Bring Back Guillotine, Official Suggests
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Florida lawmaker has suggested beheading as an alternative method of execution in the wake of a gruesome electrocution, a newspaper reported Friday.
State Rep. Victor Crist said he was considering legislation that would offer inmates a choice of execution styles, including the electric chair, the gas chamber, lethal injection, the firing squad or the guillotine, the St. Petersburg Times reported.
“You laugh,” the Times quoted Crist as saying. “But if you really want the least painful, most accurate method, it would be the guillotine.”
Crist, a Temple Terrace Republican, is chairman of the House Justice Council.
His fellow legislators seemed disinclined to go along with his suggestion, the newspaper said.
Crist’s comments came in the wake of Tuesday’s execution of convicted killer Pedro Medina. Flames leaped from the inmate’s head when the switch on Florida’s electric chair was thrown.
It was the second time in Florida that such an incident had occurred.
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