GENERAL INTEREST parency in Virginia’s execution procedures. 61 SB 270 provided greater regulation of lethal injection drugs received by Virginia’s Department of Corrections, so that the drugs would be subject to the requirements of the Drug Control Act as well as the jurisdiction of the Board of Pharmacy. 62 Additionally, the Act declassified and made available as public information the identities of any facilities that outsourced execu-tion drugs subject to disclosure under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act and in civil legal proceedings. 63 On April 11, 2020, the bill was officially signed into law by Governor Ralph Northam and placed in the Acts of Assembly Chapter No. 1166. 64 The new law took effect on July 1, 2020. 65 Conclusion Capital punishment legislation will continue to be considered in state legislatures across the nation, as concerns over the inconsistent ap-plication of the death penalty, and the potential for wrongful convic-tions spur on discussions of reform. These conversations have already prompted Virginia’s legislature to implement a law to add transparency to the state’s execution procedures by declassifying the sources of its lethal injection drugs. And the discussions aren’t over: Bills proposing the abolishment of the death penalty altogether and the implementation a moratorium on executions will continue to the 2021 legislative session. As Virginia’s legislature considers reformations to the state’s death pen-alty policies, both pro-penalty advocates and abolitionists will hold their breath to see where the state falls. R The Hon. Joseph A. Migliozzi is a frequent contributor to Virginia Lawyer magazine, working with interns and clerks on a variety of topical articles. He was appointed to the Norfolk Circuit Court bench in 2014 after serving as a judge in the Norfolk General District Court and as the southeastern district’s capital defender in death pen-alty-eligible cases. Rebecca Dattilo is a third-year law student at Regent University School of Law. She graduated from Vanguard University, where she studied Cultural Anthropology and Political Science. She served as a legal intern for The Honorable Joseph A. Migliozzi Jr. in the Norfolk Circuit Court during the summer of 2020. Upon graduating from law school, she plans to sit for the Virginia bar exam. Endnotes 1 State by State , Death Penalty Info. Ctr., https:// deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/ state-by-state (last visited Aug. 7, 2020). 2 Id . 3 Id. 4 Death Penalty, Gallup, https://news.gallup. com/poll/1606/Death-Penalty.aspx (last visited Aug. 6, 2020). 5 Id . 6 Denise Lavoie, Opponents Push to Abolish Death Penalty in Virginia , Associated Press, Dec. 31, 2019, https://apnews.com/745af-552775667c3118c7642009e6dee. 7 Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-10 (2020). 8 Id. § 18.2-31; ABA, Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Report 116 (Aug. 2013), https://www.americanbar.org/ content/dam/aba/administrative/death_pen-alty_moratorium/va_complete_report. authcheckdam.pdf. 9 ABA, Chapter Summaries of the Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Report xxiii (Aug. 2013), https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ aba/administrative/death_penalty_moratori-um/va_report_chapter_summaries.pdf. 10 Tom Jackman, Va. Man Sentenced to Death in 2011 Gets New Hearing, and New Prosecutor Agrees to Life Sentence, Wash. Post (Mar. 12, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/ crime-law/2020/03/12/va-man-sentenced-death-2011-gets-new-hearing-new-prosecu-tor-agrees-life-sentence/. 11 Id . 12 Id. www.vsb.org 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Virginia Death Row Shrinks to 2 as Prosecutor Drops Death Penalty Against Mark Lawlor , Death Penalty Info. Ctr. (Mar. 18, 2020), https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/virginia-death-row-shrinks-to-2-as-prosecutor-drops-death-penalty-against-mark-lawlor. Id . Jackman, supra note 10. Lavoie, supra note 6. Virginia , Death Penalty Info. Ctr., https:// deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/ state-by-state/virginia (last visited Aug. 6, 2020). Id . Virginia’s Execution History , Virginians Alts. Death Penalty, https://www.vadp.org/dp-info/ virginias-execution-history/ (last visited Aug. 5, 2020). Rachel Sutphin, Opinion, It’s Time to End the Death Penalty in Virginia, Wash. Post. (Nov. 22, 2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/ opinions/local-opinions/its-time-to-end-the-death-penalty-in-virginia/2019/11/22/0b1d-b69c-025f-11ea-8501-2a7123a38c58_story. html. Analise Nuxoll, Article, A Comparative Study on Death Penalty Statutes and Their Effects on Certain Minority Groups in Light of Furman v. Georgia , 38 J. Nat'l Ass'n L. Jud. 230, 254 (2018). Innocence and Error, Equal Just. Initiative, https://eji.org/issues/death-penalty/#Inno-cence_and_Error (last visited Aug. 4, 2020); Nuxoll, supra note 21, at 254. Legally Irrelevant Factors Impact Death Sen-tencing, Death Penalty Info. Ctr., https://death-24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 penaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/arbitrariness/ evidence-of-arbitrariness (last visited Aug. 4, 2020). Death Penalty, Equal Just. Initiative, https://eji. org/issues/death-penalty/ (last visited Aug. 4, 2020) [hereinafter Death Penalty, Equal Just. Initiative]; Race and the Death Penalty by the Numbers, Death Penalty Info. Ctr., https:// deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/race/race-and-the-death-penalty-by-the-numbers (last visited Aug. 4, 2020). Race and the Death Penalty by the Numbers, supra note 24. Id . Id . Phillip Cherney, Opinion, The Death Pen-alty and the Masquerade of Justice, Visalia Times-Delta (July 13, 2020), https://www.visal-iatimesdelta.com/story/opinion/2020/07/09/ commentary-death-penalty-and-masquer-ade-justice/5392309002/. Executions by Race and Race of Victim, Death Penalty Info. Ctr., https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ executions/executions-overview/executions-by-race-and-race-of-victim (last visited Aug. 5, 2020). Id. Kristina Leslie, Opinion, Death Penalty Repeal is Essential to Racial Healing, Rich. Times-Dis-patch (July 2, 2020), https://richmond.com/ opinion/columnists/kristina-leslie-col-umn-death-penalty-repeal-is-essential-to-ra-cial-healing/article_0f21e020-6b6b-51cb-a66a-7d82046a60d1.html. Death Penalty continued on page 53 GENERAL INTEREST | VOL. 69 | OCTOBER 2020 | VIRGINIA LAWYER 37