US halts injection execution of death row prisoner who wants electric chair
Tennessee is one of nine US states that still uses the electric chair for executions
A Tennessee man sentenced to death for a double murder won a last-minute appeal Wednesday to stop his execution by lethal injection, after insisting the state should use the electric chair.
Edmund Zagorski, 63, was sentenced to death in 1984 after slitting the throats of two men who had reneged on a promise to sell him drugs.
He asked to be put to death via the electric chair, but Tennessee’s prison authorities rejected the request.
Zagorski’s lawyers then launched an emergency appeal in federal court to demand the chair be used for the execution, which was scheduled for Thursday in Nashville.
But the appeal court on Wednesday said the execution must be stayed while his appeal is considered.
In Tennessee, people condemned to death before 1999 have the right to choose between the two methods of capital punishment.
