Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 17, 2006 23:05:30 GMT -5
Tenn. Prisoner Set for Electrocution
Daryl Keith Holton Set to Become 1st Prisoner to Die in Tenn. Electric Chair in 46 Yeas
Confessed murderer Daryl Keith Holton gets his way, on Tuesday he will
become the 1st prisoner to die in Tennessee's electric chair in 46 years.
Holton, who confessed to murdering his three young sons and his ex-wife's
daughter within hours of shooting them to death with a semiautomatic
assault rifle, is scheduled to be executed because he quit appealing his
death sentence. He also chose the electric chair over the state's
preferred method of lethal injection.
Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction,
said even though the state has not used the electric chair to carry out an
execution in decades, staff members at the Riverbend Maximum Security
Institution in Nashville are trained in using the chair and ready to carry
out the execution.
From 1916 until 1960, 125 people were executed by electrocution in
Tennessee. In 2000, lethal injection replaced electrocution as the primary
method of execution, according to the Department of Correction.
Under Tennessee law, death row inmates can choose between the electric
chair and lethal injection if their crimes were committed before 1999.
Stephen Ferrell, Holton's federal public defender, is trying to get the
federal courts to stop the execution on the grounds that Holton isn't
mentally competent. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to
rule Monday on a request for a stay.
Ferrell also is appealing a ruling earlier this month from a federal judge
in Knoxville that Holton's case didn't merit a full evidentiary hearing on
his competency.
Ferrell says attorney-client privilege forbids him from talking about why
Holton chose the electric chair.
9 states allow some or all condemned inmates to choose between lethal
injection and another execution method, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center. Ten states have the electric chair but only Nebraska
uses it exclusively.
Virginia inmate Brandon Hedrick, 27, chose to die in the electric chair in
July, the first execution by that means in more than 2 years.
The last time the electric chair was used in Tennessee was Nov. 7, 1960,
when inmate William Tines was executed for rape. Tennessee did not execute
another inmate until Robert Glen Coe by lethal injection in 2000.
John Webster, a professor at the department of biomedical engineering at
University of Wisconsin-Madison, says many states have stopped using the
electric chair because it's more controversial and gruesome than lethal
injection.
"It's disfiguring. The family will end up with the body and frequently
find burns on the scalp, leg and neck," Webster said. For witnesses "it's
unpleasant to see someone shocked and responding to a shock. The odor and
the air smells of burning pork."
On Nov. 30, 1997, Holton told the 4 children Steven, 12, Eric, 6, Brent,
10, and their half-sister Kayla, 4 that they were going Christmas
shopping. Nearly 5 hours later, Holton walked into the Shelbyville Police
department and said he had lined up the children at his uncle's auto
repair garage and shot them.
Holton, 44, turned himself in after he went looking for his former wife
and her boyfriend but couldn't find them. He was found guilty in 1999 of 4
counts of 1st-degree murder.
Holton says suffered from severe depression when he committed the murders.
His lawyers maintain Holton has a long history of mental illness and may
suffer from post traumatic stress disorder from his military service in
the 1991 Gulf War.
(source: Associated Press)
Daryl Keith Holton Set to Become 1st Prisoner to Die in Tenn. Electric Chair in 46 Yeas
Confessed murderer Daryl Keith Holton gets his way, on Tuesday he will
become the 1st prisoner to die in Tennessee's electric chair in 46 years.
Holton, who confessed to murdering his three young sons and his ex-wife's
daughter within hours of shooting them to death with a semiautomatic
assault rifle, is scheduled to be executed because he quit appealing his
death sentence. He also chose the electric chair over the state's
preferred method of lethal injection.
Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction,
said even though the state has not used the electric chair to carry out an
execution in decades, staff members at the Riverbend Maximum Security
Institution in Nashville are trained in using the chair and ready to carry
out the execution.
From 1916 until 1960, 125 people were executed by electrocution in
Tennessee. In 2000, lethal injection replaced electrocution as the primary
method of execution, according to the Department of Correction.
Under Tennessee law, death row inmates can choose between the electric
chair and lethal injection if their crimes were committed before 1999.
Stephen Ferrell, Holton's federal public defender, is trying to get the
federal courts to stop the execution on the grounds that Holton isn't
mentally competent. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to
rule Monday on a request for a stay.
Ferrell also is appealing a ruling earlier this month from a federal judge
in Knoxville that Holton's case didn't merit a full evidentiary hearing on
his competency.
Ferrell says attorney-client privilege forbids him from talking about why
Holton chose the electric chair.
9 states allow some or all condemned inmates to choose between lethal
injection and another execution method, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center. Ten states have the electric chair but only Nebraska
uses it exclusively.
Virginia inmate Brandon Hedrick, 27, chose to die in the electric chair in
July, the first execution by that means in more than 2 years.
The last time the electric chair was used in Tennessee was Nov. 7, 1960,
when inmate William Tines was executed for rape. Tennessee did not execute
another inmate until Robert Glen Coe by lethal injection in 2000.
John Webster, a professor at the department of biomedical engineering at
University of Wisconsin-Madison, says many states have stopped using the
electric chair because it's more controversial and gruesome than lethal
injection.
"It's disfiguring. The family will end up with the body and frequently
find burns on the scalp, leg and neck," Webster said. For witnesses "it's
unpleasant to see someone shocked and responding to a shock. The odor and
the air smells of burning pork."
On Nov. 30, 1997, Holton told the 4 children Steven, 12, Eric, 6, Brent,
10, and their half-sister Kayla, 4 that they were going Christmas
shopping. Nearly 5 hours later, Holton walked into the Shelbyville Police
department and said he had lined up the children at his uncle's auto
repair garage and shot them.
Holton, 44, turned himself in after he went looking for his former wife
and her boyfriend but couldn't find them. He was found guilty in 1999 of 4
counts of 1st-degree murder.
Holton says suffered from severe depression when he committed the murders.
His lawyers maintain Holton has a long history of mental illness and may
suffer from post traumatic stress disorder from his military service in
the 1991 Gulf War.
(source: Associated Press)