"Filing of Petition for Reprieve on behalf of Dennis Mitchell Orbe: Attorneys for Dennis Mitchell Orbe, scheduled to die by lethal injection tomorrow evening at the Greensville Correctional Center’s Unit L, the Death House, have filed a request for a limited reprieve with Governor Warner.

The petition filed by the Virginia Capital Resource Representation Center on Tuesday, March 30, 2004, states that Mr. Orbe “does not seek a commutation of his sentence.” The petition for Dennis Orbe asks Governor Warner to “grant him a reprieve until the Department of Corrections of the Commonwealth of Virginia amends its protocol for lethal injection.”

Mr. Orbe’s request points out that the protocol recently acknowledged by Warden Anthony Parker as used by the Virginia Department of Corrections in the execution by lethal injection of death row inmates is the “same protocol that the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have identified as inhumane for animal euthanasia.”

According to the Panel on Euthanasia of the AVMA, “A combination of pentobarbital with a neuromuscular blocking agent is not an acceptable euthanasia agent.” The HSUS similarly denotes as inhumane and unacceptable for euthanasia “any combination of sodium pentobarbital with a neuromuscular blocking agent.”

On March 10, 2004 the Director of the Department of Corrections, Gene M. Johnson, in responding to a suit by Dennis Mitchell Orbe acknowledged by inclusion of the affidavit of Warden Parker that “Execution by lethal injection in Virginia is achieved by administering…two grams of Sodium Thiopental; fifty milligrams of Pavulon; and two Hundred Forty milliequivalents of Potassium Chloride.” Mr. Orbe’s petition for reprieve lists Sodium Thiopental as a “short-acting barbiturate drug” and Pavulon as “the brand name for pancuronium bromide, which is a neuromuscular blocking agent.” This is the first time that Virginia’s lethal injection execution protocols have been made partially public.

Execution by lethal injection was recently halted in New Jersey by that state’s Appellate Court Division. In December of last year Virginia’s attempted execution of James Reid by lethal injection was stayed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. An appeal to the US Supreme Court of that ruling by Virginia’s Attorney General was denied until it rules on an Alabama case similar to Reid’s.

Mr. Orbe’s petition to Gov. Warner “asks the Governor to exercise his authority to prevent the Department of Corrections from imposing a lethal injection protocol that is recognized in the Commonwealth and throughout the country as unfit for a dog.”

Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty calls upon Governor Warner to honor Mr. Orbe’s request. According to VADP’s Director, Jack Payden-Travers, “It is reprehensible that a procedure deemed as cruel and unusual for the termination of an animal’s life would still be acceptable in Virginia for the termination of a human life.” He pointed out that Mark Warner stayed the execution of death row inmate Bobby Swisher in July of 2004 to allow for court review of claims of improper jury notification forms. Payden-Travers stated that “regardless of one’s stand on capital punishment, all Virginians should be united in condemning a process that has been outlawed for use with cats and dogs and yet is still authorized in the Commonwealth for use in the execution of human beings. No further lethal injections should be allowed until the protocol is reviewed by an independent panel of physicians. If this weren’t such a serious situation with literally a man’s life at stake, I might first ask for a review of the Department of Corrections’ protocols by the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society!” (Jack Payden-Travers, VADP, March 30, 2004)

Jack Payden-Travers can be reached at (434) 960-4673 or Jack@VADP.org