Death Penalty Update

Based upon reports from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), there’s been some good news, some bad news and, unfortunately, a lot more of the usual.

On the plus side of the ledger, Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia stayed the execution of a man whose mental competence is suspect. Predictably this brought outraged howls of “I told you so” from Death Penalty advocates and Republicans because Kaine is a Catholic that personally opposes Capital Punishment and opponents predicted during the election that he wouldn’t enforce the state’s death penalty statute.

The Roanoke Times put it best when it said the “…stay leaves Kaine vulnerable to ‘we told you so’ rants. Those should be ignored by reasonable people who expect Virginia to exhibit competence in lawfully applying the death penalty.”

In other good news, the League of Women voters adopted a resolution calling for the abolishment of the Death Penalty at their 47th biennial conference. Only one question ladies, what took you so long?

On the down side the governors of both South Carolina (35 executions total, none this year so far) and Oklahoma (81 executions total, 2 so far this year) signed bills expanding for what offenses prosecutors could seek the death penalty. Both states will now allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for repeat child molesters. I think that’s letting them off too easy. A nice long prison term sharing a cell with Bubba is what those guys should get.

In the more of the same category, there have been 23 executions this year, 12 of which have been in the state of Texas. That’s slightly behind the pace of 2005 in which there were 28 executions by the end of June. Unfortunately July could be a bad month with 11 executions scheduled.