Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 17, 1994                   TAG: 9402170113
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO B 
SOURCE: Staff report
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

HOUSE PASSES BILL TO ALLOW CHOICE OF EXECUTION METHOD

The 57-36 vote was the first time the House has supported lethal injection, touted by supporters as a more humane way to carry out the death sentence. The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, however.

Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-Newport News, whose support for the bill has deepened since he witnessed an execution several years ago, said electrocution is "a violent, torturous and, yes, dehumanizing way of carrying out the mandate of the people." Prisoners ought to at least have the option of another method, he argued.

But House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, warned that the quiet, apparently painless deaths brought on by lethal injections would desensitize the public to capital punishment.

"There is no nice way to take a human life," said Cranwell, a supporter of the death penalty. He said he worries that if the punishment became too easy to impose, it would be extended to crimes that should not merit death.

Approval of Hamilton's bill came as the legislators moved through a large docket of anti-crime measures on the final day for each house to consider bills proposed by its own members.

With only perfunctory debate, both houses gave overwhelming approval to "three-strikes-you're-out" bills to provide for life in prison without parole for people convicted of three violent felonies.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994