It seems rather callous to consider the political implications of a life-or-death clemency decision, but the death penalty is a political issue, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) is a political figure, and yesterday’s decision has political significance.
Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) issued his first grant of clemency in a death penalty case Tuesday, sparing the life of convicted murderer Robin M. Lovitt a day before his scheduled execution.
Warner said in a statement that the destruction by an Arlington County court clerk of DNA evidence that might have cleared Lovitt convinced him that Lovitt should instead spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Lovitt would have been the 1,000th person executed in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
“In this case, the actions of an agent of the Commonwealth, in a manner contrary to the express direction of the law, comes at the expense of a defendant facing society’s most severe and final sanction,” Warner said in the statement. “The Commonwealth must ensure that every time this ultimate sanction is carried out, it is done fairly.”
Given the circumstances, I think most people, regardless of their opinions of capital punishment, will agree this was the right call. There was DNA evidence that could have made Lovitt’s culpability clear, but the state mistakenly destroyed that evidence. With this doubt hanging over the case, Warner couldn’t, in good conscience, have this man put to death. The accused remains behind bars, but he will not become the 1,000th person to be put to death in this country since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
And then, of course, there’s the 2008 presidential race, in which Warner is likely to be a participant.
It’s possible that a Democratic governor, anxious to appear “tough on crime,” might have been willing to go ahead with the Lovitt execution, reservations notwithstanding. Most of us recall Bill Clinton’s 1992 execution of Ricky Ray Rector, which bolstered his credentials as a death-penalty supporting Dem. If Warner were considering the Lovitt case in a political context, it might have been tempting to follow a similar path. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
TNR’s Michael Crowley, however, explained this week that Warner could consider the Lovitt case in a political context and come to the same conclusion.
Warner should remember that the national political climate was very different back then [in 1992]. Democrats were hounded by a perception that they were soft on crime, which had exploded across the nation with the crack epidemic. Indeed, “tough on crime” was a core element of Clinton’s ’92 platform. Say what you will about the morality of his grandstanding return to Arkansas to “preside” over Rector’s execution, there was a certain cold political logic to it. Today, however, crime remains at historic lows and barely registers as a political issue. Democrats have far more pressing image problems to fret about.
The second (probably related) point is that attitudes towards the death penalty are changing. Several polls show a steady drop in death-penalty support over the past decade or so. (An admittedly very strong majority of around 65 percent are still in favor — but opinion has clearly become malleable.) In the past few years the Supreme Court has ruled against the execution of juveniles and the mentally retarded. And the recent advent of DNA evidence has led to the breathtaking exoneration of dozens of wrongly condemned men (although with occasionally tragic results, I’ll grant). All of which is to say that the political stakes seem limited to begin with.
As governor, Warner has allowed the executions of 11 men to proceed and the crime rate has fallen statewide during his tenure. I appreciate the fact that the Republican smear machine doesn’t necessarily need facts to go after a Dem presidential candidate, but I suspect the GOP attack dogs have to look elsewhere while searching for dirt on Warner.