Florida Electric Chair Death Penalty? Inmate Wayne Doty Demands Alternative To Lethal Injection

Florida death row inmate Wayne Doty doesn’t want to die by lethal injection. Instead, he wants to be put to death in an electric chair. Doty, 42, is the first inmate to ask for the chair, and in Florida, that is his right, the Miami Herald reported.

For years, Florida used its infamous electric chair nicknamed “Ol’ Sparky” to carry out executions until a series of botched attempts in the 1990s. During a 1997 execution, the mask of prisoner Pedro Medina caught fire, and during the 1999 execution of Allen Lee “Tiny” Davis, blood appeared on the face and shirt of the convicted murderer.

The Supreme Court stepped in after the second misstep and halted all executions until it could render a decision on whether it was cruel and unusual. The court eventually ruled that death at the electric chair wasn’t unconstitutional, but Florida switched its primary execution method to lethal injection. The state, however, kept the option open for the electric chair.

Doty wants to die very quickly, partly to attain spiritual freedom, he said, according to the Herald. McKinley Lewis of the Florida Department of Corrections has said the department is reviewing the request. Doty was sentenced to death for killing another inmate while serving a life sentence in prison for shooting a night watchman in 1996.

“My decision on method of execution is a self-driven motive allowing the state of Florida to exercise their duly sworn duties to deliver my sentence in an expeditious manner, thus bringing peace to the victim's family as well as my spiritual freedom,” Doty wrote in an affidavit, according to the Daily Mail.

In the past year, some have questioned whether death by lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. In 2014, Oklahoma inmate Clayton Locket writhed and groaned on a gurney during his execution by lethal injection, dying 43 minutes after being given the first in a series of drugs used in lethal injections.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the three-drug method in lethal injections was not cruel and unusual in a June 5-4 decision.