NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Tennessee is set to use its electric chair again next week as it's scheduled to execute another death row inmate, Lee Hall.
If the execution takes place next Thursday, it would be the state's fourth electric chair execution in a little more than a year, while no other state has used the electric chair since 2013.
But Hall's attorneys are asking Gov. Bill Lee to delay his execution, following concerns that a juror in Hall's trial may have been biased against him.
Hall was convicted of killing Traci Crozier -- his ex-girlfriend -- in 1991 by dousing her with gas and setting her car on fire. It exploded while she was still inside, and she died the next day.
Last week, a Chattanooga judge ruled the juror was not biased beyond a "fleeting moment," meaning the execution could continue.
But Hall's attorneys are appealing that decision -- and they want Governor Lee to put off the execution until the court appeals are over.
Nashville Attorney David Raybin, who helped draft Tennessee's death penalty laws, says Hall's request for a reprieve -- a delay of the death penalty -- is different from what all other inmates have requested from the governor: asking him to permanently commute their sentences to life in prison without parole.
Raybin says a delay is likely in Hall's case, because of the legal appeals.
"Governors have traditionally granted reprieves -- which are delays -- while legal proceedings are pending," Raybin said. "In all probability, you'll see a stay or reprieve or delay in this case."
Traci Crozier's sister, Staci Wooten, says she has been waiting for the day Hall will die. She plans to be there as a witness.
"We'll be front row and center watching it happen," Wooten told Chattanooga affiliate WDEF.
She says she wants to see Hall's final punishment carried out, saying a nearly 30-year wait has already been too long.
"When he got his sentence death by electrocution, and they set the date, the first date [the first time], that's when it should have happened," Wooten said.
