Ala. OKs Use of Lethal Injection
Gov. Donald Siegelman signed a law Thursday making lethal injection the primary method of execution in Alabama, leaving Nebraska as the only state exclusively using the electric chair.
Beginning July 1, condemned inmates in Alabama will die by injection unless they choose the electric chair.
Siegelman said the change was a precaution in case the Supreme Court rules the electric chair is cruel and unusual punishment. Prosecutors backed the change.
The Supreme Court this month blocked the execution of Alabama death row inmate Gary Leon Brown, convicted of stabbing a man to death in 1987. His appeal contended, in part, that the electric chair is cruel and unusual.
Alabama’s electric chair was last used in June 2000.
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