Zagorski was sentenced to death in 1984 for killing two men he robbed during a drug deal. The execution has been rescheduled for Nov. 11, but Governor Bill Haslam granted Zagorski a temporary reprieve, in part so the state could make sure its electric chair was able to be used properly. Zagorski was originally set to be executed Oct.
Zagorski’s skin from his skull, boils his blood and fails to promptly stop his heart and brain function.” In the new lawsuit, Zagorski’s attorney argues that Tennessee’s electric chair is “incompetently designed,” and that Zagorski will suffer as it “burns Mr. Zagorski’s attorney claims both forms of execution are unconstitutional, as was the choice Zagorski had to make in selecting how he wants to die, from between two choices that Zagorski’s attorney says are cruel and unusual.īut several courts have already ruled that Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol is in fact constitutional, in part because several inmates claiming otherwise couldn't prove that an alternative to the state’s lethal injection method exists in Tennessee. In this latest lawsuit, Zagorski’s attorney Kelley Henry claims the state’s method of execution by electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment and “utterly barbaric,” despite Zagorski selecting the electric chair over lethal injection – a choice that Henry has described as the lesser of two evils. Attorneys for death row inmate Edmund Zagorski filed yet another suit in federal court Friday in what is likely among one of his final options to stop his upcoming death penalty, set to be carried out in the electric chair on Thursday.