I was a medical expert in three separate execution cases in Tennessee over the past 10 years. In each instance, the prisoner elected to die by the electric chair instead of by lethal injection.
Jesus fucking Christ! If you don't understand my stupefaction and exasperation, read this afticle of an eyewitness account of what the author said should be the last execution by electric chair in Tennessee. I have nightmares of this macbre scene, years after reading about Holton there and in the NYT. Or, refer to Gawande's piece in the NEJM a generation ago. Or, read Sarat's book "When The State Kills" and gaze at the photos of Davis if you have the stomach for it.
I start from the position of asking what method I would choose if the state were to kill me. Lethal injection, hands down, through a central catheter (venous or arterial), or a peripheral IV if they must. Next I would choose nitrogen gas hypoxia, and the reasons for that I will not elaborate here as it will take me too far afield. The electric chair I would avoid at all costs, in part because of the sheer terror it strikes in the heart of any reasonable man who ponders the prospect. Indeed "the chair" has been used as an instrument of terror. That article quotes Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth after Pedro Medina caught on fire in the chair (that case or the earlier Jose Tafero was probably the "inspiration" behind the movie The Green Mile):
''People who wish to commit murder, they better not do it in the state of Florida because we may have a problem with our electric chair."
