The controversy over Florida's electric chair (called "Old Sparky") was fueled in 1997 by the execution of Pedro Medina. During that execution, flames burst from Medina's head. It was the second time such an incident had happened.

Then, the controversy escalated sharply when during the execution of Tiny Davis in 1999, blood poured from the man's nose and down his shirt. There were allegations that Davis was strapped in so tightly that he was suffocating even before he was even electrocuted.

To make matters worse, a Florida Supreme Court judge posted the photographs of Davis strapped in the electric chair on the court's website. There was outrage, but there were also so many people trying to get a look at the photograph, it overloaded state computers.

In response to the gruesome electrocution, another Florida inmate scheduled to be electrocuted filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that electrocution violated the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment. The High Court accepted the appeal for consideration.

The Supreme Court decision to consider the Florida appeal put Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Nebraska on the run. These four states were the only states which used electrocution as the sole means of execution. The other 38 states that have the death penalty either use lethal injection or give the inmate a choice of the method of execution.

The governor in Florida was so disturbed about the possibility of having the electric chair declared unconstitutional, and being left with no legal form of execution, he called a special session of the legislature for the first of January. Legislators, incidently, complained bitterly that this Special Session was going to interfere with their football game vacations. In response, one government official remarked to the legislators that they had to be back in Tallahassee, they didn't have to be back sober.

When legislators returned (sober or not) they responded to the threat by adding lethal injection as an option to death in the electric chair. Inmates on death row in Florida are now put to death in the electric chair if they specifically request it.

The ploy worked to defuse the issue. The U.S. Supreme Court promptly dismissed the Florida appeal case, dropping it a month before scheduled arguments were to begin on February 28.

But, the Supreme Court's dismissal of the Florida case left open the possibility that inmates in Georgia, Alabama and Nebraska could file similar appeals. So, legislation has now been proposed in Georgia and Nebraska, and Alabama is in the process of writing such legislation. Even though proponents of the death penalty argue that the objections to the electric chair do not signal a move away from the use of the death penalty, there are signs to the contrary.

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, came out with a statement in late January saying that she had yet to find any evidence that the death penalty acted as a deterrent to crime. "I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point," Reno commented at one of her weekly Justice Department news briefings.

The governor of Illinois was so disturbed about the unfairness of the administration of the death penalty in his state he imposed a halt in executions until authorities determined that the death penalty was administered fairly. Illinois executed 12 people since the reinstatement of the death penalty by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976. Thirteen Illinois death row inmates have been exonerated since 1987, through appeals, DNA evidence, or, persistent investigation by college journalism students. Governor Ryan wanted to know why more death sentences had been overturned than carried out.

And, questions have been raised about whether the Federal government should suspend executions as well. Even though the federal government has not carried out an execution since 1963, Congress adopted a new federal death penalty law in 1988 and expanded the number of federal crimes covered by the death penalty in 1994. There is a convicted drug smuggler and murderer, Juan Raul Garza, who is among 21 federal inmates who have been sentenced to die and are being held at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Reno ordered a review at the first of the year to determine whether racial minorities unfairly get more federal death sentences than white offenders. One Democratic senator requested a suspension of federal death penalties pending the outcome of the study. Two-thirds of federal prisoners in the federal death row at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana are minorities.

Sen. Patrick Leahy introduced federal legislation that would allow death row inmates to appeal based on new DNA evidence in an attempt t prove their innocence. Leahy was quoted by the Associated Press as saying at a press conference that, according to his estimates, the system "may sentence one innocent person to death for every seven it executes," and that the death penalty "has no place in a civilized society."

Leahy was accompanied at the news conference by Kirk Bloodsworth, who after nine years in prison was the first capital-murder defendant freed as a result of DNA testing. Leahy was also flanked by Clyde Charles who spent 18 years in prison before DNA testing led to proof of his innocence.

The electric chair has been used to electrocute over 4,300 murderers, rapists and traitors over the past century, but there are now doubts about not only the chair itself, but about the death penalty in any form. These reservations have to do not with the method of execution, but with the method of deciding who will get the death penalty and who will not.

Government officials in all four states that still use electrocution argue that the change to lethal injection is not a move away from the death penalty itself, but simply a fall back position in case the Supreme court declares the electric chair cruel and unusual,

But, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, 85 people have been freed from death row since 1973, and the legislatures in several states are now considering moratoriums similar to the one in Illinois.

The American Bar Association called for a national moratorium on capital punishment three years ago and international organizations like Amnesty International have opposed the death penalty for years.