Capital punishment in the state of Vermont ended in 1972 for all crimes due to Furman v. Georgia. The state last executed a prisoner, Donald DeMag, in 1954, after he received the sentence for a double robbery-murder he committed after escaping prison.
Although DeMag was the last person executed by Vermont, he was not the last person to be sentenced to death by a Vermont court. Lionel Goyet, a soldier who was Absent Without Leave for the fifth time, robbed and killed a farmhand, and was sentenced to death in 1957.[1] His sentence was commuted six months later,[2] and Goyet was conditionally pardoned in 1969.[3] He had no further problems with the law, and died of heart failure in 1980.[4]
Vermont had a pre-Furman statute providing death by electrocution for treason until the punishment was replaced by imprisonment and a potentially additional fine.[5]
