Electric Chair in Virginia: Governor Says 'No'

Gov. Terry McAuliffe said "no" late Sunday to the electric chair as a mandatory method of execution in Virginia if execution drugs aren't available.

The Governor was faced with making a decision Sunday night by midnight, on a controversial bill that would have made using the electric chair the only alternative when drugs weren't available for executions.

"Our citizens share my concerns and do not wish to be forced into using this terrible form of punishment," the Governor announced Monday morning in a news conference and on social media.

Virginia is one of at least eight states allowing electrocutions, but it currently gives inmates the choice of dying by lethal-injection or the electric chair, according to a recent report by Reuters. If they decline to make a decision, they receive the injection. The bill would have allowed the state to use the electric chair if lethal-injection drugs are unavailable.

“There is no humane way to kill another human being, but it is our opinion that electrocution is worse than lethal injection,” Michael Stone, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told NBC News. “You’re basically cooking a human being while they are alive.”

Democratic leader Senator Richard Saslaw said that when offenders murder multiple people, they no longer deserve to be treated humanely, Reuters pointed out. “When you commit acts like that, you give you up your right to as far as I’m concerned to say well I want to die humanely,” Saslaw told the Associated Press.

The gruesome issue is prompted by a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that is part of the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections, The Council of State Governments wrote this month in their newsletter.

The shortage "has thrown capital punishment in the United States into disarray, delaying executions and forcing the change of execution protocols in several states," the group said.

McAuliffe has offered amendments to the bill that would allow pharmacies in Virginia, in secret, to create a batch of lethal injection drugs. The names of the pharmacies and any other identifying information “shall be confidential, shall be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act . . . and shall not be subject to discovery or introduction as evidence in any civil proceeding unless good cause is shown,” McAuliffe’s amendment reads.

The Republican-controlled legislature will have the opportunity to accept or reject McAuliffe’s amendment when it returns for its veto session April 20, The Washington Post points out.

PHOTO of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe explaining his decision Monday at news conference; photo courtesy of Governor's Office