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Governor Finds New Middle Ground in Death Penalty Debate
More articles on this topic: Death PenaltyWASHINGTON, Jan. 13 – Criminal justice was not high on Mark Warner’s to-do list when he was elected governor of Virginia in 2001. And he did not mention the subject in his farewell address to the legislature on Wednesday.
But in four years as governor, Mr. Warner has incrementally and with little fanfare established groundbreaking policies on the use of DNA testing to confirm, or challenge, criminal convictions, many of them in death penalty cases. Last week, he became the first governor to order a DNA test involving a man who had already been executed.
The actions of Mr. Warner, who leaves office on Saturday, have established new middle ground in the polarized world of death penalty politics. Unlike former Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, who ordered a moratorium on executions in 2003, Mr. Warner has not called for halting executions, and he still supports capital punishment. His goal, he has said, has not been to undermine the system but to make sure it works.
“It’s not like he wants to be a DNA or criminal justice crusader,” said Ellen Qualls, Mr. Warner’s spokeswoman. “It is not his hope that his actions will help the death penalty abolition movement. In each case, he’s just tried to pick the right course.”
But because Mr. Warner, a Democrat barred by law from a consecutive term, is considering a run for president in 2008, his actions are being scrutinized for political motives. Critics say those are clear.
“He’s heading for Iowa,” said Michael Paranzino, president of Throw Away the Key, a nonprofit group that supports the death penalty. Mr. Paranzino was referring to the Iowa caucuses that formally kick off the presidential campaign season.
Mr. Paranzino and other critics of Mr. Warner say the governor, who has tried to cast himself as a centrist on fiscal issues, gun control and other policies, has moved left on criminal justice to win support from liberal Democratic primary voters.
Iowa has no death penalty, and caucus voters there tend to oppose capital punishment, political experts say.
New Hampshire, whose primary immediately follows the Iowa caucuses, has the death penalty but has not executed anyone since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
“This merely raises his profile among those voters,” Mr. Paranzino said.
Mr. Warner’s supporters strongly dispute that. They argue that any gains he makes during the primaries from questioning capital punishment would become setbacks in the general election, when Republicans might attack him as soft on crime.
They also say that Mr. Warner’s faith in DNA technology and his desire to make the justice system more effective fit his style as a nonideological manager whose biggest concern is making government work.
“As part of having a premier crime lab and supporting the death penalty, you want to find the truth and make sure people have confidence in that system,” Ms. Qualls said.
Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University in Virginia, said he saw “little political traction” for Mr. Warner in death penalty issues because Democratic primary voters seemed more concerned about abortion, judicial nominations and the war in Iraq.
But Mr. Rozell also said Mr. Warner’s approach could appease liberals while not angering conservatives. “There is a little bit for everybody in his stance,” he said.
Regardless of motives, Mr. Warner has gone further than other governors in using newer, more sophisticated DNA tests to review prosecutions, many of which relied on less precise technologies, experts said. In the last two years, he ordered two sweeping reviews of DNA testing and other forensic analyses by the state’s nationally acclaimed crime laboratory.
The first was prompted by the case of Earl Washington Jr., a retarded man who came within days of being executed for rape and murder before a DNA test by the laboratory raised questions about his guilt in 1994. He was pardoned in 2000.
But those tests were faulty, leaving open the possibility that Mr. Washington was involved in the crime until an independent DNA test proved his innocence in 2004. As a result, Mr. Warner ordered an independent audit that was highly critical of the state laboratory.
Last year, Mr. Warner ordered testing of genetic material found in the files of a former crime laboratory analyst. Three people were exonerated after requesting DNA tests from those files, and at the urging of the Innocence Project, a legal clinic based in New York, Mr. Warner ordered sophisticated DNA tests on a random sample of material in the files.
Those tests, involving about 30 cases, cleared two more men. Mr. Warner then ordered DNA testing on all of the analyst’s files where convictions had been reached and genetic materials still existed.
Those materials, from cases dating from 1973 to 1988, could involve scores of cases, experts said.
Late last year, Mr. Warner granted clemency to Robin Lovitt, a convicted murderer on death row, because a clerk destroyed forensic evidence that could have undergone DNA tests. Last week, he became the first governor to order DNA tests in the case of a man who had been executed for murder.
The new tests found that the man, Roger K. Coleman, was almost certainly guilty of the murder for which he was executed in 1992, Mr. Warner announced on Thursday.
Critics said Mr. Warner probably knew the tests would prove Mr. Coleman’s guilt and was therefore taking no risks in ordering them. But death penalty critics said the decision paved the way for other governors to use DNA to review death penalty convictions, even after executions.
“He has set an example for governors all over the United States,” said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project. “It’s the governors’ responsibilities to go out and do DNA testing in these cases. That is the only way you can enhance the integrity of the criminal justice system.”
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