Injection Now Only Execution Method

Gov. Robert A. Taft signed a bill outlawing the electric chair, thwarting a condemned killer's request to die by electrocution.

The law, which takes effect immediately, makes lethal injection the only option for capital punishment in Ohio.

John W. Byrd Jr., convicted of the 1983 slaying of a Cincinnati store clerk, requested to be electrocuted to illustrate what he calls the brutality of capital punishment.

Byrd was scheduled to die in September, but a federal appeals court postponed the execution after new details emerged.

Two men have been put to death by injection since Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1981.