The appeals process is incredibly costly
According to this, it costs $72.99/day to house an inmate in Virginia in 2012. It can only have gone up since then. Over 50 years (making him 82), that'd be $1.3 million dollars without adjusting for inflation.
It can't cost that much to put a needle in his arm.
http://leg2.state.va.us/dls/h&sdocs...4ec296ee712e357285256ee8006fc0e9?OpenDocument