Posted on: Tue Jul 22 1997
Original Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 20:47:34 -0700 (PDT)
Florida holds hearing on electric chair
>
> JACKSONVILLE, Fla., July 10 (UPI) - A Jacksonville court is hearing
> conflicting expert testimony on the constitutionality of Florida's
> electric chair.
>
> Attorneys for the state agency that defends death row inmates
> claim the botched, fiery execution of convicted killer Pedro Medina
> demonstrated that electrocution in the 74-year-old oaken chair
> constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
>
> Career medical examiners from New York and Chicago told the
> court that Medina was still alive for several minutes after the
> electricity was turned off in his March execution.
>
> Their comments were the first suggestions that death is not
> instant in the chair Florida uses to execute condemned killers.
>
> But Jonathan Arden, New York City's deputy chief medical
> examiner, testified that after the electrical surge was stopped
> Medina's eyes were fixed and dilated - an indication that he "most
> likely was not feeling pain."
>
> State officials plan to present their own expert witnesses who
> will insist that death was quick for Medina, despite the flames
> that shot from his face mask.
>
> Presiding Circuit Judge A.J. Soud determined in April that the
> chair was fixed after the Medina execution and that future
> executions would be constitutional.
>
> But the Florida Supreme Court subsequently kicked the case back
> to Soud, saying he did not let lawyers for death row inmate Leo
> Jones call expert witnesses.
>
> Jones was scheduled to be executed April 15 for the 1981 slaying
> of a Jacksonville police officer, but was granted a stay after
> Medina's controversial electrocution. --
> Copyright 1997 by United Press International.
>
> All rights reserved. --
>
> {UPI:News-0710.121} 7/10/97
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Keywords: death-penalty