Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 17, 2006 23:09:12 GMT -5
Builder of state's electric chair calls it a torture device
By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer
The possible use of the state's electric chair Tuesday is raising questions about whether the never-used device will work as it is intended.
The man who built the chair in 1989 is asking Gov. Phil Bredesen not to use it because he says it's been modified in such a way that it will torture Daryl Holton or anyone else put to death in it.
"What potentially could happen is terrible," said Fred Leuchter of Malden, Mass. "It's tantamount to somebody being burned at the stake."
But a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction said the chair was tested this week and was working properly and that the leading expert in the country on the device would be coming in before the execution.
That expert, an engineer from Fort Smith Ark., said he modified the device because it wasn't working properly in the first place.
The chair has been tested several times with results similar to those for other chairs in different states, said Jay Wiechert, the engineer who modified Leuchter's chair.
"We're dealing with a known here," Wiechert said of the chair.
Leuchter disagrees, citing a number of botched executions in Florida under similar conditions, and says the state won't be using enough voltage. Prison officials plan to use 1,750 volts and 7 amps to electrocute Holton, said Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter.
Leuchter has found himself at the center of controversy before. He testified on behalf of a Canadian man who denied that the Nazis killed several million Jews in the gas chambers in World War II, and he published a 1988 report saying he did not believe that mass executions took place in three camps in Poland.
Others also are raising questions about the chair.
"I would have a lot of questions about a method that hasn't been used in 40 years or so," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. The nonprofit organization compiles data on executions. "Who says it's in good working order and what are their credentials and what is it likely to do to the person in the chair?"
By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer
The possible use of the state's electric chair Tuesday is raising questions about whether the never-used device will work as it is intended.
The man who built the chair in 1989 is asking Gov. Phil Bredesen not to use it because he says it's been modified in such a way that it will torture Daryl Holton or anyone else put to death in it.
"What potentially could happen is terrible," said Fred Leuchter of Malden, Mass. "It's tantamount to somebody being burned at the stake."
But a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction said the chair was tested this week and was working properly and that the leading expert in the country on the device would be coming in before the execution.
That expert, an engineer from Fort Smith Ark., said he modified the device because it wasn't working properly in the first place.
The chair has been tested several times with results similar to those for other chairs in different states, said Jay Wiechert, the engineer who modified Leuchter's chair.
"We're dealing with a known here," Wiechert said of the chair.
Leuchter disagrees, citing a number of botched executions in Florida under similar conditions, and says the state won't be using enough voltage. Prison officials plan to use 1,750 volts and 7 amps to electrocute Holton, said Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter.
Leuchter has found himself at the center of controversy before. He testified on behalf of a Canadian man who denied that the Nazis killed several million Jews in the gas chambers in World War II, and he published a 1988 report saying he did not believe that mass executions took place in three camps in Poland.
Others also are raising questions about the chair.
"I would have a lot of questions about a method that hasn't been used in 40 years or so," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. The nonprofit organization compiles data on executions. "Who says it's in good working order and what are their credentials and what is it likely to do to the person in the chair?"