[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENNESSEE

[Rick Halperin]

October 10



TENNESSEE----impending execution


Zagorski Argues for Right to Choose Electrocution as Execution Looms

Condemned inmate files challenge in federal court as state says it's too late 
for him to choose the electric chair


Edmund Zagorski, the man set to be executed by the state of Tennessee in less 
than 36 hours, has filed a legal challenge in federal court arguing that if the 
state is going to kill him tomorrow, they must honor his request that they do 
so using the electric chair.

Tennessee prisoners who were sentenced to death before Jan 1. 1999 — when the 
state moved away from the chair and made lethal injection its primary method of 
execution — are allowed to choose the method of their execution. Zagorski, who 
was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murders of two men who had met him to 
buy drugs, is one of those prisoners. And on Monday evening, he signed a 
document indicating that he preferred to be executed by electrocution, rather 
than with the state's three-drug lethal injection protocol. Dozens of death row 
prisoners, including Zagorski, have been arguing that the protocol amounts to 
torture (and medical experts have agreed with them). A Nashville judge and the 
Tennessee Supreme Court have upheld the protocol as constitutional, and the 
inmates are now seeking to bring their challenge before the Supreme Court of 
the United States.

In the affidavit stating his preference for the electric chair, Zagorski said 
that he believes the electric chair and Tennessee's lethal injection protocol 
amount to cruel and unusual punishment. However, if he was forced to choose, he 
said he chose electrocution. His attorney, Kelley Henry, told the Scene that 
the chair was "the lesser of two evils."

Soon after Henry submitted the affidavit, though, state officials said it was 
too late for Zagorski to choose the electric chair. In a letter sent to Henry 
yesterday, the Tennessee Department of Correction's general counsel, Debra 
Inglis, says that the department must receive such an affidavit two weeks prior 
to an execution. She cites a 2015 Tennessee Supreme Court ruling that indicates 
the department can't undertake any "last-minute switch from lethal injection to 
electrocution."

"As a result," Inglis writes, "please be advised that ... Mr. Zagorski's 
execution scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018, will be carried out using a 
three-drug combination consisting of Midazolam, Vecuronium Bromide, and 
Potassium Chloride."

In a motion filed in federal court today, Henry writes: "Secrecy, evasiveness, 
and a rush to execute on the part of State actors have forced Edmund Zagorski 
to make a terrible choice: either allow the state to subject him to an 
execution by lethal injection where the evidence establishes the last 10-18 
minutes of his life will be spent in utter terror and agony, or request to be 
electrocuted which will end his life by burning his organs causing his body to 
be mutilated and experiencing excruciating pain for (likely) 15-30 seconds. 
Trite literary metaphors like "Catch-22," "Hobson's Choice," or "between a rock 
and a hard place" are inadequate to capture the horribleness of the position 
the State has placed him in."

Henry goes on to argue that Zagorski "has an absolute right to choose 
electrocution" and that the state "can easily conduct and execution by electric 
chair."

"The prison practices the electrocution protocol every month," Henry writes. 
"The electric chair is examined by an electrician every year. The idea that the 
chamber requires two weeks for reconfiguration is ludicrous. Unless the prison 
loses power, they can carry out an electrocution. It is simply one final 
indignity to force Mr. Zagorski to submit to 10-18 minutes of torture."

Along with asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case against Tennessee's 
lethal injection protocol, Zagorski is also seeking a stay of execution from 
the high court. Gov. Bill Haslam has said he will not intervene to stop the 
execution.

The TDOC announced this afternoon that Zagorski has decided to forego his final 
meal.

According to a media release: "Should he change his mind and want to have 
dinner, his meal will be the same as the one provided to the other inmates at 
Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. This dinner will consist of sloppy 
joes, a wheat roll, pinto beans, cole slaw, a sugar cookie, and iced tea."

(source: Nashville Scene)