House rejects bill to keep execution drugs secret - Richmond.com: Virginia Politics
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House rejects bill to keep
execution drugs secret
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By ANOREW CAIN Rehmond Times Dispatch
The House of Delegates voted 56-42
Tuesday to defeat a measure that would
have shrouded Virginia's lethal injection
process in secrecy.
Senate Bill 1393, sponsored by Senate
Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw,
D-Fairfax, had passed the Senate on a 23-
14.vote Feb. 10
Gov. Terry had
backed the legislation that would have
allowed the state to prevent public
disclosure of the drugs used in lethal
injection executions and the drugs!
manufacturers.
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‘Assembly — Feb
But five days ahead of adjournment,
delegates from both parties stood and
Tuesday
the House floor.
“The execution of a convicted felon is
most certainly a public act,” said Del
Charniele L. Herring, D-Alexandria, “itis
the people of the commonwealth who are
putting to death an individual. | certainly
cannot support putting this public act
under a veil of secrecy.”
Del. Rick L. Mortis, R-Suffolk, who also
pie spoke against the bil, said he supports
Insurance the det analy i ahs ea
faweseNe” conkenes the death penalty but the issue is open
and rnment.
Ina government of the people (and) by the people,” Morris said, “the people ought
to know and should know how the government transacts its business.”
Saslaw has said that the bulk of the chemicals used in executions are purchased
overseas but that under pressure from anti-death penalty advocates, most nations
now prohibit the shipment of the drugs for that purpose.
He also has said it would not be unusual to prevent the disclosure of the pharmacies
compounding the drugs, the names of the drugs, and the names of the companies
that produce the drugs.
“We do not publicize who makes the electric chair," he said recently. "We dont tell
people who pulls the switch or who puts the needle in, and there is no one here who
knows who makes thermonuclear warheads, and there is a reason for that."
Del. David 8. Albo, R-Fairfax, spoke for Saslaw's bill Tuesday on the House floor. He
said disclosing the drug reveal the pl
drugs.
“No one's going to make the drugs if their names are out there because they're going
to be picketed,” Albo said,
http://www.richmond.com/news/Vvirginia/government-politics/article 2abbfabc-e2c3-573 1-.
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Del. James M. LeMunyon, R-Fairfax, unsuccessfully sought a floor amendment that
would have required that the measure pass the legislature again in 2016 before it
could be enacted,
LeMunyon said he did not object to the bill's purpose, but he noted that pertinent
court cases are pending in the U.S. Supreme Court and the state Supreme Court.
‘The U.S. Supreme Court announced last month that it will consider an appeal from
death row inmates in Oklahoma who say that state's lethal injection procedures
violate | punishment,
By june, the state Supreme Court will hear an appeal to determine the scope of
Freedom of Information Act inquiries about lethal injections in Virginia,
No executions are currently pending in Virginia
The lethal injection process should not be exempt from the Freedom of Information
‘Actin order to increase “the convenience of people inside of government,” LeMunyon
said on the House floor.
“There is no public accountability or transparency for this process if this becomes
law," he added.
Del. Scott A. Surovell, D-Fairfax, who took the floor after LeMunyon, said that “this
entire issue right now isa legal mess."
“This is not about the secrecy of the executioner,” Surovell said, The identity of ‘the
House rejects bill to keep execution drugs secret - Richmond.com: Virginia Politics
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person who puts the syringe in the Y's body" will Surovell said.
“What the public has a right to know — we have a right to know — is what the
contents of the syringe are going to be.”
‘The measure also would have allowed the Department of Corrections to contract
with pharmacies to compound the drugs used in the lethal cocktall
advocates for
ind death ps pp
“We were glad to work with the Catholic Conference, Virginians for Alternatives to the
Death Penalty, and the Virginia Press Association to defeat this legislation that would
have brought secret, experimental executions to the commonwealth,” said Frank
knaack, director of public policy and communications at the ACLU of Virginia
He said the bill would have made Virginia's execution process subject to “the
Unsupervised whim’ of the director of the Department of Corrections.
“This level of secrecy and unchecked government authority is unacceptable,
particularly when we're talking about the awesome power of the government to kill in
our name.”
acain@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6645
Twitter: @AndrewCainkTD
Staff writer Jim Nolan contributed to this report.
Posted in Government pois 0
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