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Virginia
It took Virginia 400 years to end the death penalty. It’s not a switch we can flip on and off. – Virginia Mercury
Of all the things policymakers can be indecisive about, the death penalty shouldn’t be one of them. It is, after all, about the most profound and irreversible thing a government can do.
Yet this year, not three years after Virginia banned capital punishment, freshman Del. Tim Griffin, R-Bedford, submitted a bill to reinstate it. Mercifully, it was doomed from the outset in the Democratic-ruled House of Delegates. With all due allowances for naïveté, political posturing or whatever Griffin’s motivation, the death penalty isn’t a light switch you flip on and off.
It took Virginia more than 400 years to end capital punishment. When the General Assembly finally did it in 2021, there was even miniscule Republican buy-in on final votes that made Virginia the only former Confederate state to dismantle death row in favor of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the most heinous offenses.
Ours is among 23 states that have abolished the death penalty. Six others have halted executions by governors’ orders. Only five states executed people last year, and death sentences were imposed in just seven states, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
Things were once quite different. Until this century, Virginia was an enthusiastic death penalty backer and practitioner. Since Jamestown, Virginia has executed an estimated 1,300 people.
The U.S. Supreme Court halted capital punishment in the latter third of the 20th century after it found its disparate implementation unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual.” After the court reinstated it in 1976, Virginia executed 113 inmates, according to the DPIC. That ranks third behind Texas (586) and Oklahoma (123) — body counts that will soon grow.
Why did Kiki Webb have to die?
Just the suggestion that a candidate might not support killing people to prove that killing people is wrong was politically disqualifying. It was a common Republican tactic to force Democratic candidates in statewide general elections to pledge support for the death penalty, putting them at odds with many in their own base to remain viable with the broader electorate.
In this century, Republicans failed to notice that Virginia’s appetite for state-sanctioned killings was waning and had been for some time. Part of that is because of demographic changes, especially in the moderate, educated, affluent and fast-growing suburbs.
Another factor was a by-product of a hugely successful Republican initiative that George Allen brought to the governor’s office from his 1993 election landslide.
After the General Assembly overwhelmingly enacted Allen’s abolition of parole in 1994, it meant that an inmate sentenced to life in prison would actually spend the rest of his life in prison. For jurors, that assurance eased the moral crisis they felt when deciding whether to prescribe death for a person sitting steps away from them. Assured that the convict could never walk free again, jurors increasingly eschewed death sentences and the haunting knowledge that they played a role in taking someone’s life.
The numbers tell the story. After the court-ordered hiatus, it took a few years for new death penalty convictions to exhaust their federal and state appeals. Executions resumed in Virginia in 1982. For the rest of that decade, eight people perished in the state’s death chamber. During the 1990s, however, the decade parole was abolished, the total soared to 58. From 2000 through 2009, the total was cut in half, to just 28. And from 2010 through 2017, the year William Morva became the last convict executed in Virginia, it dropped to eight.
The ’90s were also the most robust decade for executions nationally, peaking with 98 in 1999, according to the DPIC.
Death penalty politics reached a significant political flashpoint in Virginia’s 2005 gubernatorial race between Democrat Tim Kaine, the lieutenant governor at the time and now a U.S. senator, and Republican Jerry Kilgore, who had been the state’s attorney general. In a Kilgore campaign ad, the grieving father of a murder victim claimed that Kaine, a lawyer who had defended a death penalty client and a Roman Catholic with a faith-based objection to the death penalty, would have spared Adolf Hitler from execution.
The ad was widely panned as a gratuitous, tone-deaf overreach, and it boomeranged on Kilgore’s campaign as it was already imploding. Kaine quickly aired a rebuttal in which he spoke directly into the camera and said that he would “carry out death sentences imposed by Virginia juries because that’s the law.”
And he did — 11 times from the day he took office in January 2006 through the end of his term four years later. The last to be executed under Kaine’s watch was John Allan Muhammad, convicted as one of the two snipers who terrorized Virginia, the District of Columbia and Maryland in 2002, shooting 10 people dead and injuring three.
Capital punishment is an emotional issue that almost evenly divides the nation. A 2023 Gallup poll showed that 50% of those surveyed said they felt the death penalty is unfairly applied compared to 47% who felt it was fairly applied.
Consider the obvious: Very few people of means go to death row. It’s a different story if you’re Black or poor. Of the 113 executed Virginia inmates, 52 of them — 46% — were Black, a ratio more than double the state’s Black population of 20%. For defendants who can’t afford skilled, experienced death-penalty litigators, the odds are even worse.
