USA - Florida. Wayne Doty becomes state's 1st inmate to demand the electric chair.

Death row inmate Wayne Doty becomes state's 1st to demand the electric chair. For the 1st time in nearly 2 decades, a Florida inmate is demanding that he be put to death in the antiquated electric chair and not by a lethal injection method that has been repeatedly challenged in court. Wayne Doty, 42, White, has been on death row since 2011 after he killed a fellow inmate. In a state where condemned inmates often wait for decades to be executed, Doty wants to die immediately, in part to attain "spiritual freedom." "I think his goal is to get put to death as quickly as possible," said Sean Fisher, a private investigator in Gainesville who once worked for Doty. "I think he's nervous about lethal injection being found unconstitutional." Executions in Florida have been on hold for much of the past year because of lawsuits alleging that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment and thus unconstitutional. But the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld it, and the next execution is set for next Thursday, Oct. 30. Florida is 1 of 8 states, mostly in the South, that have kept the electric chair as a form of capital punishment. Tennessee reinstated it last year because of challenges to lethal injections. Florida's electric chair, cynically nicknamed "Ol' Sparky," has been idle for 16 years after a 2nd botched execution forced the Legislature and then-Gov. Jeb Bush to change the method. During the 1997 execution of Pedro Medina, a mask covering his face caught fire and filled the death chamber with smoke. At the 1999 execution of Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis, blood appeared as 2,300 volts of electricity coursed through his 350-pound body. The state Supreme Court temporarily halted executions but later ruled in a 4 to 3 decision that electrocution was not a form of cruel and unusual punishment. The state switched to a lethal injection of chemicals that sedate an inmate and stop the heart. But in changing the method of execution, Bush and the Legislature also gave inmates the one-time option of selecting electrocution. Doty is the 1st inmate to do so. In a handwritten affidavit, Doty wrote: "I'm invoking my right of free will to choose execution by electrocution due to confliction (sic) surrounding executions through lethal injection." Doty was sentenced to life in prison in 1997 for shooting his former employer Harvey Horne during a robbery in 1996. While he was serving this sentence at Florida State Prison in Raiford, in May 2011 Doty strangled and stabbed an inmate named Xavier Rodriguez, according to a Florida Supreme Court summary of the case. At his trial, Doty acted as his own lawyer, pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and was sentenced to die after a jury in Bradford County recommended the death penalty by a 10-2 vote. Gov. Rick Scott has not issued a death warrant, but Doty has waived his right to all appeals, and the Department of Corrections says his execution can be scheduled at any time. Doty signed his affidavit on Aug. 12, soon after the Florida Supreme Court upheld his death sentence after a mandatory review of his case. He said he did not want his guilt to be challenged again. "My decision on method of execution is a self-driven motive allowing the state of Florida to exercise their duly sworn duties to deliver my sentence in an expeditious manner," Doty wrote, "thus bringing peace to the victim's family as well as my spiritual freedom."