Nine states still have the electric chair on the books as a legal method of execution: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Only South Carolina treats electrocution as its default. The other eight keep it available either as a choice the condemned prisoner can make or as a statutory fallback if lethal injection becomes unavailable.
States Where the Inmate Can Choose Electrocution
Five states let a condemned prisoner elect the electric chair in place of lethal injection. The rules differ on timing and eligibility.
Alabama. Lethal injection is the default. A prisoner can elect electrocution (or nitrogen hypoxia) by submitting a written request to the warden within 30 days after the Alabama Supreme Court affirms the death sentence.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 15-18-82.1 – Methods of Execution; Election of Method; Constitutionality
Florida. Lethal injection is the default. To get the electric chair, a prisoner must make the election in writing at least 14 days before the scheduled execution date. Silence means lethal injection.2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 922.105 – Execution of Death Sentence; Prohibition Against Reduction of Death Sentence as a Result of Determination That a Method of Execution Is Unconstitutional
Kentucky. Only prisoners sentenced to death before March 31, 1998, can choose electrocution. An eligible prisoner who makes no choice at least 20 days before the execution gets lethal injection.3Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Kentucky Code 431.220 – Execution of Death Sentence
South Carolina. The only state where electrocution is the default method. If lethal injection drugs are unavailable, the execution proceeds by electric chair unless the prisoner affirmatively chooses a firing squad. The legislature made this change in 2021 after pharmaceutical companies refused to sell lethal injection drugs to the state and inmates refused to choose the electric chair, creating a standstill that prevented executions.4South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 24-3-530 – Death Penalty; Methods of Execution
Tennessee. Prisoners whose offenses occurred before January 1, 1999, can elect electrocution by signing a written waiver of their right to lethal injection. Five inmates made that choice in 2018 and 2019.5Justia. Tennessee Code 40-23-114 – Death by Lethal Injection – Election of Electrocution – Electrocution as Alternative Method6Tennessee Department of Correction. Death Penalty in Tennessee
Kentucky and Tennessee tied eligibility to late-1990s cutoff dates, so the pool of inmates who can choose the chair shrinks each year. Eventually no one on death row in either state will qualify under current law.
States Where Electrocution Is a Statutory Backup
Four states authorize the electric chair not as an inmate’s choice but as a fallback if higher-priority methods become unavailable.
Arkansas. Lethal injection is the sole method unless it is invalidated by a final, unappealable court order. Only then does the state switch to electrocution.7Justia. Arkansas Code 5-4-617 – Method of Execution
Louisiana. The corrections secretary has discretion to choose among lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, and electrocution, with no statutory preference among the three.8Louisiana State Legislature. Louisiana Laws RS 15:569
Mississippi. The statute lists four authorized methods in order of preference: lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution, and firing squad. The Commissioner of Corrections has discretion over the method, but lower-priority options become relevant when higher ones are unavailable or struck down.9Justia. Mississippi Code 99-19-51 – Manner of Execution of Death Sentence
Oklahoma. The statute sets a strict cascade. Lethal injection comes first. If an appellate court holds lethal injection unconstitutional, the state moves to electrocution. If electrocution is also struck down, it turns to a firing squad.10Oklahoma Legal. Oklahoma Statutes Title 22 – 1014
These backup structures largely trace back to the lethal injection drug shortage that began hitting corrections departments around 2010, when manufacturers and distributors refused to sell execution drugs. Writing an alternative method into statute keeps an execution theoretically available even if the preferred method is blocked.
How Often the Electric Chair Is Actually Used
The method is rarely used. Only seven electrocutions have been carried out in the United States since 2010: two in Virginia (2010 and 2013) and five in Tennessee (2018 through 2020). Every one was at the inmate’s own request.
No state has electrocuted a prisoner against their wishes in the modern era. The chairs exist on paper and in storage, but when lethal injection drugs are available, that is the method states actually use.
States That Used to Have the Electric Chair but No Longer Do
Three former electric chair states are often assumed to still have it, and don’t.
Georgia’s Supreme Court struck down electrocution under the state constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause in 2001, and the state permanently switched to lethal injection.11Justia. Dawson v. State, 2001 Nebraska’s Supreme Court reached the same conclusion under its state constitution in 2008 in State v. Mata, and the legislature later adopted lethal injection.12Justia. State v. Mata, 2008 Virginia abolished the death penalty entirely in 2021 under HB 2263, becoming the first southern state to do so; the state had used its electric chair as recently as 2013.13Virginia General Assembly. HB2263 – 2021 Session
Is the Electric Chair Still Constitutional
Yes, under federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court has never struck down electrocution under the Eighth Amendment. It first upheld the method in 1890 in In re Kemmler, and in Bucklew v. Precythe (2019) it held that the Eighth Amendment “does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death.” A prisoner challenging any execution method must identify a known, available alternative that would significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain.14Constitution Annotated. Amdt8.4.9.10 Execution Methods15Supreme Court of the United States. Bucklew v. Precythe, 587 U.S. 119 (2019)
State constitutions can impose stricter limits, as Georgia and Nebraska demonstrated, but those rulings bind only their own states. In the nine states that still authorize the electric chair, no state constitutional challenge has succeeded.