Deborah Denno cited by the Richmond Times-Dispatch regarding Virginia’s execution statute, which, since 1995, has given such prisoners a choice in their manner of death: lethal injection or electrocution. Seventy-nine inmates have died by injection; seven chose the chair.
One was a 1994 study by Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University, which said that 26 states have used electrocution dating to the 19th century.
Surovell also sent us a December 2012 article in Virginia Lawyer that cited Denno’s number of 26 states once allowing electrocutions, but added that all but four “have now moved away from it — either by legislative abandonment or judicial ruling.” That translates to an 85 percent drop in states.
Read the entire Richmond Times-Dispatch story.