The eleventh-hour amendment by the governor instead allowed the state of Virginia to hire a pharmacy to produce the drug for executions in secrecy, The Washington Post reported.
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Last April, Oklahoma became the first state to legalize the use of the gas chamber if lethal-injection drugs were not available.
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.
Currently, Virginia death row inmates have the choice of whether to be executed by electric chair or lethal injection.
McAuliffe stripped out the electric chair provisions out of the contentious bill and vowed to veto the measure if lawmakers don’t approve his changes, which he said offer a “reasonable middle ground” on an emotionally charged issue.
“These amendments deliver a valid path forward to continue VA’s capital punishment policy”, McAuliffe said on Twitter. Lawmakers who backed the bill used the pending execution of a convicted murder to make their case, detailing his grisly crimes in emotional speeches in the General Assembly.
McAuliffe faced intense pressure to veto the electric chair bill from religious groups and death penalty opponents, who say electrocutions are cruel and unusual punishment.
“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. If they decline to make a decision, they receive the injection.
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Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe proposes making significant changes to a bill that sought to allow the state to force condemned inmates to die in the electric chair when lethal injection drugs aren’t available in Richmond, Va., Monday, April 11, 2016. Virginia is one of at least eight states in the U.S. that allow electrocutions.
