Tennessee inmate asks for electrocution after court ruling
NASHVILLE — A Tennessee inmate set to be executed this week is asking the state to die by electric chair over lethal injection, calling the move the “lesser of two evils.”
Attorney Kelley Henry confirmed Monday that Edmund Zagorski made the request roughly two hours before the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled the state’s three-drug lethal injection protocol is constitutional. The decision paved the way for the execution of Zagorski on Thursday.
“Faced with the choice of two unconstitutional methods of execution, Mr. Zagorski has indicated that if his execution is to move forward, he believes that the electric chair is the lesser of two evils,” said Henry in an emailed statement. “10-18 minutes of drowning, suffocation, and chemical burning is unspeakable.”
A spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Corrections did not immediately return a request for comment Monday evening.