Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill today that would permit the use of the electric chair in executions if the drug cocktail used in lethal injection is not available.
Companies that produce drugs used in lethal injections have been refusing to sell them to states for use in executions, leading for states to attempt different cocktails that are not nearly as efficient.
The electric chair was last used in Tennessee in 2007. Inmates sentenced to death for crimes committed prior to 1999 could request electrocution as a method of execution.
Tennessee isn't the only state considering alternative execution techniques. A member of the Utah House of Representatives recently proposed a bill that would bring back the option for a prisoner to request an execution via a firing squad.
Tennessee's next scheduled execution is of prisoner Billy Irick on October 7. Irick was sentenced to death for raping and murdering seven-year-old Paula Dyer in 1985.
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