| Free-Lance Star editorial - More executions? |
Gov. McDonnell should think seriously about the need to expand the death-penalty-eligible crime list
Date published: 3/14/2010
ON THURSDAY, former Spotsylvanian Paul Warner Powell is to be executed for the 1999 murder of Stacie Reed, a Manassas-area teen he first tried to rape. Absent a miracle, Powell will be the 106th person put to death by Virginia since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court rewrote the rules for capital punishment. Whether or not one cottons to the death penalty, several courts have ruled that--putting it in laymanese--if anybody deserves that punishment under Virginia law, this depraved man does. Virginia ranks second to Texas in the number of executions carried out since 1976. Nevertheless, Virginia lawmakers during the current General Assembly have feverishly advanced legislation to expand the list of crimes subject to death. This is not an avenue Virginia should choose to travel when the justice of capital punishment is under serious national debate and many executions are being delayed. |
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