A Grim Record
Thursday night at about one minute after 9, prison technicians released a series of chemicals into the bloodstream of Andre L. Graham, and within minutes, the 29-year-old drug dealer and convicted killer was dead.
Graham, who maintained until the end that he was not the one who shot and killed a young woman in a Richmond parking lot, became the 14th person put to death in Virginia this year, a record since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.
The U.S. Supreme Court, already dealing with four other Virginia cases, turned down Graham's appeal for a review.
Gov. Jim Gilmore also denied a last-minute plea for mercy.
Graham's death marks the 36th time in the past three years the state has administered the ultimate penalty. Whether Virginians applaud or denounce the trend, executions have become, on average, a monthly occurrence.
Opponents, who this week watched religious leaders launch a national crusade against the practice, say Virginia's is a record of shame, built by politicians and a legal system more bent on speedy executions than fair trials and proving guilt beyond all doubt.
Supporters say the death penalty is a punishment that fits the crime, although they stress that safeguards should be in place to protect defendants from hasty justice.
Meanwhile, Virginians' views are mixed.
Public opinion surveys conducted this year by Virginia Tech show that 74 percent of Virginians support the death penalty. That's down from 80 percent two years ago. But when people are asked if they'd support a mandatory penalty of life without parole for 25 years, combined with a requirement that the prisoner provide restitution to the families of murder victims, 55 percent of those surveyed agree.
``What it shows is that public opinion in Virginia is more complex than would appear at first glance,'' said psychology professor Danny K. Axsom, who analyzes death penalty responses in Tech's annual ``Quality of Life'' survey.
There are those who want to emulate how Virginia carries out its death sentences. Executions at the Greensville Correctional Center are occasionally viewed by federal officials and officials from other states.
Richmond lawyer Gerald G. Zerkin, who has defended death row inmates since 1981, said the more capital punishment is administered, the more it's accepted.
``There is a sort of psychic barrier, and once it's been broken, when the number of executions passes a certain point, it becomes a whole lot easier,'' Zerkin said. ``It's been easy for us for a long time.''
Larry W. Shelton, one of Graham's lawyers, said: ``I think people were shocked when the death penalty was first carried out, after it was reinstated. But we're doing it so often now, it's no longer news.''
Graham and his attorneys held out hope for a last-minute reprieve.
They filed a second application for a stay to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, saying lower courts' refusal to pay for legal work preparing Graham's clemency petition to the governor was a violation of his constitutional rights.
Graham also had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to return his case for a new trial, based on claims that he was not the one who pulled the trigger in the killing and that a witness who could have testified about it was not called during the original trial.
One of the criticisms of Virginia's handling of death penalty cases is that state law doesn't allow new evidence unless it is filed within 21 days of conviction. Virginia appeals courts have applied the rule too strictly, opponents say. That often leaves it to the governor to decide difficult cases.
At 7:50 p.m., an aide to Gilmore called Graham's lawyers to say there would be no intervention.
Graham declined to say anything when asked if he had any final words.
But he told his lawyers, according to attorney Jeffrey L. Stredler, ``I thought only the shooters got the death penalty in Virginia.'' He said, one last time, he didn't do it.
``We believe you,'' they told him.
Capital punishment opponents gathered at the gates of the Greensville prison and at locations around the state.
Thursday morning, near the court buildings on St. Paul's Boulevard, Theresa Dunleavy, Patricia Schwermer and Steve Baggarly gathered with signs protesting capital punishment. Dunleavy is a Virginia Beach librarian,
Schwermer is a social justice minister at St. Pius X Church and Baggarly works at a homeless shelter at Norfolk's Lamberts Point.
``The death penalty really is vengeance,'' said Schwermer.
``Until we can move away from that mentality, I think the violence in our society will just be perpetuated.''
Several passers-by in cars honked and waved. But one man in a sports jacket shouted that all killers should die.
The protesters replied to him that life in prison was an option. ``Get real!'' he thundered, turning away.
And James Flaskey, who said his son was wounded in a stabbing, walked up with his cardboard coffee cup and challenged the trio with quotations from Scripture.
``If you take another man's life, then you lose yours,'' Flaskey said.
``Virginia has life in prison,'' Dunleavy pointed out.
``That's going against the word of God,'' he answered.
Virginia, like many other Southern states, has long been pro-capital punishment. Bills to ease some statutes, particularly the rule requiring new evidence to be produced no later than 21 days after a conviction, routinely lose in the state legislature.
