Eight states still authorize the electric chair: Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. In most of them, electrocution is either a backup to lethal injection or a method the condemned person has to affirmatively choose. Only South Carolina treats it as the default. The last person actually executed by electric chair was Nicholas Todd Sutton in Tennessee on February 20, 2020.
The Eight States That Still Authorize Electrocution
The role the chair plays varies sharply from state to state. In some places an inmate can elect it; in others it only comes into play if lethal injection becomes legally or practically unavailable.
- Alabama. Lethal injection is the default. A person sentenced to death can choose electrocution or nitrogen hypoxia instead, but the choice must be made in writing within 30 days after the Alabama Supreme Court affirms the sentence.
- Florida. Same structure as Alabama. Lethal injection is the default unless the condemned person elects electrocution in writing within 30 days after the Florida Supreme Court issues its mandate.
- South Carolina. Electrocution is the primary method under a 2021 law, with firing squad as the secondary option. Lethal injection is only available if the state certifies the drugs are on hand at the time the person makes their choice.
- Kentucky. People sentenced for crimes committed before March 31, 1998, can choose electrocution over lethal injection. The choice must be made at least 20 days before the scheduled execution. If no choice is made, lethal injection applies.
- Tennessee. People who committed their crimes before January 1, 1999, may request electrocution. Everyone else receives lethal injection.
- Arkansas. Electrocution becomes the execution method only if lethal injection is invalidated by a final, unappealable court order.
- Mississippi. Electrocution is a third-tier backup. It applies only if both lethal injection and nitrogen hypoxia are held unconstitutional or otherwise unavailable.
- Oklahoma. Same tiered structure as Mississippi. Electrocution comes into play only after lethal injection and nitrogen hypoxia are both ruled out.
Virginia used to appear on this list. It abolished the death penalty entirely in 2021, so no execution of any kind can be carried out there.
How Someone Actually Ends Up in the Electric Chair
There are two paths: the inmate chooses it, or the legal system forces a switch away from lethal injection.
The election process is tighter than most people assume. In Alabama and Florida, the clock starts when the state supreme court affirms the death sentence, not when the execution date is set. The condemned person has 30 days from that ruling to submit a written election to the warden. Miss the window and the choice defaults to lethal injection permanently. Kentucky gives a shorter runway of 20 days before the scheduled execution. South Carolina allows just 14 days.
The backup-trigger path is where the chair has gained practical relevance in recent years. Pharmaceutical companies have increasingly refused to sell execution drugs to prisons, and courts have struck down some lethal injection protocols. When that happens, states with tiered statutes automatically shift to the next authorized method. In South Carolina, this dynamic pushed the legislature to flip the default entirely. Electrocution is now the presumptive method, and lethal injection is only available when the state can actually obtain the drugs.
What About Federal Death Sentences
Federal law does not independently prescribe an execution method. Under 18 U.S.C. ยง 3596, the U.S. Marshal supervises implementation of a federal death sentence “in the manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence is imposed.” If that state allows electrocution, the method is theoretically available. If the state has no death penalty, the court designates a different state whose law does provide for executions.
In practice, every modern federal execution has used lethal injection. The Department of Justice adopted a single-drug pentobarbital protocol in 2019, and the 13 federal executions carried out between 2020 and 2021 all used it. No federal execution has ever been carried out by electrocution, and the federal government does not maintain an electric chair at any of its facilities.
Why the Electric Chair Is Still Legal
The Supreme Court upheld electrocution in 1890 in In re Kemmler, writing that “punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death” and concluding that the electric chair, as designed, didn’t meet that bar. That ruling still stands. The Supreme Court has never declared electrocution unconstitutional, even as most states have moved away from it.
The more consequential modern decision is Glossip v. Gross (2015), which didn’t involve the chair directly but reshaped every execution-method challenge. A condemned person challenging any method must now identify “a known and available alternative” that would reduce the risk of pain. Arguing that the current method is painful isn’t enough. That requirement makes it substantially harder to challenge the electric chair in court, which is a large part of why eight states can keep it on the books without serious legal risk.
Recent Legislative Shifts
The years from 2021 through 2025 saw notable movement in execution-method law, though the chair’s position has stayed stable or grown stronger.
South Carolina’s 2021 law was the most significant change directly affecting the electric chair, reversing the national trend of treating electricity as a relic. The law was a direct response to the state’s inability to obtain lethal injection drugs, which had effectively halted executions for a decade.
Other legislatures have focused on adding methods rather than removing old ones. In 2025, Arkansas passed HB 1489 to add nitrogen gas as an execution option. Florida enacted HB 903 the same year, expanding its authorized methods to include any method “not deemed unconstitutional,” a remarkably broad grant of authority. Neither state removed electrocution.
The real long-term pressure on the electric chair is nitrogen hypoxia. Alabama carried out the first nitrogen hypoxia execution in American history in January 2024, killing Kenneth Smith. Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma now list nitrogen hypoxia ahead of electrocution in their backup hierarchies. If nitrogen hypoxia holds up in court over time, the electric chair may slide further down the list of alternatives states actually reach for when lethal injection fails, even in the eight states where it remains on the books.