That's the title of an editorial in today's Roanoke Times. It's subtitled, "Virginia should take up the bar association’s reforms to ensure a fair and accurate death penalty system."
The American Bar Association spent two years studying Virginia’s death penalty and came up with a dozen recommendations that would lift the state’s thumb off the scale of justice.
The group does not address whether states should have a death penalty. Rather, the ABA acknowledges that prudence requires capital punishment to be administered justly. And all should favor ensuring that those the commonwealth executes truly merit the irrevocable penalty.
That cannot be said today. The Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Team weighed Virginia’s ways against the bar association’s protocols and found it deficient. Most of the recommended reforms would not cost the state much in the way of funding, but would require procedural changes.
And:
Virginia has, in recent years, gotten a few things right with capital cases: accreditation of crime laboratories and medical examiner offices and certification of their employees, and establishing regional capital defender offices that offer more experienced and qualified trial attorneys.
But Virginia still has at least a dozen reforms remaining before resting its case that it runs a fair and accurate death penalty system. Until then, reasonable doubt remains.
Earlier coverage of the Virginia report begins at the link.
The ABA Virginia Assessment on the Death Penalty is available at the link. You can also get more information on the ABA's Death Penalty Due Process Project and view other state assessments.
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