Drug manufacturers have protested the use of their drugs in executions, forcing many states to pass laws bringing back other methods, such as electrocutions and firing squads, which can be used when the drugs are hard to obtain.
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The electric chair has always been an option for inmates that are already in the death row together with the lethal injection.
Assuming the House accepts the amendment, the measure will go to Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who has not stated a position on the measure. The bill won approval with a 22-17 vote in the Senate, meaning it doesn’t appear to have enough support to survive a veto if it’s spiked by McAuliffe.
Virginia would be allowed to force condemned inmates to die in the electric chair under a bill the state Senate approved Monday as a response to the nationwide shortage of lethal-injection drugs.
Gray has not indicated which method of execution he preferred.
The bill would allow the state Corrections Department to mandate electrocution if lethal injection drugs are unavailable.
The legislation has fueled debate in Virginia over whether capital punishment, especially the electric chair, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Gray’s execution has been postponed by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court about whether to hear the case. “They’re beyond redemption”, said Obenshain, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for state attorney general in 2013.
“There is no humane way to kill another human being, but it is our opinion that electrocution is worse than lethal injection”, Michael Stone, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told NBC News.
Tennessee also passed the same law.
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Virginia is one of eight states that have electric chairs available for executions if death-row prisoners choose it. Last year, Oklahoma became the first state to approve nitrogen gas for executions if lethal injections become unavailable or is deemed unconstitutional.
