Tennessee execution: Stephen West set to die by electric chair – NewsChannel5.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Tennessee is scheduled to execute Stephen West on Thursday – marking the state’s fifth execution within the last year.

Stephen West is scheduled to die for a double murder more than 20 years ago.

West’s attorney says originally, he was supposed to die by lethal injection. However, lawyers say a last-minute decision change to the electric chair may have been a delay strategy that didn’t work.

At age 23, he was convicted in the 1986 kidnapping and killing a woman and her teenage daughter near Knoxville.

Read more: Facing execution, Tennessee inmate says he wasn’t a killer

Governor Bill Lee denied him clemency, meaning the execution will happen unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in, which is highly unlikely.

Before Wednesday’s choice of the electric chair, West had refused to select how he would die – meaning the state was planning to use the default method of lethal injection.

Earlier this year, a last-minute decision to use the electric chair in another case , delayed the execution by ten days but the governor’s office says that won’t happen this time.

West selected a Philly cheesesteak sandwich and French fries as his last meal.