Tennessee brings back electric chair

[Jazzy]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - As much of the United States debates the use of lethal injections against a backdrop of drug scarcity and botched executions, Tennessee has found an alternative: the electric chair.

The state's Republican governor, Bill Haslam, approved a law Thursday allowing Tennessee to electrocute death row inmates if prisons lack the correct drugs. The drugs have become increasingly difficult to obtain because of a European-led boycott on drug sales for executions.

Tennessee has become the first U.S. state to reintroduce the electric chair as an execution method without giving the doomed prisoner an option, according to Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes executions and tracks the issue.

"There are states that allow inmates to choose. But it is a very different matter for a state to impose a method like electrocution," Dieter said. "No other state has gone so far."

Dieter forecast legal challenges if Tennessee seeks to electrocute a prisoner. He said Tennessee would need to prove it couldn't obtain the appropriate drugs and demonstrate that the electric chair doesn't violate the U.S. Constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court has never declared a method of execution unconstitutional. It upheld the firing squad in 1879, the electric chair in 1890 and lethal injection in 2008.

The court has said the Eighth Amendment prohibits inflicting pain merely to torture or punish an inmate, drawing a distinction between electrocution and centuries-old practices such as drawing and quartering.

Source

Your thoughts?

 

[Nebulous]

Whatever works. I still say a bullet through the head is very quick and inexpensive.

 

[Jazzy]

'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'

How about we just kill them with the method they used to kill their victim/victims. I don't think they killed any of their victims using a painless lethal injection, do you?

 

[DrLeftover]

Your "Dear Leader" and other liberals would never allow that.

 

[JetWing34]

I'd allow an electric chair if there are a lack of drugs. Good move by Governor Haslam. It's a good move by the Republican party.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Crispy dead killers! Love it!

 

[JetWing34]

Oh yeah! Watch the eyeballs pop out of the blindfolds, and watch the blood flow out of its eye sockets!

 

[Nebulous]

Crispy dead killers! Love it!

Oh yeah! Watch the eyeballs pop out of the blindfolds, and watch the blood flow out of its eye sockets!

Such enthusiasm