Death and the decision

[SoulTrainOz]

Seth McLaughlin, The Washington Times

Skeptics of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine campaign's pledge to uphold the state's capital punishment law despite his Catholic beliefs resurfaced last month after he delayed the execution of convicted triple murderer Percy Lavar Walton amid questions of his mental condition.

"It's pretty predictable to me," former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, who lost to Mr. Kaine in last year's gubernatorial election, said. "I've said all along that he would be a governor who would not enforce the death penalty . Death penalty inmates are pretty smart. They'll figure out what it takes to get out of it. If mental retardation will get them out of it, they'll claim mental retardation."

Under that assumption, murderer Brandon Wayne Hedrick fell short of being "pretty smart."

Hedrick was executed Thursday, after the courts and Mr. Kaine decided there was no compelling reason to keep the killer alive.

So far, the freshman governor has denied two clemency requests and delayed the decision on another.

Dexter Lee Vinson, convicted of killing and sexually mutilating his
ex-girlfriend, was executed via lethal injection in April, and on Thursday, Hedrick, convicted of rape and murder, went out in the chair.

In June, Mr. Kaine delayed Walton's death sentence for six months on the grounds that it is unconstitutional to execute him if he is "a mentally incompetent person."

Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and Republican Atty. Gen. Robert F.
McDonell, both rumored to be running for governor in 2008, disagreed with Mr. Kaine's decision.

"You really do wonder if this is setting a precedent for how he is going to be looking at future cases," Mr. Bolling told The Washington Times. "Is he always going to be looking for a reason to not carry out the determination of the court. . This debate is renewed."

Now, the governor is working with Mr. McDonnell on an independent evaluation of Walton, which is expected to determine whether he should be executed.

Although Walton has met the standard of mental competence in the past, his attorneys say his mental capacity had eroded over time. The latest test, done in 2003, showed he had an IQ of 66. Adults with an IQ below 70 are considered to be mentally retarded.

If Walton is found to be mentally incompetent, and Mr. Kaine decides to commute his death sentence, it will be interesting to see whether his Republican critics will recall that one of their own, former Gov. James S. Gilmore III, a pro-death penalty Republican, in a similar situation commuted the sentence of Calvin E. Swann in 1999 after he was shown to be mentally ill - or will they once again open fire on Mr. Kaine for what they see as falling back on a campaign promise?

Source : The Washington Times (Seth McLaughlin, Virginia correspondent)

blogs.washingtontimes.com/insiderpolitics/?p=564

[SoulTrainOz]

A Decision for Mr. Kaine

The Virginia governor pardoned a witch. But what about with four Navy men who may have been wrongly convicted?

VIRGINIA GOV. Timothy M. Kaine (D) granted a ceremonial pardon the other day to Grace Sherwood, convicted of witchcraft 3 centuries ago in what is now Virginia Beach, after a trial that consisted of throwing her in the river to see if she floated. "With 300 years of hindsight, we all certainly can agree that trial by water is an injustice," Mr. Kaine wrote in a letter.

Unfortunately, some modern trials in the commonwealth have seemed perilously close to trial by water -- and the results of one of them have been sitting on Mr. Kaine's desk since before he took office. He cannot let it fester.

4 young men stand convicted of the rape and murder in Norfolk of Michelle Moore-Bosko in 1997. The four were all serving in the Navy. All confessed their roles but now claim innocence. At least on the surface, that claim seems compelling, for reasons that should have been clear at the time they faced charges. No physical evidence connects any of them with the crime. The one man unambiguously implicated in the killing by DNA evidence says
none of the 4 was involved -- as he did at the time of his initial
confession.

What makes the case hard is that nearly all the evidence that seems to exonerate the 4 was available at the outset. What's more, 2 of the defendants pleaded guilty. It would take a bold act by a governor to upset guilty pleas and jury verdicts based on evidence that isn't new. Yet the record assembled by lawyers for Joseph thingy Jr., Derek Tice, Danial Williams and Eric Wilson is sufficiently powerful that it needs either to be rebutted or remedied. These men -- with the exception of Mr. Wilson, who was convicted only of the rape and has been released -- are serving life sentences.

Police never seem to have had much evidence of a gang rape -- other than confessions that took place when one suspect after the next was threatened with capital punishment. Indeed, charges had to be dropped against 3 other sailors who stood their ground and didn't confess. The physical evidence at the scene indicated a single attacker. DNA from Omar Ballard showed a match; while police garnered confessions from the sailors, Mr. Ballard wrote to a friend, "Guess who did that Me. HA HA." He stood by that account when police approached him, saying that "them four people that opened their mouths is stupid." But later, he changed his tune and supported the gang-rape story -- and authorities spared him the death penalty, too. What does he say now? "None of the other individuals who were charged with raping or killing Michelle were there or involved in any way," he said in an affidavit.

The state parole board is conducting an investigation. But lawyers for the inmates have had little sign of activity from this inquiry. The governor needs to deal with this issue promptly. Trial by water is not the most pressing injustice the state faces.

(source: Editorial, Washington Post)