APNewsBreak: Tennessee brings back electric chair

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

APNewsBreak: Tennessee brings back electric chair

By ERIK SCHELZIG, Associated Press | May 22, 2014 | Updated: May 22, 2014 7:40pm

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee has decided to bring back the electric chair.

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam on Thursday signed a bill into law allowing the state to electrocute death row inmates in the event the state is unable to obtain drugs used for lethal injections.

Tennessee lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the electric chair legislation in April, with the Senate voting 23-3 and the House 68-13 in favor of the bill.

Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Tennessee is the first state to enact a law to reintroduce the electric chair without giving prisoners an option.

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


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/APNewsBreak-Tennessee-brings-back-electric-chair-5499662.php

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Heart warming post script, from the article:

Republican state Sen. Ken Yager, a main sponsor of the electric chair measure, said in a recent interview that he introduced the bill because of "a real concern that we could find ourselves in a position that if the chemicals were unavailable to us that we would not be able to carry out the sentence."

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Republican state Sen. Ken Yager

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[sakabatou]

1. Because nothing says humane than a lethal dose of electricity

Was the electric chair ruled out because of how inhumane it is?

[Judi Lynn]

2. I thought it was, especially after the Florida guest of honor at "Big Sparky,"

Florida's infamous electric chair, caught fire with flames reaching above his head, even. Jesus H. Christ.

[Chakab]

3. Why stop there? There have been plenty of botched electrocutions.

Just build a guillotine, and be done with it.

[iandhr]

4. The Onion beat you to it.

http://www.theonion.com/video/ohio-replaces-lethal-injection-with-humane-new-hea,36077/

[Pharaoh]

6. That is funny......

But also kind of sad the way a state would not be humane.

[SoapBox]

5. Maybe they'll power it with solar and call it green!

[defacto7]

7. It's probably a ploy

to get legislation and judges off their back concerning lethal injection drugs. Or they're just stupid as hell.

Execution is for only one purpose: it's to shut up the voices that could implicate law enforcement and district attorneys in conviction of innocent people. There is no other logical reason.

Not all are innocent but many are. The death sentence and execution costs more, takes more working hours, there is absolutely no proof or even the appearance of proof that it deters crime. But most of all it's barbaric. It's also inhuman.. not for the executed, but for those who feel it's justified as well as those who are responsible for it's implementation and existence.

Sociopaths.

[jmowreader]

8. They only did it because no alternatives were open to them

"Dumping him on a dirt road in the Smokies wearing a REVENUER t-shirt" didn't work because we're quickly running out of moonshiners, and "staking him out behind the governor's brother's truck stop and letting a semi back over him" failed because every carrier in America teaches their drivers NOT to back over people staked to the ground.

[quadrature]

9. I am Pro-Choice ...

needle, electricity, noose, bullets

more choices, should cut down on appeals...

[Jefferson23]

12. You forgot the sarcasm thingie. n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

10. So much for "Thou Shall Not Kill." (Yeah, like the Bible thumpers even believe their own BS!)

[Jefferson23]

13. They disagree with their god, a lot. Thou shall be cruel and unusually so..more like it. n/t

[hunter]

11. They should pick a few dozen random death penalty supporters as test subjects.

That seems a lot fairer than the police and courts picking random innocent victims, frequently black, as often happens on death row.

[Turbineguy]

14. Being denied the ability to kill people,

even not very nice ones, is an affront to the GOP.

[L0oniX]

15. The electric power corporations are happy.

[Lionel Mandrake]

16. What's ironic is that almost every method of execution

was promulgated as more humane than its predecessor.

The French revolutionaries, in their logical way, preferred M. Guillotin's invention to other forms of beheading (e.g., with an axe or sword), which were often botched.

The electric chair was supposed to be kinder and gentler than hanging. The gas chamber kinder and gentler than the chair. And lethal injection -- the kindest and gentlest of all.