Our Man in Arlington

Local members of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty met in the social hall of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Arlington last Tuesday evening.

The immediate topic of conversation was pending legislation in the Virginia General Assembly that would relax the infamous 21-day rule that prevents new evidence from being introduced in a capital case more than 21 days after conviction. Many advocates of the bill were upset that the bill contained very rigorous standard for the new evidence that would be very hard (but not impossible) to meet.

The bill is on the governor’s desk for signature or veto. Some have suggested that the governor veto the bill and ask for an amendment relaxing the tight definitions that were placed in the bill.

Delegate Al Eisenberg was the speaker at the event, and he advised against this move. In a statement that shows what a consummate legislator he is, Eisenberg doubted that the General Assembly would incorporate the amendments, effectively killing the bill. It is much better for any cause to show some progress rather than no progress at all. Most good legislation is achieved in increments, he pointed out, and this pointed the cause in the right direction. Take what you can and work on improvements in the next session, he advised

Eisenberg was invited to speak largely because of his sponsorship of a bill that would abolish the death penalty for minors. The bill had twenty-five co-sponsors all across the political spectrum in the House of Delegates and the Senate, which Eisenberg read as a good sign. The bill was tabled in committee this year, largely because the members wanted to see the outcome of a major U.S. Supreme Court case this year.

In another lesson in political science and the relation between the legislative and judicial branches of government, it was pointed out that Justice Scalia recently specifically asked about the status of the Virginia bill. Proponents of abolishing the death penalty for minors will use this in their final briefs as one indication on a shift in public opinion toward the notion that the death penalty for minors constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Constitution. The Supreme Court hearing on the case, Roper v. Simmons, will be held in October and is part of a nationwide re-examination of the death penalty and its many facets.

The death penalty is fast becoming an anachronism in modern society, and deservedly so. The moral stricture against the killing of human beings is almost universal, though honored throughout history more in the breach than the observance. A majority of the world’s nations do not use the death penalty, and it should be an embarrassment to Americans both morally and practically that we are second only to China in the number of executions per year. But even if there were no moral restrictions, there are strong reasons to abolish it in the United States. There is no evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder and there is strong irrefutable evidence that many death penalty convictions are erroneous. The argument that we have found at more than 100 people convicted of murder actually innocent of the crime in the past few years should give us pause. How many innocent victims have been executed? We will probably never know. But we do know that the death penalty is the ultimate final judgment, from which there is no reprieve once executed. The death penalty has no place in a humane and just society, as we claim to be.

Organizations such as Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many lawyers’ organizations, which are working for the ultimate abolition of the death penalty, are on the right track. By working incrementally on abolition of the death penalty for minors and the mentally retarded and laws which make appeals of death penalty convictions difficult if not impossible they are carefully laying the groundwork for ultimate abolition of the death penalty in all cases. I wish them well.