Railroaded:

The first 100 people executed in Virginia’s electric chair — a book excerpt

A negro likes nothing better than to be the central figure, be it a cake-walk or a hanging.

-Virginia State Penitentiary Physician Charles V. Carrington, 1910.

IN AUGUST 1827, Richmond Virginia’s Federal Court under Justice John Marshall tried, convicted, and sentenced to death three Spaniards named Pepe, Couro, and Felix for piracy and murder committed on the brig Crawford, bound from Cuba to New York. After their problematic…