The Richmond Times-Dispatch, a key paper in the Virginia state cap­i­tal, has long sup­port­ed the death penal­ty. But their recent edi­to­r­i­al takes the posi­tion that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“achieves no legit­i­mate goals that can­not be achieved by a life sen­tence with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.” The paper equates the death penal­ty with the state ​“play­ing God.” The full text of the edi­to­r­i­al fol­lows:

Del. Frank Hargrove, one of the General Assembly’s Don Quixotes, hopes the umpteenth time will be the charm. He wants to end exe­cu­tions in Virginia, which stands sec­ond only to Texas in its zest for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

Although there is some slight evi­dence that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment might deter crime, its over­all effect on crime trends is van­ish­ing­ly small — and it achieves no legit­i­mate goals that can­not be achieved by a life sen­tence with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. (Spare us the non­sense about how exe­cu­tion pro­tects fel­low inmates and guards from psy­chopaths. A place like the super­max Pelican Bay prison is the place for them.)

Many argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment are flawed, but that does not make a case for exe­cu­tion. The only affir­ma­tive case that can be made on behalf of killing some­one instead of lock­ing him away for­ev­er is the sen­ti­ment that cer­tain heinous fiends deserve to die. Indeed they do; indeed, they deserve much worse than that, and their death is cer­tain­ly no great loss to the world. But the judi­cial sys­tem does not exist to mete out divine ret­ri­bu­tion.

Those who believe in lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment also should believe gov­ern­ment ought to lim­it itself to pro­tect­ing the pub­lic — and ought to refrain from play­ing God. We long have sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Yet Hargrove sets a chal­leng­ing exam­ple. To put a new spin on an old con­ser­v­a­tive trope: If it is not nec­es­sary to exe­cute, then is it nec­es­sary not to exe­cute? The ques­tion is grow­ing tougher.
(Editorial, ​“Death Be Not?,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 22, 2008). See Editorials and New Voices.

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