Cavalier Daily – Suit opposes injections: Department of Corrections follows incorrect execution protocol, attorneys allege
The Virginia Department of Corrections may be misusing procedures of medicine, anesthesiology and pharmacy when administering lethal injections, according to a complaint filed earlier this week by Alexandria attorneys Meghan Shapiro and Christopher Leibig.
Shifts detected in support for death penalty
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – The campaign to abolish the death penalty has been freshly invigorated this month in a series of actions that supporters say represents increasing evidence that America may be losing its taste for capital punishment.
As early as this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, is poised to sign a bill repealing the death penalty in that state. A separate proposal has qualified for the November ballot in California that would shut down the largest death row in the country and convert inmates’ sentences to life without parole.
Academics, too, have recently taken indirect aim: The National Research Council concluded last week that there have been no reliable studies to show that capital punishment is a deterrent to homicide.
Attorneys challenge Va.’s lethal injections
Credit: BOB BROWN/TIMES-DISPATCH
Published: April 25, 2012
RICHMOND, Va. —
Virginia’s execution team is engaging in the unlicensed practice of medicine, pharmacy and anesthesiology, according to a challenge to lethal injection filed in Richmond Circuit Court on Tuesday.
The complaint names the director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, the unnamed execution team leader (the identities of team members are confidential) and other prison officials as defendants.
The defendants, according to the complaint, are not authorized under state law to request, dispense, distribute, give, and/or obtain or intravenously administer as a general anesthetic controlled prescription substances to condemned inmates.