[3] Inmate Ed Mason, a master carpenter by trade who was serving 60 years for theft and grand larceny, built Yellow Mama.
On April 22, 1983, John Louis Evans,[7] the first post-Furman prisoner to be executed by the state, was hit with an initial jolt of electricity, which lasted 30 seconds.
Charlie Jones, the warden at the time, said that because the jacks connecting the electricity to the chair had been reversed, there was not enough voltage to kill him on the first try.
[citation needed] Yellow Mama is now stored in an attic above the execution chamber at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.
On July 1 of that year, a revision to Alabama's death penalty went into effect allowing for an inmate to choose execution by either lethal injection or electrocution.
State representative Lynn Greer sponsored legislation to return to using the electric chair if lethal injection drugs cannot be obtained.