Suspended execution in case a Tennessee detainee has asked for an electric chair for a lethal injection

The state of Tennessee has denied a convict dying in an electric wheelchair, saying he had waited too long to make his macabre choice – but a court of appeals suspended his execution last Wednesday to argue that his lawyer was ineffective.

The double murderer Edmund George Zagorski, 63, was scheduled to die Thursday night at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, as part of an execution he wanted to commit by electrocution.

The US Court of Appeals of the US Sixth Circuit granted Wednesday night the suspension of execution requested by his lawyers, considering that his lawyer was not adequately assisted during his initial trial.

The decision was shared, with two judges agreeing that Zagorski "was facing a difficult battle", but saying that "at a minimum, due process requires that Zagorski be given the opportunity to present his appeal", and another dissenting judge.

Lethal injection is the main form of execution in the voluntary state, but detainees whose offenses were committed before January 1999 can opt for the electric chair. Zagorski killed two 35-year-old men in a drug deal that went wrong in 1983.

But the state told Zagorki's legal team that he had to have opted for the electric wheelchair option before the close of business on Sept. 27. Defense lawyers did not apply for the position of election chairman until Monday.

Instead of electricity, Zagorski will be run with a combination of Midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, according to Debra K. Inglis, Chief Counsel of the Department of Corrections.

Zagorski's defense challenged the constitutionality of the lethal injection, and a few hours after the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled against the murderer on Monday, he chose to die in an electric wheelchair, his lawyers said.

The convicted offender's legal team filed an urgent motion in federal court in Nashville on Wednesday, demanding that he be allowed to die in an electric wheelchair.

"The idea that the room requires two weeks for reconfiguration is ridiculous," wrote Zagorski's lawyer, Kelley Henry. "Unless the prison loses its power, it can electrocute."