Death Row inmate gave ‘flabbergasting’ explanation for being first to choose electric chair over lethal injection

A death row inmate was the first to choose the electric chair over the lethal injection - but his explanation left people flabbergasted.

Wayne Doty is currently an inmate at Florida State Prison after he shot and killed Harvey Horne II in 1996. He was sentenced to life in prison, but later ended up on death row after he killed a fellow inmate, Xavier Rodriguez in 2011.

In the US, the most common form of execution for prisoners on death row is lethal injection, but back in 2017, Doty told Action News that he wanted to opt for the electric chair instead.

"The bottom line is, at the end of the day I'm the one that murdered an individual," said Doty.

"Not you, not anybody else. So it is my life, it is my crime, it is my means of execution."

Speaking about Doty's decision, Action News' Sarina Fazan explained the 'flabbergasting' choice, revealing that Doty doesn't like needles and believes electrocution is a more humane method of execution.

"Electricity, 2000-3000 volts of electricity right through a person's brain will render you dead within seconds," said Doty.

"Although we are locked up in prison we have our own rights."

However, it's a decision that has shocked many, with Mark Elliott, Executive Director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty explaining: "I don't understand. I don't know what his motives are."

Doty wants to be executed by the electric chair over the lethal injection (Action News)

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in Florida, the lethal injec­tion is the default method of execution and 'will be admin­is­tered unless the pris­on­er affir­ma­tive­ly choos­es elec­tro­cu­tion in writ­ing and deliv­ered to the war­den of the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty with­in 30 days after the issuance of man­date pur­suant to a deci­sion by the Florida Supreme Court affirm­ing the sen­tence of death'.

Essentially, a loophole in the law means that Doty can request the electric chair if he wants to.

Lethal injection is the most commonly used method of execution (Getty Stock Photo)

Although electrocution was once the most widely used method, it is now rarely used at all.

The method sees the inmate strapped to a chair and electrocuted with high voltage currents. It usually lasts two minutes.

Meanwhile, the lethal injection is usually a trio of chemicals given in three stages - an anaesthetic which puts the inmate to sleep, a second drug that paralyses them and a third that stops the heart.

Florida stopped using the electric chair as its primary method of execution following the death of triple murderer Allen Lee Davis, whose execution was surrounded with controversy after he bled profusely from the nose during electrocution.