NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A trial date has been set for case seeking to allow the firing squad and other execution methods outside of lethal injection and the electric chair in Tennessee.
U.S. District Judge William Campbell scheduled the trial for April 2022.
Nearly two years ago, four death row inmates filed a complaint arguing that the state had several alternative execution methods that would “substantially reduce the constitutionally-unacceptable risk of inflicting unnecessary and serious pain” caused by electrocution.
Three of those inmates have since been executed by the electric chair, an option available in Tennessee for inmates whose crimes were committed before the state adopted lethal injection as its preferred execution method.
Nicholas Todd Sutton’s electrocution took place in February 2020, Stephen Michael West was electrocuted in August 2019, and David Earl Miller was electrocuted in December 2018.