4/19/2016 Faith leaders decry Virginia plan to shield execution drug suppliers | CTV News
Faith leaders decry Virginia plan to shield
execution drug suppliers
Death row exoneree Harold Wilson, third from right, leaves the podium after addressing a press conference at the General
Assembly Building in Richmond, Va., Monday, April 18, 2016. A group of religious leaders is denouncing Virginia Gov. Terry
McAuliffe's effort to shield the identities of pharmacies that supply drugs for executions. (Bob Brown/The Associated Press).
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Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press
Published Monday, April 18, 2016 4:59PM EDT
RICHMOND, Va. -- Religious leaders urged Virginia lawmakers on Monday to put an end to
capital punishment and reject Gov. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe's proposal to shield the
identities of pharmacies that supply lethal drugs for executions.
About a dozen members of an interfaith coalition and a former death row inmate denounced
McAuliffe's proposal, which replaces a bill that sought to force condemned inmates to the electric
chair if execution drugs were not available. Faith leaders said shielding suppliers from public
scrutiny would increase the risk of botched executions.
"When you have to result to secrecy or brutality to keep the machinery of death going, it's a sure
sign that what we're doing is not right," said Bishop Carroll Baltimore, former president of the
Progressive National Baptist Convention.
RELATED STORIES Baltimore was joined by Harold Wilson, who was
released from prison in 2005 after a jury acquitted him of
Executions in U.S. fall to lowest a triple homicide.
numbers in decades
Ohio inmate who survived botched Several states have adopted secrecy laws in an effort to
exeeutien can be put to death, court make the drugs easier to obtain by protecting suppliers
ules
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4/19/2016
Faith leaders decry Virginia plan to shield execution drug suppliers | CTV News
U.S. pharmacists’ group from critics.
discouraging members from
Providing.execution drugs Inmates in Georgia and Texas who have challenged
their state's laws have so far been unsuccessful. In
Arkansas, a circuit court judge recently struck down the
portion of the law that blocks state officials from revealing where the state gets its execution
drugs, and the case is heading to the state Supreme Court. In Missouri, a judge ruled last month
that the state must disclose the source of its execution drugs after several media organizations,
including The Associated Press, challenged the policy.
Virginia's inability to obtain lethal injection drugs prompted Del. Jackson Miller to propose
allowing prison officials to use the electric chair if drugs aren't available. But McAuliffe stripped
the electric chair provision from the bill, calling it "reprehensible," and replaced it with one that
allows the state to contract with confidential pharmacies for lethal injection drugs.
McAuliffe, a Roman Catholic, says he personally opposes capital punishment but believes he
must uphold state law. However, he says executions will end in Virginia if his proposal isn't
passed.
"Rather than duck the issue or offer an empty solution, the governor made a proposal that will
solve this problem," Brian Coy, the governor's spokesman, said Monday.
Megan McCracken, a death penalty expert at the University of California at Berkeley, said
McAuliffe’s proposed amendment is rooted in the "false premise” that a lack of confidentiality is
the reason states are struggling to obtain lethal injection drugs.
"The reality of what we see ... is that both pharmaceutical companies and compounding
pharmacies are declining to provide execution drugs because they don't want their products
used in executions, not because of a lack of secrecy," McCracken said.
It's unclear whether there will be enough support for McAuliffe’s amendment in the Republican-
controlled General Assembly when it returns Wednesday. Miller, has said while he has concerns
about the proposal, he will encourage his colleagues to support it.
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