USA - Virginia. Senate panel advances bill to ensure supply of lethal-injection drug

Senate panel advances bill to ensure supply of lethal-injection drug. The Senate Education and Health subcommittee advanced a bill (SB 1393) that would allow the state to hire pharmacies to prepare lethal-injection drugs. The bill would allow the state to hire pharmacies to make the drugs. Currently, pharmacies can mix custom drugs only with a prescription for a specific patient for a therapeutic use. The administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is seeking the measure. McAuliffe's secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, said the secrecy provision was included in the proposal for "security" reasons. Sen. Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) is the bill's sponsor. The subcommittee voted to amend it to require that the state disclose what drug or drug combination is used in any execution. But it left intact the secrecy provision, which extends to the terms of the pharmacies' contracts with the state. Corinna Barrett Lain, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, spoke against the bill. Lain, a former prosecutor who described herself as "agnostic" on the death penalty, focused on the bill's "secrecy provisions." "I think it's extremely bad government to shroud in secrecy the state at its most powerful moment, which is exercising its sovereign right to take the life of one of its citizens," she said. After amending the bill, the subcommittee agreed to send it to the full Education and Health Committee, with the recommendation that it then move to the Courts of Justice Committee.