ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608130028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
MOST Virginians - 87 percent, according to a statewide poll conducted this spring by Virginia Tech's Center for Survey Research - support the death penalty for convicted murderers. But offer life imprisonment without parole for 25 years as a hypothetical option, and a majority - 57 percent - agree at least somewhat with the idea of eliminating executions.
The juxtaposition itself isn't so odd. To abhor murderous violence and not be uneasy about capital punishment would be odder. Find another way to ensure that murderers are punished severely and won't threaten society again, and a fall-off of death-penalty support isn't surprising.
What's odd is that something akin to the hypothetical alternative already exists in Virginia, a result of Gov. George Allen's no-parole, truth-in-sentencing legislation that went into effect at the beginning of 1995. With one relatively minor qualification (up to 15 percent can be taken off a sentence for good behavior in prison), the time to which a criminal is now sentenced is the time he must pull.
To be considered capital murder in Virginia, a murder must meet certain conditions outlined in the law. It must be committed in the course of armed robbery or rape, for example, or be of a law-enforcement officer. Premeditated murder that does not meet those conditions is considered murder in the first degree.
In capital cases, sentencing juries or judges have only two options: death or life imprisonment. First-degree murder carries a penalty of 20 years to life imprisonment. Thus, the very least someone convicted of a premeditated murder must serve now in Virginia is 17 years (85 percent of 20 years) without parole. And that's possible only if a court hands out the barest minimum sentence.
This doesn't seem terribly far from the poll's hypothetical 25 years without parole. But it's a relatively new situation, which may help to explain the ambivalent poll findings. For years, actual time served tended to be only a small fraction of the nominal sentence. Many people may remember this more vividly than Allen's sentencing-reform legislation.
Additionally, any significant decline in public support for the death penalty probably will require enough time for people to become convinced that the no-parole policy is here to stay.
If the death penalty ever is abolished, the poll findings seem to suggest, it will be because the public has gained greater confidence in government's ability to guarantee that murderers won't soon be let loose from prison.
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