William W. "Bill" Kirtley

William W. "Bill" Kirtley (December 10, 1897 – September 23, 1944) was an early American anti-death penalty crusader and lead defense attorney to Rainey Bethea, the last man ever publicly executed in the United States.^[1] He was also the husband of feminist Louise Gasser Kirtley, the first female Kentucky State Representative (serving two terms, 1962-1966) and first female Kentucky Bar Association President^[2] and grandfather of French international arbitration expert William Kirtley, who now chairs his grandfather's Paris-based foundation and teaches at the University of Paris.^[3] Arguing that capital punishment was the "most premeditated of murders," Mr. Kirtley was unable to convince Rainey Bethea to testify on his own behalf, and he was ultimately hung before a crowd of 20,000 people in what was described as a carnival-like atmosphere, drawing media attention throughout the United States that was fanned by Mr. Kirtley and his wife.^[4] Afterwards, he sought to have Kentucky adopt a law based on a Missouri statute (L.1919, p. 781) banning all public executions. Following his early death, his wife took up the cause, playing a key role in the Kentucky legislature's ban on all public executions still found in statute KRS 431.220. More significantly, many legal scholars and human rights advocates^[5] credit the scandal he generated and the execution itself to have led to the eventual ban of all public executions in America.^[6]

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