Man smiles, says 'Let's rock' before dying in electric chair

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A Tennessee inmate grimaced and waved goodbye before saying "let's rock," moments before it became the first man executed in the electric chair in that state since 2007, put to death drug deal decades ago.

Edmund Zagorski, 63, was pronounced dead at 7:26 pm Thursday at a Nashville maximum-security prison, officials said.

Zagorski said, "Let's rock," shortly before the execution was carried out.

To report who witnessed the scene said at a post-execution news briefing that Zagorski could be seen smiling while strapped down. A large sea sponge that had been doused in salt water was soon placed on his head. While guards wiped his face clear of water dripping down his face, Zagorski quietly said it was still watered under his nose and was removed with a large black cloth.

The witnesses said that when the electricity was applied and his body was exposed, the current went to him. He did not move afterward.

Zagorski's performance continues with Zagorski's attorney, the prison's chaplain and a representative of the attorney general's office.

Another reporter said Zagorski's attorney Kelly Henry was nodding, smiling and tapping her heart just before the execution got underway. When asked about her actions, Henry said afterward: "I told him when I got my hand over my heart, that was me holding him in my heart."

She said Zagorski told her about the last thing he was doing, and she was trying to make it easier. After it was done, Henry quietly wiped away tears.

Later, Henry said that Zagorski's pinkies had become dislocated. She said that it can be so common that the body undergoes such extreme blunt force trauma.

A phone hung on the wall in the witness room, allowing Henry to have access to a phone should have gone wrong. This has been made available to the public.

In favor of the electric chair over a lethal injection, Tennessee allowed him, Zagorski had argued it would be a quicker and less painful way to die. He became only the second person to die in the electric chair in Tennessee since 1960. Nationwide, only 14 other people have been killed in the electric chair since 2000, including a Virginia inmate in 2013.

The execution was carried out minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday evening denied the request for a stay. Zagorski's attorneys had argued it was unconstitutional to force him to choose between the electric chair and lethal injection.

The state came close to administering an injection to Zagorski three weeks ago, a plan halted by Tennessee's governor when Zagorski exercised his right to request the electric chair.

The Supreme Court's statement said Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the dissenting voice on Thursday, noting Zagorski's difficult decision to opt for the electric chair. In Tennessee, condemned inmates whose crimes occurred before 1999

"Sotomayor said in the statement," He did not think it was a humane way to die, but because he thought it would be worse than that. " "Given what most people think of the electric chair, it's hard to imagine a more striking testament – from a person with more stakes – to the legitimate fears raised by the lethal-injection drugs that Tennessee uses."

Zagorski was convicted of an April 1983 double slaying. Prosecutors said Zagorski shot John Dotson and Jimmy Porter and then slit their throats after robbing the two men after they came to him to buy marijuana.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled the world, but it has come to an end. During two executions in the 1990s, smoke and flames shot from the condemned inmates' heads. In 1999, blood spilled from under an inmate's mask. Shortly afterward, the Supreme Court. But the case was dropped when Florida made the injection of its primary execution method.