Oct. 9 (UPI) -- A Tennessee prisoner has requested that he be put to death via electric chair if the state carries out his execution as planned this week.
In an affidavit dated Saturday, Edmund Zagorski, 63, said he believes both electrocution and lethal injection are unconstitutional punishments, but added that he does "not want to be subjected to the torture of the current lethal injection method," which he unsuccessfully challenged in court.
Zagorski was sentenced in 1984 in the killing of two men during a drug deal a year earlier. He has been moved near the execution chamber, where he is scheduled to be put to death on Thursday.
The Tennessean reported that the Tennessee Department of Correction has not commented on Zagorski's request to be electrocuted, however, Nashville Scene reported prisoners convicted before 1999 can choose their execution protocol.
State prison officials tested the electric chair in February. Kelley Henry, one of Zagorski's attorneys, said the method is the "lesser of two evils," saying of lethal injection that "10 to 18 minutes of drowning, suffocation and chemical burning is unspeakable."
Pharmaceutical companies have objected to the use of their drugs in executions, with some forbidding their sale to correctional facilities.
Nashville Scene reported the electric chair was last used in Tennessee in 2007, marking the only time it was used in the last 58 years.
