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Article: FOCUS: THE ELECTRIC CHAIR FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT WILL CONSIDER WHETHER ELECTROCUTION CONSTITUTES CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT. THE OUTCOME COULD REACH BEYOND USE OF THE ELECTRIC CHAIR TO OTHER FORMS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AS WELL.(FRONT)
- Article from:
- The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA)
- Article date:
- November 1, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The Virginian Pilot-Ledger Star. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: FROM WIRE REPORTS
When the electric chair was invented, it was extolled as the quickest, most painless death stroke that modern science could bestow.
Now more than a century later, lethal injection has assumed that role, and the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review for the first time whether electrocution amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
Justices agreed last week to consider an appeal brought by Anthony Braden Bryan, a convicted murderer who was within hours of dying in the chair at Florida State Prison.
``The procedure is fraught with an intolerable, uncontrollable risk of torturous results and will therefore also ...