death penalty Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Senate President Proposes Death Penalty For Fentanyl Wholesale Distributors

State Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, said he plans to draft legislation that calls for the death penalty after conviction for the illicit manufacturing or wholesale distribution of the illicit drug fentanyl.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Updated on April 18, 2023 at 8:13 a.m.

A sentence was removed on April 18, 2023 at 10:04 a.m due to a lack of verification

“It’s devastating our children, it’s devastating our schools, exhausting our teachers, overwhelming our foster care system, stressing out emergency services, our hospitals, our law enforcement and more,” Blair said. “And worst of all, it’s destroying our families and our communities.”

The DEA defines fentanyl as a potent synthetic opioid drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as an analgesic (pain relief) and anesthetic. It is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin as an analgesic. An Associated Press report notes that since 2000, West Virginia has had by far the highest rate of opioid-related deaths in the nation. Blair said the deadly inclusion of fentanyl into other drugs is pervasive and growing.

He said capital punishment would be the ultimate deterrent for those bringing fentanyl into West Virginia.

“Most of the time, these people aren’t addicts that are actually manufacturing and or distributing on the wholesale level,” Blair said. “What they’re doing is they’re just making profits off the very people that are addicted to it. I want to tell everybody that is actually using heroin and fentanyl that it’s time to get help, get clean, or get out of the state of West Virginia.”

Blair said there would need to be a line of demarcation defined between a street user and a distributor. Currently, W. Va. Code § 60A-4-414 says:

(1) If the net weight of fentanyl involved in the offense is less than one gram, such person shall be imprisoned in a correctional facility not less than two nor more than ten years.

(2) If the net weight of fentanyl involved in the offense is one gram or more but less than five grams, such person shall be imprisoned in a correctional facility not less than three nor more than fifteen years.

(3) If the net weight of fentanyl involved in the offense is five grams or more, such person shall be imprisoned in a correctional facility not less than four nor more than twenty years.

“A pound of fentanyl would kill every person in any given county in this state,” Blair said. “So yes, you’re gonna have a line of delineation. I’m not looking for the guy on the street, that’s a drug addict who can get help.”

West Virginia abolished the death penalty in 1965, the last execution was in 1959. Blair says reinstating capital punishment for manufacturing or wholesaling fentanyl could come with legislation.

“The legislature would actually have to pass a statute,” Blair said. “There’s nothing in our constitution that prohibits it. And I wouldn’t even be opposed to putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot and doing it.”

Blair said those found guilty under his bill should be put to death by a lethal injection of fentanyl.

He said he will spend the next couple months putting a comprehensive plan together on a death penalty bill for fentanyl wholesale distribution, with a goal of setting a national example.

“With this law, West Virginia will become a leader once again in the nation on how we’re dealing with the problems that we have in this state,” Blair said.

New WV-ACLU President Danielle Walker issued the following statement regarding Blair’s death penalty proposal:

The death penalty is state-sanctioned murder, period. West Virginia wisely abolished this form of cruel and unusual punishment nearly 60 years ago, and there is no reason to resurrect it now. There is no evidence that capital punishment deters crime and plenty of evidence that it kills innocent people. The ACLU will use every tool at our disposal to make sure the death penalty never returns to West Virginia.

U.S. Executes Dustin Higgs In 13th And Final Execution Under Trump Administration

The U.S. government has executed Dustin Higgs, the last prisoner executed during the Trump administration, and the 13^th in the space of six months.

The Supreme Court declined to stop the execution, although some justices dissented, noting that before the first of the 13, it had been 17 years since a federal execution had been carried out.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor called it an “unprecedented rush,” saying that “after waiting almost two decades to resume federal executions, the Government should have proceeded with some measure of restraint to ensure it did so lawfully.”

Higgs, along with two other men, killed three women in 1996, with one of the men, Willis Haynes, actually pulling the trigger. Haynes pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. Higgs was found guilty in 2000 of multiple federal offenses including first-degree premeditated murder, three counts of first-degree felony murder, and three counts of kidnapping resulting in death.

The crimes were carried out in Maryland which has since dropped the death penalty. Higgs was executed at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., and was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m., according to the Associated Press.

In a statement following the execution, Shawn Nolan, an attorney for Higgs, called him “a fine man, a terrific father, brother, and nephew” who “spent decades on death row in solitary confinement helping others around him, while working tirelessly to fight his unjust convictions.”

“There was no reason to kill him, particularly during the pandemic and when he, himself, was sick with Covid that he contracted because of these irresponsible, super-spreader executions,” Nolan added.

Higgs had told the court that carrying out the sentence after his COVID-19 infection would be cruel because the resulting lung damage would cause a lethal injection of pentobarbitol to give him the sensation of drowning.

Corey Johnson, 52, was executed Thursday night. He had also contracted COVID-19 while in prison, and his attorney argued that executing him following the infection would have been “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Lisa Montgomery was executed early Wednesday. She was the only woman on federal death row and the first female prisoner to be put to death by the U.S. government since 1953.

The executions come days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has opposed the federal death penalty. On Monday, Senate Democrats unveiled legislation that would abolish it.

December 16, 1897 : Last Public Hanging in West Virginia

On December 16, 1897, John F. Morgan was hanged in Ripley for the murder of Chloe Greene and two of her sons. It was the last public execution in West Virginia history.

Some 5,000 spectators poured into the Jackson County seat. Many were drunk, and some even sold souvenirs. The rowdy scene prompted West Virginia lawmakers to take action.

A little more than a year later, Governor George W. Atkinson signed a law that banned public executions, making West Virginia was one of the first states to do so. As an alternative, over the next 60 years, 94 men would be executed inside the walls of the state penitentiary in Moundsville.

By the mid-20^th century, public opinion about the death penalty was shifting. A number of states had already banned the practice. In 1965, the legislature passed and Governor Hulett Smith signed a bill ending capital punishment in West Virginia. Today, West Virginia is one of only 18 states that does not impose death sentences.