10 December 2018 :

David Earl Miller was executed in the state’s electric chair. Miller, 61, White, a man with a significant history of mental illness who experienced extensive sexual and physical abuse as a child, opted to be executed by electric chair after the Tennessee Supreme Court denied other prisoners’ challenges to a three-drug lethal-injection process that Miller and his lawyers believed would result in an extended torturous death. Miller is the 2nd Tennessee prisoner to be killed by electrocution in as many months. Edmund Zagorski was executed in the electric chair in November. After going nearly a decade without an execution, Tennessee has now carried out 3 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville this year. Miller, the longest-serving prisoner on Tennessee's death row, had been awaiting death for nearly 37 years. The Tennessee prisoners challenged the state’s three-drug lethal-injection process, seeking to replace it with execution with a single barbiturate, pentobarbital. Miller presented evidence that the three-drug protocol would result in approximately 18 minutes of unnecessary pain and suffering. He submitted an affidavit from one of the nation’s leading anesthesiologists that Billy Ray Irick “was aware and sensate” during his lethal-injection execution on October 11, 2018 “and would have experienced the feeling of choking, drowning in his own fluids, suffocating, being buried alive, and the burning sensation caused by the injection of the potassium chloride.” The prisoners’ challenge was rejected because Miller—prevented from obtaining critical information by Tennessee’s execution secrecy law—was unable to show that pentobarbital was readily available to the state. Miller elected to be executed in the electric chair, but argued that his choice of electrocution instead of lethal injection was coerced and that both methods were unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. The lower courts ruled that Miller had waived his challenge to constitutionality of the electric chair by choosing it over lethal injection, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “electrocution can be a dreadful way to die,” but there was “credible scientific evidence that lethal injection as currently practiced in Tennessee may well be even worse.” It was “perverse,” she said, to require prisoners to prove that an alternative method was available to kill them. “Such madness should not continue.” Miller was charged with murdering his intellectually-disabled girlfriend, Lee Standifer, on May 20, 1981. He was 24 years old at the time. Miller’s attorneys submitted an 89-page clemency petition to Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam detailing Miller’s upbringing and childhood abuse. Miller becomes the 3rd inmate to be put to death this year in Tennessee and the 9th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 2000. Miller becomes the 23rd inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,488 overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. The 23 executions equals the total of executions carried out in the USA last year; there are executions scheduled in Texas (Dec. 11) and Florida (Dec. 13) next week.

02 November 2018 :

Edmund Zagorski was executed. Two minutes before the execution was set to begin at 7 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal from Zagorski on the grounds of the unconstitutionality of choosing between the electric chair and lethal injection. Zagorski sat in the wired chair as prison staff placed a wet sponge that had been soaked in saline solution, and metal helmet on his freshly shaved head. Zagorski raised his eyebrows, appearing to be communicating to his attorney, Kelley Henry. She said Zagorski smiled, to encourage her to smile back. Then his head was covered with a black shroud so the witnesses couldn't see his face as electricity jolted through his body. The warden gave the signal to proceed. Zagorski lifted his right hand several times in what looked like attempts at a wave, before he clenched his hands into fists as the first charge of 1,750 volts of electricity was sent through his body for 20 seconds. Henry said both pinkies appear to either be dislocated or broken due to the force with which he pulled against the straps. She also said there were signs that Zagorski was breathing during a short pause before the second jolt was administered for 15 seconds. Edmund George Zagorski, 64, White, was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murders of John Dale Dotson and Jimmy Porter. Prosecutors argued that Zagorski lured the two men into the woods, promising to sell them 100 kilograms of marijuana, and then shot them, slit their throats, and took their money. Before trial, Zagorski told his lawyers that if he was found guilty he'd prefer the death penalty, and he told them not to present any evidence that might persuade the jury to spare his life. His lawyers did not travel to his hometown in Michigan or investigate his family background beyond calling his mother. Once he was on death row, Zagorski decided to pursue appeals, arguing that police coerced him into confessing his involvement in the murder, and that prosecutors had withheld evidence that several other men were suspected of killing the victims. The families of Dotson and Porter have not spoken out in the media about their views. A new set of lawyers discovered that Zagorski's childhood was full of evidence that might have been submitted. His mother was impaired by a brain injury, he was exposed to drugs and alcohol at a young age, and this murder was his first conviction for a violent crime. But a series of judges decided that his original lawyers weren't ineffective, since Zagorski initially told them not to pursue this information. In 2010, a lawyer representing Zagorski pushed a British court (see Hands off Cain 29/11/2010) to ban the export of execution drugs from Britain, further arguing that his treatment amounted to a violation of international human rights that British authorities should heed. In 2014, he joined an American lawsuit by death row inmates contesting Tennessee's attempt to use the electric chair for executions. Zagorski was the 2^nd person executed in Tennessee this year, the 8th since Tennessee resumed executions in 2000, the 20^th person executed in the USA this year, and the n° 1.485 since US resumed executions in 1977. Zagorski was the 159th person executed by electrocution.

