As controversies over lethal injection drugs surge , Tennessee has found a way around the issue : It is bringing back the electric chair . Eight states authorize electrocution as a method of execution but only at the inmate 's discretion . Now Tennessee is the first state to make use of the electric chair mandatory when lethal injection drugs are unavailable . Tennessee Gov . Bill Haslam signed the measure into law Thursday . `` This is unusual and might be both cruel and unusual punishment , '' said Richard Dieter , president of the Death Penalty Information Center . Related story : No more complex lethal cocktails , say experts . `` No state says what Tennessee says . This is forcing the inmate to use electrocution , '' according to Dieter , who believes `` the inmate would have an automatic Eighth Amendment challenge . '' The amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment . `` The electric chair is clearly a brutal alternative , '' Dieter said . Related story : Botched injection stirs debate . Controversy over lethal injections has been brewing in recent years after European manufacturers , including the Denmark-based manufacturer of pentobarbital , banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions . In April , a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma catapulted the issue back into the international spotlight . It was the state 's first time using a new , three-drug cocktail for an execution . Execution witnesses said convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett convulsed and writhed on the execution gurney and struggled to speak , before officials blocked the witnesses ' view . Lockett died 43 minutes after being administered the first drug , CNN affiliate KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City reported . Earlier this year , a convicted murderer and rapist in Ohio , Dennis McGuire , appeared to gasp and convulse for at least 10 minutes before dying from the drug cocktail used in his execution . In 2009 , the U.S.-based manufacturer of sodium thiopental , a drug also commonly used in executions , stopped making the painkiller . Many states have scrambled to find products from overseas or have used American-based compounding pharmacies to create substitutes . This month , a group of criminal justice experts recommended that federal and state governments move to a single lethal drug for executions instead of complex cocktails that can be botched . The controversy over legal injection drugs raises the question of when a case will arise to test the new law . The last death penalty by electrocution in Tennessee was that of Daryl Holton in 2007 . Holton -- a convicted murderer who killed his three young sons and his ex-wife 's daughter -- elected to be killed by the electric chair . Before Holton 's execution , Tennessee had not used the electric chair in 47 years .
Tennessee death row inmates will be electrocuted if lethal injection drugs are unavailable . Score: 7 In other states that use the electric chair , it is an option . Drugs for lethal injections have been in short supply .