Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Death Penalty News

NV Daily - Anti-Death Penalty movement wooing conservatives

The Death Penalty Nationwide

Monday, 18 January 2010

By BRETT BARROUQUERE
Associated Press Writer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Roy Brown seems like a rarity - a conservative who's against the death penalty.

But to Brown, a state senator and the 2008 Republican nominee for governor of Montana, the philosophy aligns perfectly with conservative ideology. He's one of the more high-profile figures reaching out to other social and fiscal conservatives, hoping to create a bipartisan movement against capital punishment.

"I believe that life is precious from the womb to a natural death," Brown said.

The Death Penalty in Virginia
Tuesday, 05 January 2010
By Staff Reports Published: January 5, 2010 Although the practical exigencies of the state budget will consume a great deal of legislators' attention during the General Assembly session that begins next Wednesday, lawmakers will still find time to burnish their ideological credentials by filing bills on divisive social issues. This year may prove an opportune one for those hoping to extend the reach of capital punishment. The efforts will swim upstream against public sentiment. Virginia juries have not handed down a capital sentence since March of 2008 -- a consequence, no doubt at least in part, of being able to impose meaningful life without parole. Read More>>

Washington Post Editorial - A year for more executions

The Death Penalty in Virginia
Monday, 04 January 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010 VIRGINIA WAS one of 11 states that put an inmate to death in 2009. The state executed three prisoners, including D.C.-area sniper John Allen Muhammad, contributing to the first spike in executions since 2005. Nationwide, 52 prisoners were put to death in 2009, up 41 percent from the 37 executed during 2008. Part of the increase can be attributed to an artificial drop in the number of executions in 2008 when states enacted de facto moratoriums as the U.S. Supreme Court weighed the constitutionality of lethal injections. Still, the continued reliance on this unnecessary and barbaric punishment is regrettable, especially because of the continued risk that innocent men and women could be put to death. Indeed, nine inmates who had spent years on death row were fully exonerated in 2009, thanks in large part to the increasing use and sophistication of DNA evidence. Read More>>

WTOP - VA likely to make more eligible for death penalty

The Death Penalty in Virginia

Monday, 04 January 2010

By DENA POTTER
Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. - Death penalty expansion bills that were blocked in recent years likely will become law in Virginia under a new administration, making more people eligible for what is already the nation's second-busiest death chamber.

Since he took office in 2006, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has vetoed 15 bills making everyone from murder accomplices to killers of on-duty auxiliary police or fire marshals eligible for the death penalty. Legislators have overridden some of Kaine's vetoes, and currently there are 15 crimes that are punishable by death in Virginia.

VADP

Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty