OL' SPARKY

Tennessee Brings Back the Electric Chair

If lethal injection drugs are unavailable.

On Thursday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed a bill approving the use of an electric chair for execution if drugs for lethal injection are unavailable. The state's current law allows inmates a choice between the electric chair or lethal injection if their crime was committed before 1999, but now Tennessee will be the only state to not give prisoners a choice in how they die. A recent poll shows that 56 percent of Tennesseans support using the electric chair for executions. A botched lethal injection that caused a death row inmate to die of a heart attack in Oklahoma last month and has sparked growing concern over the safety of the drugs used.