“DNA Effect” spares nation its 1000th execution
Robin Lovitt, pictured above, would have been the nation’s 1000th execution since the death penalty was re-introduced into the US in 1976. But with only 24 hours to spare before his November 30th execution, Lovitt was spared that distinction with a last-minute commutation of his sentence by Virginia’s Governor Mark Warner.
The reason? Call it the “DNA Effect”. Somewhere along the long road of Lovitt’s various appeals, some court clerk destroyed the last remaining DNA evidence that could have been tested in an attempt to verify Lovitt’s guilt. And that gave Governor Warner, a rumored 2008 Presidential candidate, all he needed to set aside the sentence and avoid tagging Virginia as the state that took the 1000th life. When all else fails, savvy politicians can now ride what is fast becoming a national wave of skepticism of questionable death penalty cases. And this is certainly one of them. Lovitt was convicted on layers of circumstantial evidence and a cast of several snitches, any one of whom could easily have been just as guilty of the crime. Each managed to cut themselves a deal sparing their life in exchange for testimony against Lovitt, who has maintained his claim of innocence all the way through death row. Now, thanks to some absent-minded clerk somewhere, and a politician who was looking for something to hang his hat on, the potential execution of an innocent man has been avoided.
And lest you think this is just another wacky bleeding-heart cause celebre, consider this: the man’s appellate counsel is no less than Kenneth Starr, a former United States Federal Judge and Solicitor General, not to mention Special Prosecutor. With or without a blue dress, Starr found a way to make an issue out of DNA and handed Governor Warner a free pass on what might otherwise have been too hot a potato for an aspiring President.
RP
December 14th, 2005 at 11:43 pm
[…] I’m floored. While most politicians across the country are falling over themselves trying to outdo each other on the “tough on crime” scale, one lone maverick is bucking the trend by calling into question the integrity of the system itself. Governor Mark Warner of Virginia made headlines recently when he commuted the death sentence of Robin Lovitt (read about it here) based on the failure of the state to preserve DNA evidence for testing against Lovitt’s DNA, thereby averting the nation’s 1000th execution since re-instituting the death penalty in 1976. Rumored to be a future Presidential candidate, Democrat Warner put his career at risk with the move. But he’s not done. […]