September 24, 1999
Web posted at: 7:44 p.m. EDT (2344 GMT)

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AP) -- Two months after a horrific state execution that sent blood spurting down the condemned man's chest, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Friday that the electric chair is not cruel or unusual punishment.

It was the third time the court has upheld the state's use of electrocution this decade. It issued similar rulings after flames shot from the chair's headpiece during executions in 1990 and 1997.

"The record in this case reveals abundant evidence that execution by electrocution renders an inmate instantaneously unconscious, thereby making it impossible to feel pain," the court wrote in its 4-3 decision Friday.

However, Chief Justice Major Harding urged lawmakers to consider offering condemned killers an alternative method of execution, such as lethal injection.

Of the 38 states with capital punishment, only Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Nebraska use the electric chair as their sole execution method.

The challenge to Florida's use of the electric chair was brought by death row inmate Thomas Provenzano, who was scheduled to die in the electric chair Friday for the 1984 murder of an Orlando court bailiff. Provenzano's execution was delayed for a second hearing on his sanity.

The focus of his challenge was the bloody execution in July of Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis. Doctors determined that the blood seen flowing from Davis' collar and down his chest during the execution came from a nosebleed, but the descriptions from witnesses drew wide public criticism.

Lawyer Martin McClain, who argued the case for Provenzano, said there was "good reason" to appeal the court's decision to uphold electrocution to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"This isn't going away," McClain said. "It is going to come up again, perhaps in every execution."

In a dissenting opinion Friday, Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw wrote: "The color photos of Davis depict a man who -- for all appearances -- was brutally tortured to death.

"Violence begets violence, and each of these deaths was a barbaric spectacle played by the state of Florida on the world stage."

Gov. Jeb Bush called the court ruling a "resounding victory for all Floridians, especially those who have been victimized by the cruel and malicious acts of those inmates on death row."

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