Virginia Senate OKs use of electric chair amid drug shortage

[Judi Lynn]

8. Do people remember the Florida electric chair, "Old Sparky?" It has been used until fairly recently.

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1997

Flames Leap From Inmate’s Head At Execution Window Opened To Clear Smoke; ‘Old Sparky’ Called A Deterrent

By Mike Clary Special To The Los Angeles Times

The perennial American debate over the cruelty and value of the death penalty began anew here Tuesday after a gruesome electric chair execution in which flames leaped from the head of a convicted murderer as the switch was thrown. Pedro Medina, a 39-year-old Cuban immigrant, was pronounced dead at 7:10 a.m., but not before a prison official wearing protective gloves helped douse the flames which shot from the condemned man’s head, and so much smoke filled the death chamber that a window to the outside was opened.

“It was horrible. A solid flame covered his whole head, from one side to the other. I had the impression of somebody being burned alive,” said attorney Mike Minerva of the state’s Capital Collateral Representative, which represents death row inmates, including Medina. “In fact, you could smell it on the other side of the glass. Very strong.”

While opponents of capital punishment quickly cited Medina’s fiery death as graphic evidence of the barbarity of execution, state Attorney General Bob Butterworth said he hoped the prisoner’s final seconds would serve as a deterrent to others.

“People who wish to commit murder, they better not do it in the state of Florida because we may have a problem with our electric chair,” Butterworth said.

More:
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/mar/26/flames-leap-from-inmates-head-at-execution-window/

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Attorney General of Florida during "Old Sparky", Bob Butterworth.



Pedro Medina, before execution

graphic evidence of what the hell happened to Pedro Medina:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1587&bih=700&q=Pedro+Medina+florida+Cuban&oq=Pedro+Medina+florida+Cuban&gs_l=img.3...564.9378.0.9819.15.4.0.11.0.0.113.402.3j1.4.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..0.3.300.LF72-QKkrSc#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=Pedro+Medina+Old+Sparky [/center]

Final Hours? Medina Set For Execution

Vigil for condemned killer

Condemned Killer's Lawyers Hoping For Last-minute Stay

March 25, 1997|By Michael Griffin, Tallahassee Bureau Chief

STARKE — As lawyers battled for his life in Atlanta and Washington on Monday, Pedro Medina awaited his date with Florida's electric chair for the 1982 murder of an Orlando schoolteacher.

Hoping to be at Medina's side today during the long hours before the scheduled 7 a.m. execution was the Rev. Glenn Dickson, a Gainesville minister whom the Cuban immigrant picked out of the Yellow Pages two years ago.

''I've prayed with Pedro once a month since he called me,'' Dixon said Monday. ''I've told him I'll be with him up until the very end.''

. . .

Medina was convicted of killing his former neighbor, 52-year-old elementary school coach Dorothy James. He was seen at James' apartment complex the night of the stabbing and was found afterward at a North Florida rest stop, asleep in her Cadillac. Prosecutors said evidence in the apartment also linked him to the death.

Medina, who was released from a Cuban mental institution before coming to the United States in 1980, claimed James was his girlfriend and that he loved her too much to kill her.

But a few days before, Medina's state lawyers invoked a rarely used state law banning the execution of people who don't understand they're going to die in the electric chair or why they're being executed. The lawyers said Medina had carried on conversations with dead people - including physicist Albert Einstein - and often faded in and out of reality.

One of James' daughters and McClain, a lawyer with the Office of Capital Collateral Representative, contend that the police did not look hard enough at other suspects and withheld evidence that could have spared Medina's life.

. . .

Pope John Paul II has appealed to Chiles to spare Medina. A Presbyterian congregation was praying for him Monday in Cape May, N.J., where Medina settled briefly after his arrival in the United States.

More:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1997-03-25/news/9703250266_1_medina-supreme-court-albert-einstein