Another problem is that Virginia appeals courts have interpreted grounds for review in an ``astonishingly narrow'' way, said Washington & Lee University law professor Roger Groot.
So tough are the rules that if a defense lawyer doesn't raise an objection at the instant an error is made, the point can't be used on appeal, Groot said. ``Objections must be made not too early, not too late and exactly at the right time,'' he said, calling it ``death by technicality.''
University of Virginia law professor Richard J. Bonnie had a different take. The main reason Virginia has so many recent executions is not because its laws or prosecutors are tougher than other states', he said. Instead, it's because the state's laws went into effect soon after the 1976 Supreme Court decision permitting the sentence. So there's been more time for death row inmates to exhaust their appeals.
Other states such as California and Pennsylvania now have many more people on death row and will soon pass Virginia in the number of executions, he said.
But Virginia, where death penalty appeals stand little chance of being heard, needs more ``safety valves,'' Bonnie said.
``There ought to be a chance to relitigate the question of guilt or innocence,'' he said.
Right now, changing the 21-day rule is up to the General Assembly.
Criminal justice professor Lucien X. Lombardo of Old Dominion University said the disconnect between politicians and the public stems from ``pluralistic ignorance.''
``Politicians overestimate the support for punitiveness of the American public,'' Lombardo said. ``Those working in the system surprisingly have the most liberal views, the politicians the most conservative and the public's in the middle.
``Politicians stay in their world, which is a closed circle. Everybody's afraid to take the first step.''
Del. Robert F. McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, a former prosecutor, said he's been torn between favoring the death penalty and proposed changes to the 21-day rule.
``We clearly don't want to have any questions about a person's guilt,'' he said. ``That's very troubling to people like me who support the death penalty.''
He said clemency appeals to the governor can be an effective safeguard against unwarranted executions.
McDonnell, who recently witnessed an execution, said, ``I think that every legislator who votes for or against the death penalty ought to see that, so we know what we're doing.''
Del. Jerrauld C. Jones, D-Norfolk, is a longtime supporter of changes in the 21-day rule.
``When a person can produce proof of actual innocence, it seems to me the best place for that evidence to be considered is back in the court and not in the political arena of the governor's office. I'm not knocking any governor, but I think clemency reviews in the governor's hands are just by nature different.''
He added, ``It is a gut-wrenching issue for all of us. Even if we believe in the death penalty, we don't want to have blood on our hands.''
Two law professors at Regent University, Craig Stern and David Wagner, hold opposing views on capital punishment, both from ``pro-life'' perspectives.
``For the very reason that human life is so precious, so sacred, the only just punishment for someone who murders another person is to forfeit his life,'' said Craig Stern.
But it cuts both ways, Stern adds. The defendant's life is sacred, too, and ``we need to be very sure we are doing justice to the defendant.''
David Wagner, a Catholic, said his opinion on capital punishment is ``evolving'' toward opposition to the practice, although he'd still reserve the penalty for the worst offenders. National Catholic and Jewish leaders Monday launched a joint initiative to abolish the death penalty.
``We're a society afflicted with the culture of death, and our casual acceptance of abortion and suicide is evidence of that,'' he said. ``In a society that's lost its moral bearings on life issues, I have real doubts as to whether capital punishment can be administered justly.''
The question of whether killers deserve the death penalty finds strong views in Hampton Roads.
Michael Cohen, a shipbuilding administrator and part-time college instructor, helps families of victims of school violence and contributes to a Web site, ``Cyberangels,'' on child safety.
``Anyone who's been affected by a murder has a much different viewpoint than those who haven't,'' he said.
``You have to take into account what it does to the victim. I don't know anyone who'se been affected by a murder who has any sympathy for the murderers.''
But Gracie Coleman of the Berkley section of Norfolk knows how victims' families feel. Her daughter was killed by three men in a drive-by shooting, and her granddaughter was killed by a drunken driver in 1996.
``What does it profit me for them to die?'' she asks. ``That wouldn't bring my daughter back.''
She's asked to talk with the shooters, who were found guilty of murder and are each serving lengthy prison terms.
``We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, but I had to go to the Lord and ask him to forgive me. That gives me a forgiving heart to forgive others.
``They still have to reap what they sow. They still have to live with their consciences day by day.''
Please sign in to respond | | Register