Executions: Too fat, too crazy, too weird

By MARY JO MELONE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 8, 1999

The ritual is as regular as the launching of space shuttles, and the arrival of springbreakers and snowbirds. Florida is back in the business of killing people.

Jeb Bush has to get over the moral shock of ordering a man's death. All the rest of us have to do is get used to calling the chair by a new name.

New Sparky? Son of Old Sparky?

The 76-year-old chair has been replaced with a new one, built secretly last year and said to be big enough to accommodate this morning's scheduled occupant, Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis. He was convicted of beating to death a pregnant Jacksonville woman and then killing her two little girls 17 years ago.

And assuming that Thomas Provenzano has experienced a miracle cure and is no longer crazy, he'll be executed Friday for shooting three court bailiffs in Orlando, killing one and paralyzing the other two in 1984.

Every ritual has its necessary components. Executions usually involve repeating the arguments, pro and con, about the death penalty in general and electrocution in particular.

I'll spare you, if only because I hate being ignored.

Although I completely relate to the desire for revenge that motivates the chair's thousands of fans, I'm on the losing side of this argument. And why waste space on serious thoughts on a serious subject when you can tell a story that seems too sick to be true?

Thomas Provenzano can't be too crazy to die. And Tiny Davis can't be too fat.

The state put Davis on a diet in preparation for killing him. In May, the Times reported he weighed 326 pounds. He eventually hit 348 pounds, and officials were worried he'd get to 350, the maximum weight the chair could hold. Davis weighed in Wednesday at 344 pounds.

How he lost weight, I don't know -- but it appears he dieted for nothing. The same corrections official who reported his weight Wednesday also said an engineer had revised upward the estimate of what the chair could hold and said the maximum was more than 400 pounds.

Cheapness in government is a matter of pride in Florida. Nothing else illustrates just how cheap the way the chair does.

A few years ago, when the head of another convicted killer burst into flames once the switch was pulled, I asked the Department of Corrections if they had a budget to repair and maintain the chair. A stunned official replied in a voice that suggested she'd never gotten that question before.

"In dollars?" she said.

Around that time, one of Tampa's fine contributions to the Legislature, Victor Crist, said we should use the guillotine.

We'd certainly save on electricity.

Crist complained then, in 1997, that the chair had an image problem: "You look at this old wooden chair that has a name for it, Old Sparky, you look at the old Boris Karloff and Hitchcock movies and it all brings negative images to your mind. Maybe Old Sparky needs a coat of paint and a new name."

Tragically, he never got around to picking a color. Crist has thrived in politics, but his suggestions about the chair were ignored.

Lawyers for the condemned regularly argue that the chair's electrical setup is worn out and inadequate, and that death is neither instantaneous nor pain-free. This year, consultants seemed to suggest the lawyers had a point. The consultants recommended replacing some electrical parts, breakers and electrodes, for $265,000.

The state concluded that was too much money, and according to the corrections official, Gene Morris, the repairs were done for much less. He didn't say how.

But I'd wager they got what they needed from a u-pull-em auto parts yard in Starke.

© Copyright 1999 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.