In Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459 (1947), the state attempted to use the electric chair to execute Willie Francis, a convicted murderer, but due to a mechanical failure that occurred, Francis did not die. Francis asserted that a second attempt to electrocute him would violate the double jeopardy clause and would constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Court denied Francis's claim that a second attempt at electrocution would subject him to a lingering death or cruel and unusual punishment, holding as follows: "Even the fact that petitioner has already been subjected to a current of electricity does not make his subsequent execution any more cruel in the constitutional sense than any other execution. The cruelty against which the Constitution protects a convicted man is cruelty inherent in the method of punishment, not the necessary suffering involved in any method employed to extinguish life humanely. The fact that an unforeseeable accident prevented the prompt consummation of the sentence cannot, it seems to us, add an element of cruelty to a subsequent execution. There is no purpose to inflict unnecessary pain nor any unnecessary pain involved in the proposed execution. The situation of the unfortunate victim of this accident is just as though he had suffered the identical amount of mental anguish and physical pain in any other occurrence, such as, for example, a fire in the cell block." Id. at 464 .