BOP records Michigan's only federal execution at Milan

Michigan’s death-penalty history has two tracks, state and federal. Keeping them apart makes the Milan story much easier to understand.

Michigan lawmakers approved replacing death with life in prison for first-degree murder in 1846. The change took effect March 1, 1847. The State Bar of Michigan says the last execution under Michigan law had taken place in 1830, while Michigan was still a territory. The 1963 state constitution later made the rule plain: no Michigan law may provide for the death penalty.

Federal law was separate. The Federal Bureau of Prisons records that Anthony Chebatoris was sentenced to death for robbing a national bank and was hanged at FCI Milan on July 8, 1938. A BOP facility report adds that a bystander was killed during the robbery. It describes Milan as the only place in Michigan where a legal federal execution has occurred.

That last phrase is the careful one. This was not Michigan making an exception to its own law. The federal government imposed the sentence and carried it out at a federal prison. Calling it simply Michigan’s “only execution” hides the difference between two legal systems.

FCI Milan is still an operating federal prison. It is not a public history attraction, and the execution site is not presented as a sightseeing stop.