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| Electric Chair- A Tourist Attraction |
| By digtriad.com |
| Published: 03/27/2009 |
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Lincoln, NE (AP) Residents of a small southwest Nebraska town have a question for state officials: You're not doing anything with that old electric chair, are you? The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled last year that the state's use of the electric chair was unconstitutional because it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Some people in McCook - population just under 8,000 - think "Old Sparky" could be a tourist attraction and have offered to take it off the state's hands. Fifteen men were executed in the chair, which is housed about 210 miles east of McCook at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln. "If it's sitting somewhere collecting dust, we have a place for it," said Duane Tappe, who said the chair could bring thousands of tourists to the town every year. "My wife thinks it's a little - what's the word - macabre," said Tappe, who's involved in the city's Rotary Club and chamber of commerce. "But I would drive up the road to see it. I mean, I drove all the way to Cawker City, Kan., to see the (world's largest) ball of twine." Corrections department spokeswoman Connie Nemec says there are no immediate plans to move the chair, although she wasn't ruling out the possibility. It's still in the death chamber at the penitentiary. The electric chair became the state's sole means of execution in 1913, replacing hanging. Now, lethal injection appears poised to replace the chair, if a bill being considered by a legislative committee is approved. Eleven men are on the state's death row. The state's last execution was in 1997. Tappe floated the idea of bringing the chair to McCook to state Sen. Mike Christensen of Imperial, whose district includes McCook. Christensen is asking the state for the chair. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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