- Saturday, February 10, 2001; 

Death in Virginia 

THE VIRGINIA legislature's efforts to reform the state's capital punishment system are turning into a real disappointment. The recent scrutiny of the death penalty -- both in the commonwealth and nationwide -- created an opportunity to do something about the excesses of the state's trigger-happy system. No death penalty can ever be infallible or perfectly fair, which is one reason we oppose capital punishment altogether. At the same time, if people are to be put to death, the system should be as foolproof as possible -- and Virginia had a chance at meaningful reform. The bill the General Assembly is currently contemplating, however, is wholly inadequate.The proposal, fashioned by the State Crime Commission, would create an exception to the state's noxious rule forbidding the introduction of newly discovered evidence more than 21 days after a conviction. It would do so, however, only to let biological evidence be tested. In other words, a wrongly convicted person who could prove his innocence by some means other than DNA testing would still have no access to the courts. In non-death penalty cases, moreover, only convicts who had pleaded not-guilty would be able to petition the courts to have their convictions voided, an idea that ignores the cases of false or coerced confessions that have arisen in recent years.Other states are taking a more serious approach to death penalty reform. The Illinois Supreme Court recently promulgated new rules guaranteeing two adequately trained lawyers for every indigent defendant in a capital case. Judges who preside over death cases will receive special training. And the new Illinois rules also attempt to give added force to the constitutional requirement that prosecutors turn over to a defendant's lawyers any evidence that tends to show his innocence. If Virginia legislators are serious about a fairer criminal justice system, the 21-day rule needs to go -- and that should be the start, not the end, of the changes.