On July 8, Florida executed Allen Lee Davis, the first...

On July 8, Florida executed Allen Lee Davis, the first man to die in the new electric chair. But blood poured from the mouth and oozed from the chest of Davis as he was hit with 2,300 volts at 7:10 a.m. By the time he was pronounced dead at 7:15 a.m., the blood from his mouth had poured out onto the collar of his white shirt, and the blood on his chest had spread to about the size of a dinner plate, even oozing through the buckle holes on the leather chest strap holding him to the chair. Davis, a 350-pound man whose lawyers said the electric chair couldn't handle his weight, was brought into the death chamber in a wheelchair. Two prison officers helped him into the electric chair shortly after 7 a.m., and he was strapped in, his head covered with a thick chin strap and leather flap. Two muffled screams were heard from Davis just before the executioner threw the switch. Davis jolted back into the chair and clenched his fist, a sight common to Florida executions. Then he started to bleed.