case to them. If the state did so, Pleau would have faced the federal death penalty.

Chafee argued that transferring Pleau to federal authorities and a potential death sentence would have "violated the state's long-standing abolition of the death penalty." Chafee wrote an op-ed for the Providence Journal, in which he wrote, "To voluntarily let Mr. Pleau be exposed to the federal death penalty for a crime committed in Rhode Island would be an abdication of one of my core responsibilities as governor: defending and upholding the legitimate public-policy choices made by the people of this state."

Related Resources for Capital Punishment Laws

As noted, Rhode Island's abolition of the death penalty was one of the first in American history. For more information about Rhode Island laws and the death penalty, check out the following links:

• Rhode Island Law
• Rhode Island Criminal Laws
• Rhode Island Criminal Statute of Limitations
• Death Penalty
• Death Penalty Laws by State
• Death Penalty in the U.S.
• History of Death Penalty Laws
• Developments in the Death Penalty
• Death Penalty Statistics
• Death Penalty Challenges
• The Eighth Amendment and the Death Penalty

For information about other states' laws, along with Washington D.C.'s, visit Official State Codes.

Questions? Contact an Attorney

If you face criminal charges in Rhode Island, contact a criminal defense attorney in your area. Hiring a criminal defense lawyer gives you the best chance to defend against a criminal prosecution successfully. Contact one today for help with a pending criminal case.