This week in the news

Kaine delays excecution

The execution of a man who killed a police officer
was delayed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine Tuesday,
giving the U.S. Supreme Court time to decide
whether lethal injections are constitutional.

Edward Nathaniel Bell’s execution, scheduled for
April 8, was stayed by Kaine until July 24.

Convicted for the October 1999 shooting of
Winchester police Sgt. Ricky Timbrook, 43-year-old
Bell was sentenced to die in 2001.

Kaine’s stay was expected. In September, the
Supreme Court agreed to hear a Kentucky case,
Base v. Rees, that challenged the constitutionality
of lethal injections.

Since then, there have been 30 executions delayed
nationally. Kaine’s stay is the second Virginia
execution delayed.

Kaine also announced he would stay other
Virginia executions due before the Supreme Court’s
ruling. Kaine, a Democrat, previously allowed
executions to be carried out despite personal
objections about the death penalty.

Kaine said in a press statement he made his
intentions known “to provide guidance to courts,
litigants and the public” until the court’s decision,
expected by late June.

Brief by the Associated Press

Stone semicircle becomes permanent Tech memorial

Virginia Tech’s governing board was told Monday
the semicircle of 32 stones in front of the school’s
administration building will be the permanent
memorial to the victims of the mass killings on
campus last April.

University President Charles Steger and other
administrators updated the Board of Visitors on
plans for marking the anniversary and the progress
of changes made at the university since the worst
mass shootings in modern U.S. history.

Steger said officials initially had discussed
building at another site in remembrance of the
slain students and faculty members.

Provost Mark McNamee told the board organizers
have been meeting to discuss a peace center that
will be established in the classroom building where
Seung-Hui Cho committed the atrocity. McNamee
said renovation of the second-floor classrooms
could begin this summer.

Brief by the Associated Press

I-64 shooters will face additional charges

The two suspects in the Interstate-64 shootings
face five additional felony charges. They now have
been charged with 15 felony counts in connection
with last Thursday’s shooting spree.

Nineteen-year-old Slade Allen Woodson and a
16-year-old male whose name has not been released
were charged with three additional counts of
shooting from a vehicle so as to endanger people
and with two counts of shooting into an occupied
dwelling.

Woodson was denied bond Tuesday by a General
District Court judge who appointed the Public
Defender’s Office to represent him.

Brief by the Associated Press