Blind Tennessee inmate faces execution for woman's killing

Tennessee is set to carry out what is expected to be only the second execution of a blind prisoner in the United States since the nation reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

This 2017 photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Lee Hall, formerly known as Leroy Hall Jr. Hall, a death row inmate, on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, selected electrocution for his upcoming execution, a move that would make him the fourth person in the state to choose that method over lethal injection since 2018. [Photo: Tennessee Department of Correction via AP]

The 53-year-old inmate, Lee Hall, was scheduled to die in the electric chair Thursday evening for his conviction in the 1991 burning death of his estranged girlfriend. Hall had his sight when he entered death row nearly three decades ago, but his attorneys say he later become functionally blind from improperly treated glaucoma.

As the scheduled evening execution time approached, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene. In a one-sentence statement, the court said without explanation that it had denied a request for a stay of execution sought by Hall's lawyers.

Earlier this year, Hall chose the electric chair over lethal injection as allowed under state law. His lawyer said it also would be the first electrocution of a blind inmate since the 1976 resumption of U.S. executions. But attorney Kelly Gleason had asked the federal courts to stop Hall from being put to death in the big wooden electric chair believed to have been built with the wood from Tennessee's old gallows.

“Unless the federal courts intervene, Tennessee will become the first state in modern United States history to electrocute a blind man,” Gleason said in a statement Wednesday. “It is a sad day for justice in the state of Tennessee.”

Authorities said Hall killed Traci Crozier, 22, on April 17, 1991 by setting her car ablaze with a container of gasoline, stuffing a paper towel over the top, lighting it on fire and tossing it in her vehicle while she was inside. The container exploded and Crozier received burns over more than 90% of her body, dying the next day in the hospital.

Crozier's sister, Staci Wooten, and her father, Gene Crozier, have said they intend to watch Hall's execution Thursday.

Hall’s attorneys have sought for weeks to delay or block the execution plans. They made last-minute pleas with the Tennessee Supreme Court and Gov. Bill Lee for more time to explore questions surrounding legal questions about what they described as the possible bias of a juror who helped deliver the original death sentence.

Lee and the state courts declined to intervene, arguing that Hall had exhausted his legal options.

There's only other known blind inmate who has been executed since the U.S. Supreme Court began allowing executions in 1976. Clarence Ray Allen, 76, died via lethal injection in 2006 in California.

Hall's team filed several legal filings in federal court on Wednesday in a last effort to block the execution as the options dwindled. Meanwhile, Hall was moved earlier this week to a room adjacent to Tennessee's execution chamber as part of the state's death penalty guidelines.

To date, the U.S. Supreme Court has neither set an upper age limit for executions nor created an exception for a physical infirmity.

Tennessee is one of six states in which inmates can choose the electric chair, but it’s the only state that has used the chair in recent years. Three out of five recent inmates put to death in Tennessee have chosen the chair since the state began resuming executions in August

Courts in Georgia and Nebraska have declared the electric chair unconstitutional and the U.S. Supreme Court has never fully considered its constitutionality.

Lee has previously declined to weigh in on whether he approves of the state's increased usage of the electric chair, noting instead that it's a legal option in Tennessee.