Virginia death penalty information

Executions (since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. Virginia resumed executions on August 10, 1982) : 94 as of January 1, 2005
Natural Deaths: 2
Suicides: 4
Currently under sentence of Death: 23 State (22 Males -- 13 Blacks, 9 Whites/ 1 Female - White)
5 Federal (5 Black) housed in federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana
Exonerations: 1

To be eligible in Virginia for the death penalty, a criminal must commit a murder under one or more special circumstances. These circumstances include robbery or attempted robbery; rape or attempted rape or sodomy, or attempted sodomy, or object sexual penetration; abduction with intent to extort money; the killing of a law enforcement officer; a multiple homicide; murder for hire; murder while incarcerated; murder of more than 1 person in a 3 year period; drug related; pregnant woman; murder victim is less than 14 by an over 21 year old perpetrator.

Once a jury finds a person guilty of capital murder, it then holds a second trial to determine whether the crime was vile enough to warrant the death penalty and/or whether the person represents a future danger so great he must be executed.

A circuit judge then formally imposes the sentence. The conviction then enters the appeals stage, which involves a number of possibilities.

APPEALS PROCESS

Restrictions: Virginia law sets these restrictions on the appeals process:

21 Day Rule: Once 21 days have passed after the judge signs the judgment order, the defendant may not introduce any new evidence in any of the appeals courts. A defendant is barred from raising any claims in the appeals process that were not raised during the trial.

Contemporaneous Objection Rule: This rule bars lawyers from raising objections on appeal, if they were not brought up during the original trial.

Preservation of Evidence: The circuit court is under no obligation to preserve evidence from trials once they have concluded. In most cases, the evidence is destroyed. This evidence is crucial later when appeals lawyers are fighting for the condemned man's life, especially if the evidence can prove innocence.

If the defendant raises a particular issue at trial but not on state appeal, then that claim cannot be raised in federal court later.

Automatic review: The case must be reviewed by the Virginia Supreme Court. That decision may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

State habeas corpus petition: A death-row inmate may then file a state habeas corpus petition with the Virginia Supreme Court. A habeas corpus petition is a civil action challenging a criminal conviction as unconstitutional. That, too, may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Federal habeas corpus petition: If the state habeas petition fails, the inmate then may file a federal habeas corpus petition in U.S. District Court.

Panel of 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: Any decision reached in U.S. District Court may
be appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Full 4th Circuit: The decision of a three-judge panel on the 4th Circuit can then be appealed to the entire court.

U.S. Supreme Court: That decision can then be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

History of the death penalty in Virginia:

Virginia introduced the death penalty to the "New World" by hanging George Kendall in the early 1600's
Virginia has carried out over 1,300 executions in its history, more than any other state.
Virginia has executed more women and the youngest children of any state in the nation.
Between October of 1908 and March of 1962, Virginia used the electric chair to execute 236 people. 201 of those were black males, 34 were white males; one, Virginia Christian, was a 17-year-old black female. During that period, the youngest, Percy Ellis, was executed at the age of 16.
In February of 1951, Virginia executed 8 men in a 72-hour period. All 8 men were black and 7 were executed for the rape of one white woman. These seven were known as the Martinsville Seven.
Virginia's single year record for executions is 17 in 1909.

On June 29, 1972 in Furman v. Georgia the U. S. Supreme Court found the practice of the death penalty to be constitutionally unaccepatable, not because it considered killing criminals inherently cruel, but because it thought the penalty too arbitrary and capricious in it's implementation. The Court found the imposition of the death penalty by juries was frequently based on race or random luck.

On July 2, 1976 in Gregg v. Georgia the high court ruled that Georgia's new "guided discretion" laws for death penalty cases effectively removed the randomness from death sentencing. Other states followed suit to change their laws.

Post Furman:

Under the post-Furman laws, Virginia has become the 2nd most active killing state.
Only Texas , with a far larger population, has executed more prisoners than Virginia.
In Virginia, juveniles as young as 16 at time of offense can be tried on a capital offense and sentenced to death.
Virginia allows the executions of the mentally retarded, the severly brain damaged and the mentally ill. At least 7 such mentally handicapped prisoners have been executed in Virginia.

Morris Mason, a young, black man from the Eastern Shore with a lifelong history of paranoid schizophrenia and a mental age of 8, was the first severely mentally handicapped prisoner executed by Virginia post Furman . Morris was killed on June 25, 1985. The most recent execution of a mentally retarded prisoner was that of Walter Correll, Jr. on Jan. 4, 1996.

Virginia's 21-day rule prohibits death row prisoners from having any court consider evidence discovered more than 21 days after trial. Under the 21-day rule, such evidence can only be presented to the governor in a request for clemency.

note: Earl Washington was exonerated and released by Gov. Jim Gilmore February 12, 2001

Virginia's contemporaneous objection rule prohibits death row prisoners from having claims of constitutional errors heard in any court, unless they were objected to and properly preserved at trial and throughout the appeals. Constitutional errors such as Estelle errors occurring in Virginia trials, which have overturned hundreds of cases when occurring in other states, including Texas, are thus procedurally barred in Virginia.

There is no right of appeal in Virginia except one automatic appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court (statistically the least likely to grant relief of all courts in the country) for death-sentenced prisoners. Therefore, men whose attorneys miscalculate the time or miss a deadline for any reason, are prohibited from having their claims of constitutional error heard in any court.

Roger Coleman

one

In spite of its projected strong death penalty stance and draconian death penalty laws, repeated polls taken since 1989 continue to show that given an option, a healthy majority of Virginians prefer alternatives to the death penalty. Politicians continue to ignore these findings.

A 1996 poll found that 74% of Virginians oppose the 21-day rule. A 2001 poll shows that 82.7% oppose it.

According to independent statewide polls administered at Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech, an overwhelming majority oppose the death penalty when given the alternative of life with no possibility of parole for a minimum of 25 years, combined with restitution to victims' families.
Since 1977, about 90% of all U.S. executions have been carried out in the south by Texas, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana and Georgia. Over 90% of those executed had court-appointed lawyers at their original trials.
The death penalty costs 5 to 6 times more than life imprisonment, according to studies in a number of states. Most costs occur at trial level. Indiana, with a smaller death row than Virginia's, estimates it could save $5 million per year by abolishing capital punishment.
The high cost does not assure that innocent men are not executed. The highly publicized case of Roger Coleman, executed in 1992, is an example of a system that refuses to listen ot the merits of the case. Others have been executed in Virginia despite "reasonable doubt" of their guilt.
A number of men, including Joe Giarratano, whose sentences were commuted by the Governor because of concerns that they might be innocent have been refused retrials to prove their innocence. As a result they will spend the rest of their lives in prison for crimes they did not commit.
The Supreme Court, the United Nations, and numerous independent studies have concluded that the death penalty has no effect on the crime rate. On average, the murder rate in U.S. states which execute is almost double the rate in states without the death penalty.

Fact 1: Murder rates are lower in states that have abolished the death penalty.
Fact 2: Innocent people are executed.
Fact 3: In the long run, the death penalty does nothing for murder victims' families.
Fact 4: The death penalty is arbitrary and racist.
Fact 5: The death penalty costs more than life imprisonment.
Fact 6: Every western democracy except the USA has abolished the death penalty.
Fact 7: Using the death penalty prevents society from finding effective ways of reducing crime
Fact 8: Public opinion supports alternatives to the death penalty.