Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991 TAG: 9102180338
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: C/2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It won't be all of us 6 million Virginians who march him to the execution chamber at the penitentiary in Richmond, strap him into the antiquated electric chair, and pull the switch. We have agents for that; government does a lot of things for us.
But when the lethal voltage courses through Giarratano's body, it will be an expression of our collective majority will. The public wants criminals punished, and a majority wants the most heinous of them punished by death. According to our legal system, society shows its horror of killing by repeating the act. It is called justice.
Giarratano was convicted by a Virginia court of two brutal murders. He's been on death row since 1979. So why not get it over with? Because there is some doubt the man is guilty.
One morning in Norfolk in 1979, when he waked from a drug- and alcohol-induced stupor to see two of his friends brutally slain, he didn't remember killing anybody. He says he still doesn't. But racked by doubt, fear and feelings of worthlessness, he turned himself in to police.
Later he confessed - five times, in fact, each time changing the details. He was tried and convicted on the basis of his confessions.
People confess all the time to crimes they've not committed. Authorities are supposed to establish proof. The physical evidence in this case doesn't support his guilt.
For example, the dead woman is believed to have been stabbed by someone right-handed; Giarratano is left-handed and has only limited use of his right arm. He was alleged to have raped the woman's daughter, but sperm and pubic hairs on the girl were not identified as his. Fingerprints other than Giarratano's were found in the victims' home, as was a driver's license owned by another man - whose identity authorities have never revealed. And so on. The investigation appears to have been sloppy.
Giarratano was a suicidal person who wanted to die and refused to cooperate with his defense. Until he received counseling in prison to overcome those tendencies, he would not take part in appeals. There have been several since 1983, but the legal system looks on these as late in coming. Procedure was followed, say the judges.
Unless Gov. Douglas Wilder intervenes, procedure will be followed this week. Giarratano - an apparently rehabilitated man - will die for crimes that the evidence did not show conclusively he committed.
Capital punishment isn't right, but that is not the issue here. Its finality is. No one should be executed where doubt persists. The governor should prevent all executions in this state. But he can stop this one while continuing to support the death penalty.
If we Virginians send anyone to death, we at least should have the assurance that the evidence supports the sentence. By that standard, Giarratano deserves a new trial.
by CNB