Richmond Times-Dispatch

VIRGINIA:Bill's message: Principle has price -- Death penalty foe can register, but . . .

Opposed to the death penalty? If you're the victim of a capital murder, a proposed Virginia law would prohibit your killer from being executed.

 The proposed law was prefiled by Sen. Warren E. Barry, R-Fairfax, for the 2002 General Assembly. Barry is the senator who, in this year's legislature, called opponents of mandatory punishment in his Pledge of Allegiance bill "spineless pinkos."

 His new proposal has a big catch.

 It would allow a Virginian to register his or her opposition to the death penalty with a central Death Penalty Opposition Registry. If the registrant is slain in a capital murder, the killer then would be ineligible for the death penalty.

 However, the death penalty opponent must make arrangements for his or her entire estate to be turned over to the Virginia Board of Corrections to defray the cost of the killer's imprisonment.

 "We're a death penalty state," Barry said. "I believe we need a death penalty, and I believe most Virginians do. But right now there's a movement to do away with the death penalty. I figured, if there are those who are truly against the death penalty, then we'll give them an option to opt out.

 "I think it's fair to everybody. It gives somebody who is truly opposed to the death penalty an option to say, 'I want to put my money where my mouth is,'" he said.

 Such an arrangement apparently would be unique in the nation, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

 Henry Heller, of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said "I commend the senator for part of it at least."

 But "as far as the requirement being that their estate go to the state for [the killer's] upkeep, we should probably remind the senator that it costs more for the state to kill that killer than it would be to keep him in prison for life," Heller said.

Kathleen T. Kenny, with the Office of Justice and Peace with the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, asked, "Is that a serious bill, or is it just sort of a stick-it-in-your-face bill" aimed at capital punishment opponents? She said she believes "it's a very cynical bill."

Kenny said there is a national program called the Declaration of Life, in which people opposed to the death penalty can ask that their capital murderer be spared the death sentence. She said you can keep a card in your wallet and fill out a notarized form and put with your "end-of-life papers."

The declaration carries no legal weight, but presumably, she said, it could be used in the penalty phase of a capital murder trail by the defense.

Dieter agreed with Heller that "the ironic thing is that it's the death penalty that's costing people [more]. People should have to pay for the death penalty, not the other way around.

"Every study that has been done on the death penalty has concluded it's much more expensive. This isn't just propaganda, it's pretty well-established," Dieter said.

A study by the Death Penalty Information Center found that capital trials are longer and more expensive at every step than other murder trials. Pre-trial motions, expert witness investigations, jury selection and the necessity for 2 trials - 1 on guilt and one on sentencing - make capital cases extremely costly, even before the appeals process begins.

Barry disagrees. "It's just a twist of the facts," he said.

He said he believes trials would have to be held for life imprisonment cases - to also be followed by lengthy appeals - and that it would cost a lot less to execute someone than it would to house the person for one year. He also said he found Kenny's characterization of his bill unfair.

Barry's bill calls for anyone wishing to join the registry to do so with his or her local circuit court clerk. The registry would be maintained by the Virginia Supreme Court.

If passed by the General Assembly, the proposal would become law on Jan. 1, 2003.

In the last General Assembly session, Barry sponsored a bill requiring public school students to recite The Pledge of Allegiance or face mandatory suspension. The bill passed but made recitation of the pledge optional.

Barry, a retired Marine, blasted those who favored removing the initial punitive aspects as "spineless pinkos."