12 August 2018 :

Billy Ray Irick, 59, White, was executed. It was the first execution in the state since 2009. Over sharp dissents by justices of the U.S. and Tennessee Supreme Courts and lingering questions about the prisoner's history of mental illness and the efficacy of the state's lethal-injection protocol, Billy Ray Irick was executed. Irick was sentenced to death in Knox County on December 3, 1986 on charges of raping and murdering Paula Dyer, a 7-year-old girl on April 15, 1985. In the days leading up to the execution, the Tennessee Supreme Court and Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam rejected Irick's request for a stay or clemency. The state Supreme Court ruled on August 6 that Irick had failed to show his challenge to the execution protocol (as for the use of Midazolam) was likely to succeed on appeal, a requirement for the court to allow the lawsuit to proceed. Judge Sharon Lee dissented from the majority decision, writing, "The harm to Mr. Irick of an unconstitutional execution is irreparable. Yet the harm to the State from briefly delaying the execution until after appellate review is minimal, if any." Governor Bill Haslam declined to exercise his clemency power in Irick's case, saying that the judicial review of the case was "extremely thorough." The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor strongly dissented from that denial, writing, "In refusing to grant Irick a stay, the Court today turns a blind eye to a proven likelihood that the State of Tennessee is on the verge of inflicting several minutes of torturous pain on an inmate in its custody, while shrouding his suffering behind a veneer of paralysis. I cannot in good conscience join in this 'rush to execute' without first seeking every assurance that our precedent permits such a result. If the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we have stopped being a civilized nation and accepted barbarism." Federal public defender Kelley Henry said Irick exhibited signs of pulmonary edema during an execution that took more than twenty minutes. Henry said media witnesses had reported that “Mr. Irick ‘gulped for an extended period of time,’ was ‘choking,’ ‘gasping,’ ‘coughing,’ and that ‘his stomach was moving up and down.’ Witnesses described movement, including movement of the head, after the consciousness check. This means that the second and third drugs were administered even though Mr. Irick was not unconscious,” Henry said. Media reports indicated that the second and third drugs, a paralytic agent and potassium chloride, would cause a pain similar to drowning and being burned alive. Irick was the first person executed in Tennessee this year, the 7^th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 2000, the 15^th person executed this year in the USA, and the n. 1480 since the United States resumed executions in 1977.

20 October 2018 :

Ready to use electric chair for execution. Gov. Bill Haslam says the state is prepared to execute death row inmate Edmund Zagorski using the electric chair. Haslam told reporters he is not reconsidering granting Zagorski clemency despite issuing a 10-day reprieve last week that delayed the inmate's execution. Among the reasons Haslam handed down a reprieve was Zagorski's request to die in the electric chair as a quicker and less painful execution method than lethal injection. Haslam says the state has been ready to use the electric chair since Oct. 11 - the day of Zagorski's original execution. No new execution date has been set, but court documents indicate he could be executed as early as Oct. 28. Zagorski, 63, White, was sentenced to death on March 27, 1984 for killing two men (John Dale Dotson and Jimmy Porter) he robbed during a drug deal on April 23, 1983.

10 October 2018 :

Tennessee Supreme Court Tosses Lethal Injection Protest. Tennessee's execution method is not cruel and unusual, the state supreme court ruled Monday, 3 days before the state's next execution, because inmates challenging its 3-drug lethal injection protocol did not present a viable alternative. 27 death-row inmates claimed the execution protocol violates the Eighth Amendment because midazolam, a sedative, does not counteract the burning and suffocating effects of the next 2 drugs: vecuronium bromide, a paralytic, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. But in the 4-to-1 ruling Monday, Chief Justice Jeffrey Bivins wrote: "The Plaintiffs failed to carry their burden to establish that Tennessee's current 3-drug lethal injection protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution or article 1, section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution. As a result, we need not address the Plaintiffs' claim that the 3-drug protocol creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain." That burden, Bivins said, included offering a viable alternative, as laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Glossip v. Gross (2015), which unsuccessfully challenged Oklahoma's virtually identical execution protocol. The Tennessee inmates said at trial that the state could execute them through Tennessee's other execution protocol: 1 lethal dose of pentobarbital. Texas and Georgia executed people that way this year. But the Tennessee Supreme Court disagreed and sided with the state, which said it could not obtain pentobarbital. Many pharmaceutical companies refuse to provide the drug for executions. Bivins also ruled that the court could not "establish new law" by accepting the inmates' argument that Tennessee secrecy laws involving death penalty protocols affected their ability to argue their case. Tennessee in January adopted a lethal-injection protocol that begins with a 500-milligram dose of midazolam, followed by vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. 33 original plaintiffs sued the state in February and appealed the trial court’s dismissal in July. The state supreme court reached down to take up the case, and set an expedited briefing schedule.

12 March 2018 :

A Madison County jury has unanimously decided Urshawn Miller (29, Black) should be sentenced to death. Investigators say when Miller attempted to rob a market in Jackson on Nov. 25, 2015, he shot and killed 24 year old Ahmad Dhalai who was working at the store. Miller is also accused of shooting at another man who was in the store at the time. He will be back in court on April 16 for a 2nd sentencing on his remaining charges.