NASHVILLE (AP) — The state of Tennessee is preparing to execute a blind man this week.

Lee Hall is scheduled to be electrocuted Thursday.

Hall had his sight when he entered death row nearly three decades ago, but attorneys for the 53-year-old prisoner say he's since become functionally blind due to improperly treated glaucoma.

Hall's attorneys say he would be just the second blind person to be executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Hall, formerly known as Leroy Hall Jr., has been on death row since he was convicted for the 1991 killing of his estranged girlfriend Traci Crozier.

He has decided to die by the electric chair, a choice allowed for death row inmates who were convicted before January 1999.