Execution By The State The Front McLaughlin / Rush 1980 This song was written and recorded in 1980 when Florida re-instated the Death Penalty It was dedicated to John Spenkelink the first person to be fried in the chair John Spenkelink Born March 29, 1949 (1949-03-29) Le Mars, Iowa, US Died May 25, 1979 (1979-05-26) Florida State Prison, Raiford, US Charge(s) Murder Penalty death Status executed in the electric chair Occupation felon, escapee John Arthur Spenkelink (March 29, 1949 in Le Mars, Iowa May 25, 1979 in Starke, Florida) was the first person executed in Florida and the second nationwide since the reintroduction of the death penalty in the United States in 1976. Unlike the first nationwide since the reintroduction (Gary Gilmore), Spenkelink fought his execution until the very end. The last person executed in Florida before the reintroduction of the death penalty had been in 1964 and the last one nationwide had been in Colorado in 1967.After serving in a California prison for petty crimes he travelled to Florida with another prison inmate. He was condemned to death in 1973 for murdering a traveling companion (named Joseph J. Szymankiewicz) who, Spenkelink alleged, had offered him homosexual relations and forced him to play Russian roulette in a Tallahassee motel.Spenkelink's case raised some controversy because he claimed he shot the victim in self-defense . According to Spenkelink's attorney, there was a good chance the sentence would be commuted. Spenkelink was ...