Electric Chair on its Last Legs

March 21, 2001 -- 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.

That means there are effectively only two states where the chair is still in use — the only two states which do not offer inmates alternatives — Nebraska and Alabama.

But they are considering changes to lethal injection as well.

A Slide Towards Abolition?

The electric chair imminent demise is almost universally recognized now — but opinions differ on the implications of the change.

Michael Rondelet, a social sciences professor at the University of Florida, said concerns about the cruelty of the electric chair are like the concerns that made hanging less popular — and that it might lead to the end of the death penalty altogether.

The electric chair "is going to go the way of burning at the stake or sawing a person in half," he said. And twenty years from now, he said, our children may be debating the cruelty of lethal injection, if they don't abolish the death penalty altogether.

John McAdams, a political science professor at Marquette University in Wisconsin, disagreed. The change means nothing to the future of the death penalty, he said. "It's just a change in fashion."

McAdams pointed out hangings and firing squads are still in use.As recently as 1996, Delaware hanged convicted double-murderer Billy Bailey.

If the increasing popularity of lethal injection "does anything at all, it legitimizes the death penalty by making it antiseptic, modern, high-tech," said McAdams.

However, Craig Brandon, author of "The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History," said the electric chair is a unique case, because the machinery is growing decrepit, and few people know how to use the chair anymore.

He added that the more unusual executions that have taken place in recent years were at the request of the prisoner — and few are going to opt for a likely painful death in a poorly maintained electric chair.

Every state that has given up on the electric chair, Brandon said, "not a single one has ever gone back."