After more than a year of delays, a trial challenging Tennessee's method for executing prisoners has begun.
Steve Kissinger represents 33 death row inmates who say lethal injection is unconstitutional. In opening statements, Kissinger said the state's use of prison guards to inject the drug creates a substantial risk that it will be administered incorrectly and cause extreme pain.
Assistant Attorney General Scott Sutherland countered that the U.S. Supreme Court has said inmates aren't guaranteed a painless death. Sutherland says the execution method is cruel and unusual only if it involves things such as torture or the deliberate infliction of pain.
Tennessee has yet to carry out an execution using the questionable drug. But Sutherland says Texas, Ohio and Georgia have carried out more than 30 successful and painless executions with the drug.
The lawsuit is one of several challenges to various execution protocols nationwide.
Execution methods in Tennessee (Brief History from TN Dept. of Corrections)
Capital punishment has existed in Tennessee off and on throughout its history, although the methods have changed. Prior to 1913, the method of execution was hanging and there are few records of those executed by this method. Electrocution became the method of execution in 1916 after a two-year hiatus from the death penalty from 1913-1915. Then there was a period in the state when death row was empty. From 1972 until 1978, there were no offenders sentenced to death in Tennessee because of the U.S. Supreme Court declaring it unconstitutional. When the death penalty became legal in the state again in 1978, those offenders sitting on death row from 1960 to 1978 had their sentenced commuted mostly to life.
In 1998, the state legislature added lethal injection giving those offenders committing their crimes before January 1, 1999 the choice of electrocution or lethal injection. Legislation enacted in March 2000 specifies lethal injection as the primary method of execution. Offenders who committed their offense and were sentenced to death prior to January 1, 1999 may request electrocution.
When capital punishment was reinstated in 1916, records were kept of those sentenced to death by the warden in an "official ledger" that accounted the name, crime, and the time of death of the 125 executed in Tennessee. From 1916 to 1960, all executions took place at the Tennessee State Penitentiary located in Nashville. Tennessee's first execution in nearly 40 years took place April 19, 2000 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where Robert Glen Coe was executed by lethal injection.
On February 1, 2007 Governor Bredesen issued an executive order directing the TDOC to review the manner in which the death penalty is administered. All executions were put on hold. On April 30, the department delivered revised death penalty protocols to Governor Bredesen. The moratorium was lifted on May 2, 2007.
On September 12, 2007 Daryl Keith Holton became the first person to be executed by electrocution since 1960.
Source:
Partner Station WMSR
TN Dept. of Corrections
