VIRGINIA (USA): BILL TO ALLOW INCREASED USE OF ELECTRIC CHAIR PASSES HOUSE

The House of Delegates overwhelmingly passed a bill today that would make electrocution the default method of death for condemned prisoners if lethal injection is not available. Currently, electrocution is used only at the request of the inmate sentenced to die.
Only 6 states - Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia - still authorize use of the electric chair, according to research compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. Kentucky and Tennessee permit electrocution only for crimes committed before 1998.
All of the 6 states will electrocute only those inmates who specifically request it.
A Senate version of the bill is in committee. The electric chair was last used in Virginia in January 2013, when Robert Gleason Jr., 43, chose to die by electrocution. He was the first prisoner since 2010 to do so; there were no complications.