By AMY DRISCOLL
Herald Staff Writer

The bloody spectacle of Allen Lee ``Tiny'' Davis' execution last week was only the latest chapter in the long, controversial life of Florida's electric chair.

Among the chair's other recent gruesome highlights: A flaming death mask and a sponge that caught fire above a condemned killer's scalp.

The latest questions arose Thursday after the execution of Davis, a 344-pound killer who bled profusely from the nose as the electricity coursed through his body.

The possibility that the chair -- the wood newly replaced -- had malfunctioned prompted the Florida Supreme Court to postpone an execution scheduled for the following day.

Thomas Provenzano had been set to die on Friday, but his lawyers argued that the Davis execution was ``the kind of `savage and inhumane' spectacle forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.'' Provenzano was granted a stay until Sept. 14.

The electric chair, invented more than a century ago as a quick and painless alternative to hanging, was first used in Florida in 1924. Murderer Frank Johnson became the first man to die in the three-legged oak chair built by inmates the year before.

Florida is one of four states -- along with Georgia, Alabama and Nebraska -- that still rely solely on electrocution to kill its condemned. A total of 238 people have been put to death in Florida's electric chair -- 44 since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated.

Opponents say that, despite the chair's long history, every execution in it can result in unpleasant surprises.

``They don't know what they are doing in [electrocution] executions. It is always an experiment,'' said Deborah Denno, an attorney and sociologist who has studied executions nationwide. ``Somebody's head could blow off and they would say they did it the right way.''

While the vast majority of Florida's electrocutions have gone off without a hitch, some have been hideously botched -- notably in the cases of Jesse Tafero and Pedro Medina.

When Tafero, a cop killer, was executed in 1990, his head caught fire under the black mask that guards place over the condemned person's head moments before the switch is thrown. Smoke and flames shot out from his head, shocking witnesses who also said it took three jolts of electricity to stop Tafero's breathing.

The state later concluded that the execution team had placed the wrong kind of sponge on his head to conduct electricity. A natural sea sponge had been used in the past; in Tafero's case, the state had switched to a synthetic one that may have impeded the flow of electricity.

Medina's electrocution, in 1997, had a similarly grisly result, when a foot-long flame flared from the leather death hood after the electricity began to flow. That sight stopped executions in Florida for a year, while anti-death-penalty lawyers argued that the chair dispensed cruel and unusual punishment.

Executions resumed in 1998, after the state Supreme Court upheld the use of the chair. Four inmates were executed in two weeks, including the first woman to be strapped into the chair: Judias Buenoano, known as ``the Black Widow'' for her penchant for poisoning the men in her life.

The chair was replaced this year, a sturdier near-replica replacing the inmate-built chair called Ol' Sparky, which was wearing out. But Davis' lawyers argued before the execution that the new chair could malfunction because the state had not replaced the electrical components, some of which are 40 years old.

University of Florida Professor Mike Radelet, who is chairman of the sociology department and has written about botched executions, said he believes Davis' execution may be the last time Florida uses the electric chair.