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Virginia Veto

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has once again vetoed legislation to repeal that state's triggerman rule, reports Mason Adams for the Roanoke Times. This statute automatically exempts from the death penalty a murderer who uses someone else to actually commit the killing, with a few exceptions. The state was able to fit John Allen Muhammad, the D.C. sniper, into one of the exceptions, but it was a tight fit. Maryland had no applicable exception, so this serial killer escaped the only fitting punishment for the six murders he was convicted of in that state. A person who uses another to commit a murder as Muhammad did is more culpable, not less, than a solo actor. In cases where the nontriggerman is merely an accomplice rather than the driving force, the jury can take that into consideration as a mitigating circumstance...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on March 06, 2008 (boomark / email).