{"id":188460,"date":"2018-11-06T01:38:17","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T06:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=188460"},"modified":"2018-11-06T01:38:17","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T06:38:17","slug":"tennessee-death-row-inmates-ask-firing-squad-used","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/06\/tennessee-death-row-inmates-ask-firing-squad-used\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee death row inmates ask to have firing squad used"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The four inmates named in the lawsuit include David Earl Miller, who is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 6 and is the longest-standing death row inmate in Tennessee. (Pixabay Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASHVILLE \u2014 Four Tennessee death row inmates are asking a federal court to allow them to have a firing squad used as an execution method.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed Friday, a day after Edmund Zagorski was executed at a Tennessee maximum security prison using the electric chair. Zagorski’s attorneys argued the method was more humane than selecting lethal injection because it would take a shorter amount of time for the inmate to die. It was the first electrocution the state had conducted since 2007.<\/p>\n

The four inmates named in the lawsuit include David Earl Miller, who is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 6 and is the longest-standing death row inmate in Tennessee.<\/p>\n

Miller was sentenced to death in 1981 for the rape and murder of 23-year-old Lee Standifer, who was mentally handicapped, in Knoxville.<\/p>\n

Miller will be asked Tuesday to choose his execution method. The lawsuit seeks to delay that decision until a federal judge can review their case, as well as delay his execution.<\/p>\n

“There exists one or more feasible and readily-available alternative methods of execution which substantially reduce the constitutionally-unacceptable risk of inflicting unnecessary and serious pain created by the use of electrocution to carry out Plaintiffs’ executions,” wrote Stephen Kissinger, a federal public defender representing the inmates.<\/p>\n

The suit adds that the state already has the trained personnel, firearms and space to allow for a firing squad. However, if the court disagrees, the suit also asks for permission to use other alternatives such as orally administering lethal drugs over using a needle, or using different forms of drugs.<\/p>\n

“Because lethal injection is the default method of execution, plaintiffs must elect electrocution in order to avoid a harsher punishment than the punishment provided by law at the time of the crimes,” Kissinger wrote.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit goes on to argue that if an inmate chooses electrocution, inmates “may forfeit the right to challenge the constitutionality of electrocution under the Eighth Amendment.”<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the Department of Correction said it would be “improper” to provide a comment with the lawsuit still pending.<\/p>\n

Other inmates listed in the lawsuit include Nicholas Todd Sutton, Stephen Michael West and Terry Lynn King.<\/p>\n

Miller, Sutton and West had filed a similar lawsuit earlier this year pushing for alternatives to Tennessee’s lethal injection method but eventually voluntarily dismissed their case due to other challenges to the state’s execution procedures.<\/p>\n

The last time a firing squad was used in the U.S. was in 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by a firing squad in Utah for the 1984 murder of attorney Michael Burdell during a failed courthouse escape.<\/p>\n

Today, just three states \u2014 Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah \u2014 continue to allow the use of firing squads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASHVILLE \u2014 Four Tennessee death row inmates are asking a federal court to allow them to have a firing squad …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":180519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-kimberlee-kruesi","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}