When the state has gotten the go-ahead to execute a man by electrocuting him, it’s difficult to understand why they would fight a request by the prisoner’s attorney to have access to a phone during the execution. But that’s exactly what attorneys for the state are doing right now – arguing against a federal judge’s order to provide Edmund Zagorski’s attorney with access to a phone so she can communicate with the courts or other officials before and during Zagorski’s execution.
U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger granted a temporary restraining order on the execution pending state officials’ agreement to provide the phone. The Tennessean reports that state officials have been fighting the request.
Zagorski is scheduled to be killed on Thursday at 7 p.m. He was sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of two men, John Dale Dotson and Jimmy Porter in a drug deal. Zagorski chose the electric chair over lethal injection for his execution.
The electric chair has not been used in Tennessee since 2007.