Trial of the Last Man Executed in Michigan To Be Topic of Luncheon Vignette in this issue Trial of the Last Man Executed in Michigan to be Topic of Luncheon Vignette.................................................1-3 Annual Luncheon

person to be executed under Michigan law. The events that lead up to the hanging, the players involved in the trial, and the political changes that lead to the abolition of the death penalty in Michigan make up the historical tale A Hanging in Detroit written by David G. Chardavoyne. The Plot The book opens with an account of the very public execution written by George B. Catlin in 1923. The Catlin account, which Mr. Chardavoyne later found to contain many historical inaccura-cies, has long been the basis for other written accounts of the event. In the introduction to A Hanging in Detroit, Mr. Chardavoyne explains: My initial plan was to retell Mr. Catlin’s wonderfully dramatic story in my own words.…as I discovered that various libraries and museums contained a large number of contempo-rary records and documents relating to the case and to Simmons ’ life, I had to recognize that, except for its bare outline, Mr. Catlin’s account is largely a myth… In writing what started out to be a short maga-zine article but ended up as a book, I have tried to answer basic questions that appealed to me as a lawyer: How did Stephen G. Simmons come to be placed on trial for murder and what happened at and after the trial? Why was Stephen G. Simmons hanged when other contemporary killers were barely punished at all? The story of the life, trial and execu-tion of Stephen Simmons opens with a historical and genealogical introduction to the Simmons family, following them from New York to Michigan and detailing the life and occasional misad-ventures of Stephen himself. Readers soon find themselves in the Detroit of the 1820s – the wild, swampy home of less than 2000 brave soles who had immigrated to Michigan in search of their fortunes. Stephen and his family set up shop on the outskirts of Detroit, opening an inn and tavern and farming an 80 acre parcel of land. On Sunday, June 13, 1830, in a drunken and jealous michigan supreme court historical societ