'Triggerman' Repeal Wins Final Passage
posted 2:27 pm Fri February 22, 2008 - Richmond, Va.
In Virginia, only the person directly responsible for a killing can get the death penalty. Sen. Mark Obenshain's bill would allow capital punishment for any accomplice who shares the triggerman's intent to kill.
Kaine vetoed the same legislation last year and has not changed his view, spokesman Gordon Hickey has said. Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, said Kaine has pledged to discuss the issue with him before acting on the legislation.
"I know the governor has concerns about expanding the death penalty, but I take him at his word when he says he will sit down and talk about it," Obenshain told reporters after the House vote.
Attorney General Bob McDonnell and a half-dozen sheriffs and prosecutors later joined Obenshain and Del. Todd Gilbert at a news conference where they urged Kaine to sign the bill.
"Equal wrongdoing and equal culpability deserves equal punishment," McDonnell said. He said that "fundamental principle" applies in every area of law except capital murder.
Proponents of the bill cited several cases in which a killer was spared the death penalty because of the triggerman rule. For example, Brandon Hedrick was executed in July 2006 for the rape and murder of a woman in Appomattox County while an accomplice only got life in prison.
Virginia is one of only three states that have the death penalty but do not apply it to accomplices who share the triggerman's intent to kill, said Gilbert, who called the rule "outdated, illogical and unfair."
However, Virginia law does carve out three exceptions to the triggerman rule: murder for hire, murder ordered by someone in an illegal drug enterprise, and murder by someone engaged in terrorism.
Also, a 2006 analysis by the Virginia State Crime Commission found that the state Supreme Court has repeatedly held that if there is more than one "immediate perpetrator" of a capital murder, all of them may receive the death penalty. The court cited that theory and the terrorism exception in upholding the death sentence of Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammad.
Gilbert, R-Shenandoah and sponsor of the House version of the bill, said that but for the "creative efforts of prosecutors," Muhammad might have avoided the death penalty. Lee Boyd Malvo was the triggerman in the October 2002 shooting spree that left 10 people dead.
Pittsylvania County Commonwealth's Attorney David N. Grimes said "immediate perpetrator" usually only applies to an accomplice who physically participates in a killing - for example, pouring gasoline on someone who is subsequently set afire by another person.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, Virginia has executed 98 people, second only to Texas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
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The bills are SB560 and HB933.
On the Net: http://legis.state.va.us
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