BY LAUREN ANNE MERKEL
STAFF WRITER
THE CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE
Hanover Republican Del. Frank Hargrove represents a party and part of the state that generally supports capital punishment.
He doesn't.
"The death penalty is inappropriate," he said.
He wasn't always so convinced, but he did have misgivings early on.
"When I came down here originally, in '82, I was uneasy about capital punishment at that time," Hargrove said.
Although there were numerous times that he voted in favor of the death penalty,
Hargrove said he "never felt good about it."
Hargrove recollected a time when he saw a picture of people eating their lunch while attending a public hanging. The picture has stayed in his memory through all of this time, which is part of the reason why he said he called for a bill in the mid 1980s to reinstitute public hangings. He felt that capital punishment in general was not enough of a deterrent, and making it public would be.
The bill did not go anywhere, and after that he continued, "unfortunately," he said, to support capital punishment legislation.
"I was warned it would be political suicide," Hargrove said when he finally decided he just didn't like it, and wanted it changed.
"It turns out there were no political consequences for me, personally," he said.
Each year, Hargrove submits bills to the General Assembly to revoke capital punishment, but each year they are killed. The same thing happened this year.
Hargrove believes that within the next four to five years, "we will see the death penalty done away with in Virginia." He said that the death penalty is being "chipped away" all over the country.
Hargrove said thinks there is a huge possibility of executing the wrong person, which makes him uncomfortable. Other legislators agree with him, he said, but they are concerned about the political consequences.
Hargrove prefers jail without parole, and voted in favor of House Bill Number
1311, which would add to the definition of capital murder, which includes eligibility for the death penalty.
Del. Chris Peace, R- Mechanicsville, also voted in favor of this bill, which passed the House. His reasoning is that people do not respect the laws and law enforcement, and that they should receive severe penalties. His wish is that society would not commit crimes to warrant the death penalty.
Peace said that he could see where Hargrove was coming from and respects that.
"Until there is an alternative" regarding how to improve upon the current system, this is the way it is, said Peace.
Jeff Caruso, the executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, said, "VCC's [Virginia Catholic Conference] position is that we believe that use of the death penalty is never needed in our Commonwealth."
According to Catholic teachings, Caruso said the death penalty "can only be justified when non-lethal means are insufficient to protect society."
Caruso said because Virginia has "state-of-the-art prison systems" and life without parole for people convicted of murder, capital punishment is not needed. He said that legislators are "applying the accelerator (to capital punishment) when what they need to do is apply the brake."
According to Caruso and the Death Penalty Information Center website, Virginia has the most executions, behind Texas, since 1976, when the United States Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment.