The Tennessean

TENNESSEE: Electric chair pick of inmate

Death row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman has chosen to be electrocuted, rather than die by lethal injection, if his execution proceeds as scheduled on April 10.

Abdur'Rahman chose the electric chair March 4, several weeks after Riverbend prison Warden Ricky Bell asked him to pick a method of execution, Correction Department spokesman Steve Hayes said yesterday.

 The paperwork that Abdur'Rahman signed states, "You will NOT be given another opportunity to make a choice of method of execution."

 But one of Abdur'Rahman's lawyers said yesterday that he hopes prison officials will allow the inmate to reconsider his decision.

 "We suspect, from talking to him, that he wasn't fully aware of the significance of his choice," attorney Bill Redick said.

 "These are difficult times for him. He's under a lot of pressure. He didn't have the opportunity to consult with his counsel about this decision. We are discussing that with him and investigating possibilities."

 Redick said he does not believe that Abdur'Rahman has chosen the electric chair so that his lawyers can delay his execution by mounting a challenge to the constitutionality of electrocution.

 Redick said he and his co-counsel, Bradley MacLean, "weren't involved at all in this decision, and we are concerned about that."

Abdur'Rahman, who was sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing of a Nashville marijuana dealer in 1986, would be the 1st person executed in Tennessee's current electric chair if the execution takes place. Robert Glen Coe, the only Tennessee inmate executed since 1960, chose lethal injection when he was put to death in April 2000.

 The electric chair was the state's only means of executing prisoners for more than 80 years, but the legislature added lethal injection as an alternative in 1998 and voted in 2000 to make it the automatic means of execution unless an inmate chooses electrocution.

 Some engineers had questioned whether the electric chair now in place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution would work properly.

 Legislators said that they wanted to avoid possible equipment malfunctions, like those that had occurred during recent executions in Florida, and court action by Tennessee inmates over whether electrocution amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

 Abdur'Rahman has exhausted the standard appeals process in the state and federal court systems, but his lawyers are expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that they say no other court has fully considered.

 The state Board of Probation and Parole has set a hearing March 28 on Abdur'Rahman's request that Gov. Don Sundquist grant him executive clemency and commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.

 Abdur'Rahman was 35 and known as James Lee Jones Jr. when he was arrested in 1986 on charges of murdering Patrick Daniels and of attempting to murder Daniels' girlfriend, Norma Jean Norman, who was left with a kitchen knife wedged in her back.