Governor McAuliffe proposes amendment to death penalty

Mary Lee Clark
Contributing Writer

On April 20, Governor Terry McAuliffe recommended an amendment to House Bill 815 that would protect the identities of government-contracted pharmaceutical companies producing medicines used for state-conducted executions.

The amendment would keep the identities protected from being revealed through the Freedom of Information Act, making it more difficult for the public to know where the drugs are coming from. HB815 currently states pharmacies cannot be introduced as evidence in civil proceedings unless “good cause” is shown.

Senator Jackson Miller (R-Manassas) introduced a previous bill that would allow use of the electric chair if there were no lethal drugs available in Virginia.

In March, the Virginia House and Senate passed the bill to execute death row inmates by electrocution. When McAuliffe received the bill, he rejected and amended it.

“There is no justification for a bill that carries such horrific consequences,” McAuliffe told reporters. “I personally find it reprehensible. We take human beings, we strap them in a chair and then we flood their bodies with 1,800 volts of electricity, subjecting them to unspeakable pain until they die.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, states are having difficulties obtaining effective, FDA-approved drugs to use during lethal injection. Many drug companies have felt pressure from anti-death penalty activists to stop them from providing drugs for executions.

Virginia is not the first to pass a law to keep lethal drug suppliers secret. In 2014, Ohio Governor John Kasich passed a similar law that would protect the identities of pharmacies providing the state with lethal drugs from public knowledge for 20 years.

Lethal injection and electrocution are both currently options for the death penalty in Virginia. Although the prisoner chooses the method, but lethal injection is the default.