A convicted killer became the second Tennessee inmate in five weeks to be executed in the electric chair after rejecting lethal injection.
David Earl Miller, 61, was pronounced dead at 7.25pm local time on Thursday at a Nashville maximum-security prison.
Miller was convicted of killing 23-year-old Lee Standifer in 1981 in Knoxville and had been on death row for 36 years, the longest of any inmate in Tennessee.
Ms Standifer, who was mentally disabled, was repeatedly beaten, stabbed and dragged into the woods after going on a date with Miller.
Warden Tony Mays asked Miller if he had any last words, he said: "Beats being on death row."
Both Miller and inmate Edmund Zagorski before him chose the electric chair over lethal injection, a process said to be painless and humane. Zagorski was executed November 1.
The state adopted lethal injection as its preferred method two decades ago. But the inmates argued in court that the current method, involving the drug midazolam, causes a prolonged and torturous death.
They pointed to the August execution of Billy Ray Irick, which took around 20 minutes during which he coughed and huffed before turning a dark purple.
In recent decades, states have moved away from the electric chair, and no state now uses electrocution as its main execution method, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre.
Georgia and Nebraska courts both have ruled the electric chair unconstitutional, and about two decades ago it looked as though the US Supreme Court would weigh in on the issue.
It agreed to hear a case out of Florida after a series of botched executions there. But Florida adopted lethal injection, and the case was dropped.
Mr Dunham said he wasn't aware of any state other than Tennessee where inmates were choosing electrocution over lethal injection.
In Tennessee, inmates whose crimes were committed before 1999 can chose electrocution over lethal injection.
Prior to Zagorski's execution, the builder of Tennessee's electric chair had warned that it could malfunction, but both his and Miller's executions appeared to be carried out without incident.
Miller's death was only the third time Tennessee had put an inmate to death in the electric chair since 1960.
