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Senate probably won't consider other execution methods TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Unless the electric chair is found unconstitutional, state lawmakers aren't likely to vote on a bill to give death row inmates the option of lethal injection, a key senator said.
Sen. Al Gutman, chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, said he might change his mind if he gets information that providing another option could speed up capital punishment.
``But right now, that's not an issue,'' Gutman, R-Miami, said Wednesday.
Gutman said he would set aside time for the panel to discuss the issue more at its next meeting but that he didn't think it was something ``the committee needs to move on right now.''
In March, the last time Florida's electric chair was used, flames up to a foot long shot from behind the mask inmate Pedro Medina was wearing. It was the second time fire marked an electrocution in the last seven years.
Two executions scheduled to take place a few weeks after Medina's have been delayed indefinitely. The state Supreme Court is reviewing the decision of a trial judge who said death in the 74-year-old chair is not cruel and unusual punishment.
In the days following Medina's execution, Attorney General Bob Butterworth proposed that the state require lethal injection for new death row inmates and let the 380 killers already on death row choose between injection or electrocution.
But leading lawmakers brushed the idea aside, saying they feared a change would lead to appeals and more delays.
Since then, the Florida Corrections Commission, an advisory panel, has backed lethal injection and two senators and one House member have filed bills for the 1998 legislative session to allow lethal injection.
Gov. Lawton Chiles said Wednesday he remains satisfied that the electric chair is as humane a method of execution as any.
``If the Legislature wants to change that, they can do it,'' he said. ``The court may now knock it out too. I'm satisfied that there are not major problems with the performance of the chair.''
Senate Majority Leader Locke Burt, a committee member, pointed out that some inmates are sentenced to death by legal execution and some are sentenced to death by electrocution.
Leo Jones was sentenced to death by electrocution for the 1981 shooting of Jacksonville Officer Thomas J. Szafranski as he sat in his squad car at an intersection. Jones is next in line for electrocution.
``What I don't want to have happen is the lawyers at CCR turn it around and say `Well, see they've all agreed that it was cruel and unusual and therefore guys like Leo Jones shouldn't be put to death,''' Burt said.
CCR stands for the office of Capital Collateral Representative, the state agency assigned to file appeals for death row inmates. CCR was split up this summer into three regional Capital Collateral Regional Counsels.
Burt said the issue isn't political because 85 percent of Floridians support the death penalty.
``Most of my constituents say `Well, you ought to do to the guy what he did to his victim. So if you stabbed, stab them. If you drown them, drown them.''
Copyright 1997 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
