Virginia governor wants to use drugs from unregulated pharmacies for lethal injection

Governor McAuliffe amended a bill that would allow state officials to use the electric chair if they could not locate the right drugs for an injection

The lethal injection is the primary method of execution in 33 states (Getty)

The governor of Virginia has sanctioned the use of drugs from unregulated pharmacies to kill death row inmates as part of a “compromise” to stop the electric chair becoming a default option as lawmakers face a lack of transparent and legal options to execute prisoners.

Governor Terry McAuliffe’s amendment, if passed, would allow the Department of Corrections to secretly make the drugs through a pharmacy - unregulated by the US Food and Drug Administration - and use the drugs without public scrutiny.

“These manufacturers will not do business in Virginia if their identities are to be revealed,” Mr McAuliffe said, adding that his proposed changes are ”controversial but necessary”.

He suggested the amendment as a “compromise” to fight against Republican Delegate Jackson Miller's proposal to make the electric chair the default choice of execution.

Mr Miller told The Independent in a statement that, although Mr McAuliffe's amendment was not "ideal", he was prepared to support it in order to "preserve the full measure of justice".

Governor McAuliffe, who is also for the death penalty, said the electric chair carries “horrific consequences” and is a “terrible form of punishment”.

Mr McAuliffe's colleagues will vote on the amendment, which he tried and failed to get signed into law in 2015, on 20 April.

He warned that if lawmakers do not accept the amendment, he will veto the bill and “halt capital punishment” in the state.

US lawmakers increasingly face a choice: either ban the death penalty, or find legal and transparent ways of executing their death row prisoners.

States are facing a shrinking number of options, however, as there is a lack of regulated drug suppliers as other countries around the world rule out capital punishment.

Robert Dunham, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what the governor is offering as a substitute carries “its own set of inherent risks”.

He said the use of drugs from unregulated pharmacies led to Oklahoma prisoner Charles Warner being illegally administered the wrong drug last year - it took 43 minutes for him to die as he writhed in agony, strapped to a gurney.

“Warner said his body was 'on fire', which is consistent with the [first] drug not keeping him anesthetized throughout the procedure and the [second] killing drug chemically burning him to death,” said Mr Dunham.

Mr McAuliffe’s amendment to use unregulated pharmacies has been met with fierce opposition, including from the Catholic Church.

“This action by the governor – and the General Assembly – ignores a very public plea Pope Francis made earlier this year that government leaders carry out no executions in this Year of Mercy and abolish the death penalty throughout the world,” read a joint statement from two Virginia clergymen, Bishop Francis X DiLorenzo and Bishop Paul S Loverde.

Claire Gastanaga, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Virigina, tweeted her opposition to the bill, saying “secret drugs protocols are never going to be ‘reasonable’,” mocking the governor’s “compromise” on the death penalty.

The electric chair was outlawed in Nebraska and Georgia as “cruel and unusual” but remains a choice available to prisoners in other states including Virginia.

The last prisoner to die by electric chair in Virginia was Robert Gleason in 2013.

Other sanctioned methods of the death penalty, depending on the state, include firing squad, hanging and the gas chamber, but most states - 33 - use the lethal injection as the primary method.