Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 17, 1993 TAG: 9312170252
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As Virginia's new secretary of public safety, Kilgore wants to change that.
Kilgore, a 32-year-old assistant commonwealth's attorney in Scott County, was named to the Cabinet position Wednesday by Gov.-elect George Allen.
One of his top goals will be to help follow through on Allen's campaign pledge to abolish parole in Virginia, Kilgore said.
Before taking a job as a part-time prosecutor for his twin brother in Scott County, Kilgore spent five years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Roanoke and Abingdon. The people Kilgore prosecuted in federal court were not eligible for parole.
"We see repeat offenders here at the state level far more than I ever saw at the federal level," Kilgore said. "Every study shows they are the people most likely to commit violent crimes."
Kilgore will go from a small-town prosecutor's job in far Southwest Virginia to a Richmond office that oversees many law enforcement agencies, including the Virginia State Police, the Department of Corrections and the State Parole Board.
No sooner had he been named to the post than Kilgore faced questions about his youth and relative inexperience.
"That was the first question they asked" at a news conference announcing his appointment, Kilgore said. A newspaper reporter from Richmond, which averages about 100 homicides annually, noted that Scott County has just 1.5 a year.
But in pledging to fight crime across the state, Kilgore responded that it is not just an urban problem.
Besides, he said, a rural perspective to crime has its advantages. "We need to restore values to our state," he said Thursday, while back at his office in Gate City.
"We have a lot of areas where it's a rite of passage for people to go to jail," he said. "That's not the way it is in rural Virginia, where it's still a disgrace to get arrested."
Kilgore supported Allen's call for a special session of the General Assembly next spring to consider his plans for abolishing parole.
A comprehensive package of bills dealing with violent crime would likely get "bogged down" in the legislative mire of a regular session, Kilgore said.
Critics of Allen's proposal say it will be painfully expensive to build enough prisons to support it, and that abolishing parole makes it difficult to keep tabs on prisoners when they are finally released.
Kilgore acknowledges his new job is worlds away from Gate City, which is closer to the capitals of several other states than it is to Richmond.
"It's going to be a big change fighting the traffic of Richmond, but it's an opportunity I felt I couldn't pass up for Southwest Virginia."
Following last week's appointment of Virginia Tech administrator Beverly Sgro as secretary of education, Kilgore's nomination is the second of Allen's cabinet picks to come from Southwest Virginia.
"Rural Virginia will never be slighted by George Allen," Kilgore said.
Kilgore's twin brother, Scott County Commonwealth's Attorney Terry Kilgore, also will head to Richmond next year as a newly-elected member of the House of Delegates.
Although the appointment may have raised questions in Richmond, Kilgore drew praise closer to home. "He's a world-class young man," said former U.S. Attorney John Perry Alderman, who hired Kilgore as an assistant prosecutor before he graduated from law school.
"He's a real good people person," Alderman said. "Without exception, anyone who meets him likes him."
That apparently was the case with Allen, who met Kilgore about three years ago over lunch with U.S. District Judge Glenn Williams in Abingdon. Kilgore, Republican chairman of the 9th District, later came out early in support of Allen's gubernatorial bid.
Kilgore also was backed by the Virginia State Police Association. "We look forward to working with Mr. Kilgore in any way possible to help combat crime and make the commonwealth a safer place for its citizens to live," said H. Dallas Church, president of the group.
After his nomination, Kilgore was back Thursday in a Scott County courtroom, where he handled the preliminary hearing of a murder suspect.
"One of our 1.5 this year," he said.
by CNB