executed. Manhattan District Attorney Charles S. Whitman, who had made an appointment to interview Rosenthal before his death, alleged that the four gangsters had committed the murder at Becker's behest. Amid a major public outcry following the murder and extensive press coverage, Becker was transferred to the Bronx and assigned to desk duty. Arrest, trial, and execution Whitman's office continued to investigate Becker. On July 29, 1912, Becker was arrested at the precinct's closing hour by special detectives from the District Attorney's Office. He was tried and convicted of first-degree murder that fall in a trial presided by John Goff, who was "intensely biased against Becker" and whose charge to the jury was slanted toward conviction. The verdict was overturned on appeal on the grounds that Goff had been biased and that there was no independent corroborating witness to testify to the events since all of them had been involved in the crimes. The court ruled for a retrial, but in 1914, Becker was convicted again and sentenced to death. He was the first police officer in New York to receive that penalty. Becker continued to profess his innocence. The day before his execution, Becker told the warden, "Sure, I told them to put Rosenthal out of the way, but I didn't mean they should kill him. I wanted them to get him out of town so he wouldn't blab. Killing him was Rose's idea and the others. They wanted to save their own skins." Jack Rose had served as a prosecution witness, as did Harry Vallon, Sam Schepps and Bridgey Webber. They were underworld criminal figures who were believed to be involved in the crime but were promised immunity by the district attorney's office in exchange for testifying against Becker. Whitman, who was then governor of New York, signed Becker's death warrant in 1915 and attended the execution. Becker was executed by the electric chair in Sing Sing on July 30, 1915. The process took nine minutes, appearing to cause the man intense agony. For years afterward, it was described as "the clumsiest execution in the history of Sing Sing." Becker is the "only policeman to be executed for murder in the history of the United States." Becker was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx, on August 2, 1915. He was buried next to his daughter. Controversy Beginning with Henry Klein in 1927, a number of authors have suggested