In In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 10 S. Ct. 930, 34 L. Ed. 519 (1890), the petitioner asserted that his sentence of death by electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. At the time, electrocution was a new method of execution and was statutorily authorized in New York after a state legislative commission found that it was the most humane method of execution and much less barbaric than hanging. After noting its prior holding in Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130, 25 L. Ed. 345 (1878), the United States Supreme Court provided more analysis as to the meaning of cruel and unusual punishment: "Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. It implies there something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life." Id. at 447. The Court concluded that electrocution, as a more humane form of execution, did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.