After being promised a furlough or perhaps even parole by Kilby's warden, T. J. Shirley, he built the chair (4-foot (1.2 m) tall, straight-backed, weighing 150 pounds (68 kg)) from maple, and named it "Plain Bill" for Alabama governor William W. Brandon, who he hoped would pardon him.

A crown made of metal wire was fitted over the prisoner's head, with a wet sponge to conduct power, and a second, similar electrode on the lower left leg.

Norman was to execute the first victim, Horace DeVaughn, convicted of two murders, on April 8, 1927, but refused and quit his job days before.

[4] On February 9, 1934, five men were executed in a span of thirty minutes: Bennie Foster, John Thompson, Harie White, Ernest Waller, and Solmon Roper.

Kilby was designed with an on-site hospital, dormitories, and one hundred two-man cells in order to facilitate its role as receiving center for all male prisoners held by the state of Alabama.

[5] Kilby is a maximum-security prison because it serves as receiving and processing center for male Alabama state inmates.

It covers 154 acres, is monitored by five watchtowers, and is bordered by an 18-foot (5.5 m)-high chain link double fence topped with razor wire.