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Virginia Air-Conditions Death Chamber

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United Press International

The Corrections Department is air-conditioning the state penitentiary’s death chamber to make it “more comfortable for everybody,” it was reported Saturday.

The project to air-condition the electrocution death chamber and the execution holding cells began about a week ago and is almost finished, although no deadline was set for completion, a newspaper reported.

“It’s just a matter of having it ready when we need to use it,” Dwight Perry, operations officer at the penitentiary, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He called it a routine “matter of taking care of business.”

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Until now, convicts, lawyers, guards, clergymen and others involved in the executions have sweltered because the basement prison section, for security reasons, does not have windows.

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