Florida Tests Electric Chair on Dummy
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STARKE, Fla. — A makeshift inmate--made up of a metal colander to represent a human head, a vat of saline solution for the body and a piece of pipe as a leg--was jolted with current in Florida’s electric chair Monday.
The experiment was a state-ordered test to show the chair works correctly and that the botched execution of Jesse Tafero was probably caused by a synthetic sponge.
“The electric chair works as it is supposed to,” said Mike Morse, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Auburn University.
The test was carried out in the death chamber at Florida State Prison in front of journalists, state officials, representatives of the General Electric Co. and officials of corrections departments from Virginia and South Carolina.
But lawyers who represent Death Row inmates in Florida said they were unimpressed and would continue appeals based on arguments that the chair will torture some future inmate strapped into it.
The test was ordered by Gov. Bob Martinez after the botched May 4 electrocution of Tafero.
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