Contact: Frank Knaack
Director of Public Policy and
Communications
SLABS: fknaack@acluva.org
Oppose SB 1393 - A Huge Step Backward for Virginia into a World of Secrecy and Lack
of Accountability
SB 1393 would empower the Department of Corrections to obtain from pharmacies the
compounded drugs necessary to carry out execution by lethal injection. The bill would also
shield the identity of the entity compounding the drugs for use in executions and all documents
related to the execution process, including from disclosure under Virginia’s Freedom of
Information Act or during discovery or introduction as evidence in a civil proceeding except for
good cause shown.
This bill would open Virginia up to human experimentation. The proposed legislation
ignores the disastrous consequences that have resulted from recent cases where states have
ventured into real life human executions before subjecting those protocols to measured
consideration and review. For example, experimental drug combinations were used in the
horrifically botched executions of Clayton Lockett, Joseph Wood, and Dennis McGuire. Without
information about the pharmacies that compound the drugs and the raw ingredients used, it is
impossible to say whether a compounded product will be effective and work as intended.
Virginia should not engage in human experimentation.
This bill would be a significant and unnecessary blow to government transparency and
accountability. By prohibiting the public from knowing anything about the drug source,
materials, components, equipment, or any other “information relating to the execution
process,” the proposed legislation makes the execution process almost entirely secret and
subject to the unsupervised whim of the Director of the DOC. The awesome power of the
government to kill must be accompanied by transparency and accountability, both of which
would go away if this bill becomes law.
This bill raises constitutional concerns. On January 23, 2015 granted cert in Glossip v.
Gross, a lethal injection challenge out of Oklahoma. This is the first time in seven years that the
Court will review and opine on lethal injection procedures. This case also presents the
opportunity for the Court to clarify and amend the standard for determining the
constitutionality of a lethal injection procedure. It would be prudent for the General Assembly
to wait and see how the Court addresses the issues in this case before passing legislation that
affects the Commonwealth’s execution procedures.
This bill is unnecessary. For more than ten years, the DOC has made known the materials,
components, and entities engaged in the manufacture or supply of materials relating to the
execution process without incident. The legislature is without any factual basis for accusing the
public of being ill-equipped to handle this information responsibility, or doubting its ability to
continue to do so. This is legislation in search of a problem.
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The General Assembly should focus on ensuring a fair and accurate death penalty
process, and not on the method of execution. This bill misses the underlying problem - we
have a capital punishment system that doesn’t ensure fairness and accuracy. In August 2013
the American Bar Association published a report that cast further doubt on the ability of
Virginia to ensure a fair and accurate application of its death penalty. The report found
“several areas of concern” throughout Virginia’s death penalty process. Until we ensure a fair
and accurate process, we should put on hold any discussion over how we should kill those on
Virginia’s death row.
SB 1393 would undermine government transparency and accountability while also
opening Virginia up to human experimentation.
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