Tennessee Inmate Executed After Choosing The Electric Chair

Edmund Zagorski was executed by electric chair Thursday in a Nashville, Tenn., prison after challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection drugs and then choosing instead to die by electrocution.

When asked whether he had any last words, Zagorski, 63, simply replied, “Let’s rock.”

Zagorksi was the first man executed in the electric chair in Tennessee since 2007. He had been convicted in April 1983 of murdering two men — robbing them and slitting their throats during a drug deal.

His execution came after a flurry of legal maneuvering in recent weeks to delay the action. The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday night rejected an appeal to halt the execution. Zagorski had asked the high court to consider whether it was unconstitutional to force him to choose between lethal injection and lethal injection.

34 years on death row. Another inmate, 61-year-old David Earl Miller, has been there 37 years. He is scheduled for execution in December.