Execution day: What's scheduled to happen

As the News & Messenger works to bring you the latest on the execution of convicted killed Paul Powell, a team of reporters and a photographer will report from the Greensville Correctional Facility in Jarratt, Va. starting Tuesday. Breaking news reporter Uriah A. Kiser will file video reports for our Web site and has also created a video blog about this event. Watch for them on insidenova.com and watch all of the blog entries in their entirety at youtube.com/whahooa.


When Paul Powell is strapped into the electric chair Tuesday night, it will take about eight minutes for him to die.

Powell's execution is scheduled for 9 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, where all executions in Virginia take place.

In the commonwealth, an inmate on death row has until 15 days before his scheduled execution to choose between electrocution and lethal injection.

Powell chose the electric chair.

On the day of the execution, Powell will be brought to the death chamber shortly before 9 p.m., according to Virginia Department of Corrections policy.

Leather straps are used to strap the inmate into the electric chair, a homemade oak armchair believed to have been built in 1908.

Once Powell is in the electric chair, the machine will deliver two applications of electricity for one and a half minutes each, with a short pause in between. A doctor can pronounce him dead five minutes after the second electrical application.

The process of preparing an inmate for the death penalty begins about four days before the scheduled execution, when the prisoner is moved from death row at Sussex I State Prison to the Greensville Correctional Center.

At Greensville, an inmate awaiting execution is housed in one of three prison cells next to the death chamber.

In the days leading up to the execution, the inmate is allowed to visit with his attorneys, immediate family members and clergy or spiritual advisors.

On the day of the execution, the inmate can have one contact visit with his immediate family. He is also allowed to visit with his attorneys and clergy until the time of execution.

For his last meal, an inmate can choose any meal, or combination of meal items, from the prison's 28-day menu cycle, according to Virginia Department of Corrections policy.

He has to finish the meal by 5 p.m., four hours before the execution.

The inmate can shower by 7 p.m., two hours before the execution.

At execution time, a member of the clergy can go with the inmate into the death chamber to offer prayers or words of comfort.

In one room next to the death chamber, citizens and media witnesses can watch the execution. In another room, the victim's family can watch.

Virginia law has always required witnesses to be present at executions and six to 12 people have witnessed each execution since 1909, according to Virginia Department of Corrections records.

An order signed by Gov. George Allen in 1994 allowed victims' family members to view the executions.

If Powell is executed Tuesday, he will be the 340th inmate put to death in Virginia since the first electrocution in 1908. Since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972, 103 inmates have been executed in Virginia -- 18 by electrocution and 75 by lethal injection.

Including Powell, there are currently 14 men and one woman on Virginia's death row.

Since 1991, inmates have spent an average of 7.1 years on death row before being executed. Powell has been on death row for close to nine years.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.