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July 16, 2004 Choosing Execution in Virginia By Sharna Marcus, Medill News Service Virginia doesn't simply offer the death penalty as a means of punishment for a capital crime. In states with more than one million residents, Virginia executes more people per capita than even the large state of Texas, according to recent tabulations by the U.S. Justice Department. In 1999 alone, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in the cases of four Virginia death row inmates. A combination of factors allows Virginia to execute its citizens without much protest. Most of the legislators, governors and attorneys general are and have been in favor of the death penalty. Virginia prosecutors are at ease seeking the death penalty because juries are willing to sentence convicted murderers to die. It is up to the death row inmates themselves to choose between the injection or the electric chair. "Virginia's system is nuts," said Henry Heller, head of Virginia Alternatives to the Death Penalty since 1991. "I think the legal community should be alarmed. It's an ugly black mark on the state. It makes Virginia look like a ruthless place." In addition, a law in Virginia states new evidence is not allowed in the appeals courts after 21 days following a sentencing. "That's blind justice," Heller said. "Virginia is the only state in the country that doesn't waive this 21-day rule. We have to have finality. Virginia spends so much time and money and effort making sure the death penalty is carried out efficiently, we don't care that the guy might be innocent." Former Virginia prosecutor Judson W. Collier supports the death penalty. "Our society is saying for these heinous offenses, people are going to have to pay a commensurate penalty for taking someone's life," Collier said."(Juries) are far more prone to give the death penalty than I recall. The death penalty has great and widespread support among the populous." Collier lives in Richmond, where the crime rate is one of the highest in the country. "We need to fight back on the issue of crime and safely enjoy the streets of Viriginia," Collier said. "Juries are getting really tough on crime, and that's getting carried over to the death penalty." Collier agrees with the limits on appeals. "One of the gentlemen I prosecuted was only executed a couple of years ago. It took a good long time, back in 1979, he was on death row almost 16 years," Collier said. "They've tightened up some of the appellate options. It used to be fairly opened ended. It's an absolute travesty these cases are allowed to drag the victims' family so long. Certainly you could never sacrifice constitutional rights. I think all the constitutional safeguards are still in place." Since leaving the public sector in the early 1980s, Collier has not been able to bring himself to represent many criminal defendants. "I do take some criminal cases where I think they are really redeemable people, people who just stepped across the line." Douglas C. McNabb, federal defense attorney from Texas, supported the death penalty until he defended his first client facing death row. "I was in favor of the death penalty but having seen that process now, I'm not in favor of it," McNabb said. In the Lonnie Weeks, Jr. case, one of the four Virginia cases before the U.S. Supreme Court during its 1999-2000 term, the Court is being asked to decide if a judge must clarify wording to a jury if the jurors request additional information. The jurors didn't understand if they had to sentence Weeks to death because of aggravating factors, or if they could have sentenced him to life in prison. "The case of Lonnie Weeks, Jr. illustrates the possibility of speed and efficiency overtaking the awesome weight of deciding deliberately to kill a human being under the law," according to a Sept. 3, 1999 editorial in "The Roanoke Times & World News." "Is Virginia so eager to [kill] that it wants to hand out the death penalty even when juries are fuzzy about the rules that supposedly guards against terrible errors and inequities?" the editorial continued. "These, unfortunately, are endemic to every human institution, which is reason enough to abandon the death penalty altogether." Bobby Lee Ramdass, like Weeks, was issued a stay of execution by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the Ramdass case, the trial judge refused to tell the jury that Ramdass could be sentenced to life without parole. In Terry Williams' case, the Supreme Court is addressing the degree of deference the federal courts are required to give to the state courts under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Sentencing Act. In the Michael Wayne Williams case, the Court will decide if a district court improperly denied him an evidentiary hearing. David Botkins, spokesperson for the Virginia Attorney General's Office, can't say why there are four capital cases from Virginia before the Court, but he doesn't think it's because of the state's appeals process. "No, the law is the law and each case is decided on its merits and its particular circumstances," Botkins said. Botkins thinks it's premature to believe that the Supreme Court will do anything but sustain the death sentences. "It may raise their hopes, but those would be false hopes. The overwhelming majority of Virginia's capital cases are sustained throughout the appeals process, and ultimately the sentence handed down (by the trial court) is carried out," Botkins said. But for other death row inmates, hopes are all they have. "You're told you're going to die. They take you to the death house. You're there to die, and the next step, before they kill you, is at that point some last minute notice from the Supreme Court," Heller said. "It has got to be pretty mind blowing." | |