Is our criminal justice system so infallible that it should green-light actions as irrevocable as taking another person’s life? Hardly.
According to the DPIC, 196 people sentenced to death nationally since 1973 have been exonerated, including Virginia’s Earl Washington Jr., who was poor and Black. Washington, with an IQ of 69, spent 16 years incarcerated — nine on death row, once within days of being executed — because of false and misleading forensic evidence, woeful trial counsel and his own coerced confession. Gov. Doug Wilder commuted his sentence to life imprisonment in 1993. Gov. Jim Gilmore pardoned Washington in 2000 after DNA testing, not available at the time of his trial in 1984, exonerated him from the murder and rape for which he was convicted.
Griffin’s misbegotten bid to restore capital punishment foundered just before an Alabama execution underscored misgivings Americans increasingly harbor about terminal punishment more suited to despotic regimes.
Virginia abolished biased, inefficient, botched executions; more states should follow suit
Like many states unable to procure the drugs necessary to execute people by lethal injection, Alabama tested a novel way to kill: subjecting the condemned – strapped to a gurney – to pure nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen. Alabama’s attorney general called it “a textbook execution,” promised further hypoxia executions in Alabama and offered to tutor other states in its use.
Associated Press writer Kim Chandler, a witness to the execution, described something much more unnerving. For about two minutes, according to AP’s first-person account, condemned murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith shook and writhed violently, “in thrashing spasms and seizure-like movements,” the force of which “caused the gurney to visibly move at least once.”
There’s no way to inflict death on a confined, terrified human being that doesn’t horrify an ordinary person. That’s because no matter the method — an intravenous drip of lethal drugs, electrical voltage, a noose, a firing squad or nitrogen gas — the end result is a fresh corpse. Each is just as final, its victims just as eternally dead.
If those methods knot your stomach, then maybe our conversations should be about whether governments should execute people, not how.
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MARTINSVILLE, Va. (WSET) — Extreme drought conditions in parts of Virginia have prompted an emergency drought warning for a wide swath of the region, including Bedford, Campbell, Charlotte, Franklin, Halifax, Henry, Mecklenburg, Patrick, Pittsylvania and Roanoke counties, along with the cities of Danville, Roanoke, Salem and Martinsville.
The governor has warned that if conditions worsen, she will activate mandatory nonessential water-use restrictions.
In Martinsville, city leaders have issued a voluntary water conservation notice and are urging residents and businesses to cut back where they can. The request comes as local businesses that rely heavily on water say the drought is already affecting day-to-day operations.
SEE ALSO: Botetourt County residents adjust daily routines as voluntary water restriction continues
John Hughes, owner of John’s Car Wash, said the dry conditions have hit his business hard in recent weeks. “For the last 3 weeks, it’s been hitting pretty hard. We done three yesterday and haven’t done anything today with the drought and hot weather. Yeah, I’m really concerned about it,” Hughes said.
Restaurants are also feeling the strain. David Kitzmiller, an owner of Be Wiched, said water is essential for routine tasks such as washing dishes and preparing some menu items.
“We use a lot of water for washing dishes and some of our recipes if they limit us in anyway defiently can’t produce and its a scary aspect,” Kitzmiller said.
Kitzmiller added that cutting back is not always realistic for businesses that must meet sanitation needs. “Not really feasible for a business that depends solely relies on water to wash their dishes, so that can’t definitely be an impact there,” he said.
City leaders emphasized that the conservation request is voluntary for now, but they are encouraging everyone to do their part by taking shorter showers, turning off the faucet when it is not in use, washing only full loads of laundry, and limiting outdoor watering whenever possible.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Five people were charged after Virginia Beach Police conducted a two-day human trafficking and vice operation on July 3, according to the Virginia Beach Police Department.
The department’s Special Investigations Bureau conducted the operation, which was aimed at identifiying human trafficking victims, reducing the demand for commercial sex and targeting individuals seeking to exploit or recruit children for prostitution.
Detectives used many investigative techniques to proactively identify individuals involved in criminal activity related to prostitution, human trafficking and offenses against children. The operation was conducted in Virginia Beach, involving personnel from all of the bureau’s squads.
As a result of the operation, five people were identified and charged with offenses ranging from solicitation of prostitution to sex trafficking and crimes involving minors. Two vehicles and U.S. currency were seized during the operation. Other people were connected to victim services through Samaritan House.
The operation led to the following people being charged:
- Shane Carter, 28, of Norfolk, was charged with solicitation of prostitution.
- Robert Harris, 64, of Virginia Beach, was charged with solicitation of prostitution and assault and battery.
