On this day, Governor Alpheus Felch signed a bill outlawing capital punishment, making Michigan the first government in the English-speaking world to do so. Furthermore, it was also banned in the state Constitution in 1964.
Sources :
Michigan Every Day
Eugene G. Wanger, “Michigan and Capital Punishment”, Michigan Bar Journal, September 2002, pp.38-41.
Barton Deiters, “Why has Michigan opposed the death penalty for more than 150 years?”, MLive, April 17, 2012.