Monday, October 16, 2006
Editorial: Capital justice fails in Virginia
The ultimate punishment warrants the utmost care. The commonwealth should take steps to protect against wrongful executions.
From the RoundTable blog
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Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty doesn't exactly conceal its agenda; it's right there in the name.
Last week, the group issued a report card of sorts on the state of capital justice in the commonwealth, and Virginia has problems. Unfortunately, some would ignore the recommendations to satisfy personal convictions, political goals or both.
The report based its analysis on recommendations in Illinois to enhance justice and accuracy in capital punishment. That state's governor suspended executions in 2000 over concerns about improperly convicted and sentenced individuals. A crime commission subsequently developed 85 suggestions to improve the system.
Virginia, according to last week's report, fully satisfies only 12 of those recommendations and completely fails on more than half of them.
If Virginians insist on clinging to the barbaric practice of executing prisoners, the least they can do is ensure that the condemned truly deserve their sentence.
The Illinois recommendations include common sense ideas to uphold fairness and justice such as:
n Require police to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry during an investigation, no matter where they lead.
n Videotape interrogations in homicide cases.
n Create a certification process for judges who hear capital cases.
n Give defendants access to evidence that might be presented against them during the sentencing phase of capital trials.
Virginia does none of those, even though their only goal is justice, not undermining the death penalty.
Attorney General Bob McDonnell's office dismissed the report out of hand. A spokesman told The Virginian-Pilot in Hampton Roads that the recommendations "do not outweigh the legal and public support for Virginia's constitutionally correct death penalty statute."
Of course they don't. They are about erecting a bulwark against executing the wrong person. Surely the state constitution and Virginians support justice.
It is possible for a group with an agenda to offer good suggestions apart from its views on the death penalty. Virginia should consider these suggestions on their own merits as a means to improve the justice system, not through the filter of state-sponsored death.
