The execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, shown in this file photo, has a gurney used for lethal injections and an electric chair.NASHVILLE – Tennessee can lawfully use the electric chair in executions if lethal injection is stopped by the courts or because the state can’t get the drugs to carry out the sentence, the state attorney general said in a legal opinion this week.
Bob Cooper’s interpretation comes as state lawmakers consider a bill that would allow condemned prisoners to be electrocuted if lethal injection can’t be used. Tennessee and several other states are grappling about what do about executions because of a European-led boycott on sales of sedatives to American prisons and legal challenges to drugs made by compounding pharmacies.
Tennessee has not executed a prisoner since 2009. Part of the delay was because the state did not have one of the drugs used for the injection. Tennessee has since revised its lethal injection method to use only one drug – pentobarbital, a sedative commonly used to euthanize animals- but states are already exhausting their supplies of that drug.
The legal opinion was requested by Sen. Ken Yager, R-Harriman, and Rep. Dennis Powers, R-Jacksboro. Both have sponsored versions of the bill that would allow electrocution.
Messages left for both Yager and Powers were not immediately returned.