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| Georgia High Court Considers Electric Chair |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/23/2001 |
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Opponents of the electric chair told the Georgia Supreme Court recently that electrocution causes a lingering, disfiguring death and thereby violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 'We do not need burning flesh, disfigurement, cooking of the brain, the smell of burning flesh at 145 degrees Centigrade,' attorney Stephen Bright said. 'That might have been acceptable a few years ago ... but today the state has available lethal injection.' For 90 minutes in three cases, the court heard legal arguments and graphic details of how electricity kills. Lawyers arguing the cases clashed on whether those put to death in the electric chair experience pain. The court has indicated it is troubled by the continued use of electrocution in Georgia. State law provides an automatic switch to lethal injection if the court rules the electric chair illegal. Attorney Thomas West showed the court a photograph of Larry Lonchar, taken shortly after he was put to death in 1996 for killing three people to avoid paying a gambling debt. The electric chair's skullcap had seared a broad, red mark along his forehead. West said electrocution leaves burn marks on heads and ankles, where electrodes are connected, and on the feet and up the legs. Defense experts believe the condemned person is conscious for some period of time and experiences 'excruciating pain' during electrocution, Bright said. Susan Boleyn, an attorney for the state, insisted that the electricity produces 'instantaneous unconsciousness' and declared: 'Unequivocally there is no way a person being electrocuted is able to feel pain.' Georgia legislators have already decided that anyone sentenced to death for crimes committed after May 1, 2000, will be executed by injection. But those convicted of crimes committed earlier are to die by electrocution. One woman and 129 men are on Georgia's death row. Fifty-six people await trial for crimes committed before May 1, 2000, that could result in death sentences. In a ruling last October, the Georgia high court dismissed claims that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment but signaled it was troubled by use of the electric chair. Justice Norman Fletcher, now chief justice, wrote that some justices had 'grave concerns about the humaneness of electrocution' and would confront the issue if presented with 'sufficient' evidence. Alabama and Nebraska are the only states that use the electric chair as the only means of execution. |
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