[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----VIRGINIA

[Rick Halperin]

April 3



VIRGINIA:

A necessary halt in state executions


GOV. TIM KAINE'S decision to stop executions until the U.S. Supreme Court
rules on the constitutionality of lethal injection was a prudent move, not
a political one.

The court has not allowed any inmate to be executed since September, when
it agreed for the first time in more than a century to decide the legality
of a particular method of killing. About 30 scheduled executions in 13
states have been postponed while the justices weigh the case from
Kentucky.

Kaine, who opposes the death penalty personally but who has allowed four
executions to proceed in the past two years, stayed until July 24 next
week's scheduled execution of Edward N. Bell, convicted of killing a
police officer in Winchester in 1999. He did not stay the execution
indefinitely. He did not commute Bell's sentence to life. He merely saved
the state the expense of a number of court hearings that would have
resulted in exactly the same thing: a postponement of death.

Some opponents of Kaine were quick to attack the governor for refusing to
carry out the sentences. Attorney General Attorney Bob McDonnell, a strong
death penalty supporter, quibbled with the blanket ban, preferring a
case-by-case review, but conceded the merit in Kaine's reasoning.

Last fall, the court stopped the execution of Virginia death row inmate
Christopher Scott Emmett while justices considered the appeals of 2
Kentucky inmates. The court is expected to announce its decision by June,
a ruling that will determine whether the lethal injection procedures used
by 37 states, including Virginia, amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices will decide whether lethal injections can cause excruciating
pain when administered improperly, as has happened in some executions. The
broader questions, whether there is such a thing as a fail-safe, pain-free
way of snuffing out human life, and why government has to kill at all,
remain unanswered.

(source: Opinion, Virginian-Pilot)