Electric Chair on its Last Legs
March 21 -- When Florida officials executed triple murderer Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis in July 1999, they feared the hefty man's 340-pound-body might crush the decades-old model.
So Florida built a new chair, and retired the depression-era Ol' Sparky.
But nearly two years after his execution, the ghost of Davis is still haunting electric chairs across the nation.
His death is prompting the latest debate on what was once America's leading method of execution, and leading the few remaining states that offer it to abolish it — or at least offer alternatives.
Davis' death was by all accounts as grisly as the crime he committed — the brutal beating of a young mother and her two daughters.
He was executed like most prisoners: wheeled into the death chamber, strapped in, with his face shrouded.
But then, right before the executioner threw the switch, Davis let out two unintelligible screams. The current slammed into his body, forcing his body to jerk back against the chair and at the straps binding him to the chair.
At that moment, a trickle of bright red blood fell from under the mask, on to the white shirt he was wearing.
The blood continued to flow, dripping onto the leather restraints and leaking through the holes for the buckle until it left what several witnesses said was a dinner plate-sized stain in the middle of his chest.
States Scramble
The stain has not been easily removed.
After the execution, a Florida Supreme Court judge posted the photographs of Davis' body on the court's Web site.
Such an firestorm erupted that several states passed laws giving their inmates a choice between the electric chair and lethal injection.
Inmates, aware of the apparent pain that comes with electrocution, now overwhelmingly opt for lethal injection.
Just this March, Georgia's state's supreme court stopped the execution of a double-murderer because it wanted to consider claims that the electric chair violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
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