UPDATE 1-Tennessee executes double murderer by electrocution

A 63-year-old convicted double murderer was put to death by the electric chair at a Tennessee prison on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his last-minute appeals, state corrections officials said.

Edmund Zagorski, who had requested that the state not use lethal injection, was pronounced dead at 7:36 p.m. at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement.

Zagorski, who killed two men in 1983 who were carrying a large amount of cash in order to buy 100 pounds of marijuana, is the first U.S. inmate executed by electrocution since 2013.

Lawyers for Zagorski said he believed that compared with the state's lethal injection mix, the electric chair would be a less painful option.

Zagorski was to have been put to death on Oct. 11, but Governor Bill Haslam granted a temporary reprieve. (Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Bill Tarrant and Grant McCool)

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