Old Sparky Stays On Death Row

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal that claimed electrocution is a cruel and archaic way to carry out the death penalty.

Justices dismissed arguments by convicted child killer Eduardo Lopez that death by electrocution violates "evolving standards of decency." Of the 38 states with capital punishment only four (Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Nebraska) require execution by electrocution. All the others provide the condemned with at least one alternative.

In 1997 Florida officials imposed a one-year moratorium on executions after conducting sponges in the chair's headpiece caught fire during Pedro Medina's electrocution. After the switch was thrown, flames and smoke rose from a mask covering the head of the convicted murderer. An autopsy later found that Medina died instantly and had not suffered any pain from the fire.

Lawyers for Lopez based their appeal on the assertion that Florida "continues to botch executions, fails to follow the protocol established after Mr. Medina was burned alive in the electric chair, and mutilates the bodies of condemned inmates in the electric chair."

Pending the outcome of the appeal, the Florida Legislature voted last year to continue to use the 74-year-old electric chair, nicknamed "Old Sparky," as the state's only means of execution.