MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — A West Virginia delegate will push for the state to conduct a study on how other states conduct the death penalty during the interim legislative session.
Delegate John Overington, R-Berkeley, has introduced multiple bills to allow capital punishment in West Virginia. The practice was abolished in 1965.
“Thirty of those (years) have been when Democrats had control,” Overington said recently on MetroNews “Talkline.”
“Even though many Democrats support it, leadership has never been willing to take it up or put it on the agenda. When Republicans took over three years ago, our focus for the first two years was jobs and economic development.”
Overington said he knows getting through the budget process will be emotional, but hopes the legislature will have the opportunity to review capital punishment in other states.
“This would give us the chance to see which states’ versions work the best, how its most effective, which ones have safeguards to make sure no mistakes are made,” he said. “I think if we study it, we should be in a good position to take it up next year and for West Virginia to adopt it.”
Thirty-one states have the death penalty, and the federal government and U.S. military also conduct the practice.
Death penalty has been the subject of national debate over recent weeks; Arkansas conducted its first execution Thursday since 2005. Ledell Lee, who was convicted in 1995 for the murder of Debra Reese, died through means of lethal injection.
The state planned to conduct eight executions over 11 days beginning on April 17, but that was halted due to a April 19 temporary restraining order granted to a company who manufactures to drugs used in the legal injection procedure.
McKesson Medical Surgical argued its drug, vecuronium bromide, was not intended to be used in lethal injections. The company added the Arkansas Department of Correction failed to disclose the drug’s intended purpose.
The State Supreme Court reversed the order on April 21, the same day Lee was executed. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 Thursday to deny a stay request.
The state has said the eight people have to be executed before April 30 because of the expiration date of the drugs used in lethal injections.
Two inmates are scheduled to be executed Monday.
Overington said the punishments that could be considered are the electric chair and the firing squad, noting the problems with the lethal injection procedure Arkansas is facing.
Overington said the procedure can bring closure to the families of victims.
“Of all the tasks of government, the most basic is to protect its citizens from violence,” he said, quoting former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
Dulles served in the Eisenhower administration from 1953 to 1959.
Overington said there are recent situations where the death penalty could have been considered. He said the “poster child” Ronald Williams, who killed a Beckley police officer and was serving a life term at West Virginia State Penitentiary when he escaped in 1979.
He killed an off-duty state trooper during his escape, and murdered an Arizona man during his 18-month run from authorities.
Overington said the death penalty could have also been an option in the case involving Emmaleigh Barringer, a 10-month-old from Jackson County who died of a skull fracture.
Benjamin Taylor was indicted Oct. 25 on charges related to the crime, including first-degree murder and first-degree sexual assault.
Overington said the polls that he has seen, including those he has done, show high support for bringing back capital punishment.
“Anywhere between 70 to 90 percent of West Virginians support it in certain circumstances,” he said.
During the regular legislative session, Overington sponsored House Bill 2408 to change the state code to allow juries to consider capital punishment as an option. The bill was submitted to the House Judiciary Committee, where it did not advance.