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Kaine stays execution while high court ponders lethal injections

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine stayed the execution Tuesday of a man who killed a police officer, giving the U.S. Supreme Court time to decide whether lethal injections are constitutional.

Kaine delayed the execution of Edward Nathaniel Bell, scheduled for April 8, until July 24.
Bell, 43, was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to die for the October 1999 shooting of Winchester police Sgt. Ricky Timbrook.

Kaine’s stay was expected. It’s the second Virginia execution delayed and one of 30 delayed nationally since September, when the Supreme Court agreed to hear a Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees, that challenged the constitutionality of lethal injections.

But the governor, a Democrat who has allowed executions to be carried out despite personal objections about the death penalty, also announced that he would stay other Virginia executions due before the Supreme Court’s ruling.

In a press statement, Kaine said he made his intentions known “to provide guidance to courts, litigants and the public” until the court’s decision, expected by late June.

“Stays in the final hours before an execution can take an emotional and physical toll on those who must prepare for the execution, including the family members of the victim or victims,” Kaine wrote.

Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican, criticized the stay. He called Kaine’s decision premature because Bell had a stay request pending before the Supreme Court.

There was no reply Tuesday afternoon to a telephone message left for Bell’s attorney, Rob Lee.
McDonnell also disagreed with what he characterized as “a blanket moratorium on all executions in Virginia.”

“This moratorium will pre-empt the … Supreme Court’s ability to decide whether other Virginia capital murderers present sufficient legal grounds to stay an execution. Additionally, other death-row inmates affected by the Governor’s actions have yet to select a method of execution as Virginia law provides, and only lethal injection cases are at issue in the Baze case,” McDonnell wrote in a news release.

Last fall, the October execution of Virginia death row inmate Christopher Scott Emmett was stayed pending the court review.

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