- Larry Pittman, 53, of Portsmouth, was charged with sex trafficking and use of electronic devices to facilitaate certain offenses involving minors.
- Kenric Frazier, 46, of Portsmouth, was charged with sex trafficking, use of electronic devices to facilitate certain offenses involving minors and solicitation of child pornography.
- Cameron Lewis, 24, of Norfolk, was charged with solicitation of prostitution.
Investigators also developed leads about people who are suspected of trafficking and exploiting others for commercial sex. Those are now active and ongoing investigations. There may be more charges and arrests pending further investigation and consultation with the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.
If you’re a human trafficking victim or know someone who is, you can report it to the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Helen Dragas, CEO of Dragas Companies, said she does not feel her company had an “unfair advantage” in pursing a deal to buy Virginia Beach National Golf Club.
Rather, Dragas said her team took the initiative to put forward the “the “best competitive proposal we could.”
Next month, Virginia Beach City Council could vote to sell the 270-acre 18-hole course to Dragas, who along with Texas-based Century Golf, would redesign and refurbish the course. Dragas would then build nearly 660 housing units on the southern end of the property, and build a new childcare center.
Dragas’ proposal, titled “Princess Anne Landing,” was one of nine total groups who responded to the city’s request for proposals regarding of the future of the course.
Still, many on both social media and in public comments have accused the longtime housing developer of having the upper hand, given that she had the city sign a non-disclosure agreement in 2024, more than a year before the city’s intentions of possibly selling the course became public.
As part of an interview Tuesday with 10 On Your Side, Dragas was asked about those accusations and other questions. Responses are edited for style and brevity purposes.
REPORTER: You’ve heard some of the criticisms … sitting through the public hearings. … How do you take it when people say that you got an unfair advantage?
DRAGAS: I say that we invested thousands of hours of hard work and due diligence watching public hearings, media council meetings, digging into those engineering studies that I referenced before that showed the deficiencies, … understanding the comprehensive plan, the Historic Overlay District, the ITA situation, all that. There’s a lot of complexity there and we invested a lot of time and energy to develop the best competitive proposal we could. We never knew we would see it, and we still don’t know if we’ll see a single cent of that investment back. And that’s competition and that’s initiative, and we live in a country that’s always rewarded initiative. And we took it. And while others might have been spending their time on other projects or other endeavors, this is what we were doing. So we didn’t receive any nonpublic information. We just did our homework and I think we tried to solve a lot of problems in one proposal: housing, homeownership, childcare, golf course, you know, redesign and refresh and reinvestment and a future tax stream for the course. So we think we come up with something that provides benefit, not just at offers, but to a lot of other constituents in the city as well. We’re really proud of it.
REPORTER: You were telling me that … long before even the auditors report, you had your eye on that that parcel and thought it would be good for houses. Correct?
DRAGAS: Well, we always knew that there was that section that … could handle some housing, yes. And others did as well. There were other rentals. There was another unsolicited proposal or two. And then I think about half of the respondents to the proposal included housing.
Under the terms that have been negotiated between City Council and economic development staff for months in closed session, Dragas would purchase the roughly 270 acre course for $17.9 million from the city. The city will, in turn, give the $17.9 million back to Dragas, along with $1.8 million from the Virginia Beach Development Authority, to go towards an estimated $38 million golf course redevelopment.
On top of the nearly $20 million the city would give the development team for the golf course work, the city could contribute up to nearly $8 million in public infrastructure along Tournament Drive and Princess Anne Road, to include turn lanes, streetscape improvements, utility relocations, and a sewer extension.
REPORTER: Why does it need to be a public-private partnership?
DRAGAS: So right now the city has millions of dollars in deferred renovation — $7.7 million in identified stormwater deficiencies and remaining clubhouse and facilities repair. That doesn’t cover anything about renovating a 30-year-old course. And … everything needs a renovation, refurbishment at some point in its life, physical life. And so, this course needs that. There’s also public infrastructure that serves the entire area right there. So there’s some Virginia Beach Development Authority parcels that sit there and the first tee … as you probably know, is that land is going to be dedicated to the First Tee. There’s sanitary sanitary sewer infrastructure that serves all those parcels that was originally connected to be temporary, and that was almost 30 years ago. So the city has, I think, some deferred public infrastructure costs as well. What our proposal does is take the city off the hook for future maintenance liabilities. They’re actually going to come out of pocket less than they would if they just did the stormwater and the clubhouse repairs that were made, and in exchange, the city will have a $3.4 million a year tax revenue stream, a completely refreshed and refreshed renovated golf course, a badly needed child care facility and then, of course, the homes, homeownership opportunities for over 600 families.
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