Recent edi­to­ri­als in The Washington Post and Roanoke Times praised Virginia Governor Tim Kaine’s deci­sion to delay the exe­cu­tion of Percy Walton in order to ensure that he is sane enough to exe­cute. The papers not­ed that Kaine’s deci­sion, which drew crit­i­cism from some death penal­ty advo­cates, demon­strat­ed ​“com­pe­tence in law­ful­ly apply­ing the death penal­ty” and was ​“coura­geous.”

The Washington Post noted:

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), a devout Catholic and prin­ci­pled oppo­nent of the death penal­ty, thread­ed the nee­dle on that issue in his race for office last year. In a broad­ly pro-cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment state, he said forth­right­ly that he had long-stand­ing moral and reli­gious objec­tions to state exe­cu­tions. Yet he also pledged to car­ry out the death sen­tence as a func­tion of his office and in pur­suance of state law. To do oth­er­wise, he said, would be to dis­re­gard his offi­cial oath — except in instances when a con­vic­t’s guilt was in question.

Now, with a con­demned man’s life on the line, Mr. Kaine has stepped in; with scarce­ly an hour to spare last week, he post­poned for six months an exe­cu­tion pend­ing an inquiry into the inmate’s men­tal state. Predictably, Mr. Kaine’s pro-death-penal­ty oppo­nents howled that he had bro­ken a cam­paign promise. It’s a good bet they haven’t read the case record in ques­tion; Mr. Kaine clearly has.

The record on con­vict­ed killer Percy Levar Walton leaves no doubt about his guilt; in 1996, a month past his 18th birth­day, he mur­dered three peo­ple, includ­ing an elder­ly cou­ple, in the Southside city of Danville. The record of his com­pe­ten­cy to face the death sen­tence is another matter.

Mr. Walton’s case is com­plex. An array of psy­chi­a­trists have reached dif­fer­ing con­clu­sions about his men­tal capac­i­ty and abil­i­ty to grasp that he may be put to death. That’s impor­tant, as the U.S. Supreme Court has deter­mined that a con­demned man is fit for exe­cu­tion only if he under­stands that he’s been sen­tenced to death and the reason.

There is evi­dence that Mr. Walton’s men­tal abil­i­ty and health are declin­ing. A decade ago he scored 90 on an IQ test — below aver­age but not severe­ly so. But in recent years he has twice scored under 70, the lev­el below which peo­ple are con­sid­ered men­tal­ly retard­ed. More to the point, he has some­times seemed cloudy on what the death penal­ty means, telling one psy­chi­a­trist that after his exe­cu­tion he expect­ed to have access to a tele­phone, a motor­cy­cle and a job at Burger King. Ruling on Mr. Walton’s case in March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, per­haps the nation’s most con­ser­v­a­tive fed­er­al court, split 7 to 6 in decid­ing that he is men­tal­ly fit to be executed.

Mr. Kaine has already shown that he takes his cam­paign promis­es seri­ous­ly; in April he denied clemen­cy and allowed a con­demned man to be exe­cut­ed. But he is empow­ered by Virginia’s con­sti­tu­tion to review sched­uled exe­cu­tions one by one, and he is duty-bound to take that respon­si­bil­i­ty seri­ous­ly. Virginia gov­er­nors have grant­ed clemen­cy in sev­en cas­es since the Supreme Court rein­sti­tut­ed the death penal­ty in 1976. Mr. Kaine is right, and coura­geous, to order a full review before pass­ing a final judg­ment on Mr. Walton.

The Roanoke Times stated:

Whether Walton is smart enough or sane enough to under­stand that Virginia last week was hours away from killing him for those crimes is very much in doubt. Gov. Tim Kaine made the right call when he stayed Walton’s exe­cu­tion for six months, time enough to deter­mine the degree of his men­tal retar­da­tion and mental illness.

Before Virginia pumps lethal chem­i­cals into this killer’s veins, the state should be sure Walton under­stands exact­ly what will hap­pen to him and why the com­mon­wealth exacts the ulti­mate ret­ri­bu­tion. The U.S. Supreme Court requires — and a just soci­ety demands — this lev­el of mental competency.

…

Reasonable doubt prompt­ed Kaine to order the gath­er­ing of ​“cur­rent and inde­pen­dent infor­ma­tion about Walton’s men­tal con­di­tion.” Without that assess­ment, Kaine said it would be ​“impru­dent to either pro­ceed with the exe­cu­tion or grant clemency.”

Had a gov­er­nor oth­er than Kaine arrived at that con­clu­sion, few would com­ment. But as a prac­tic­ing Roman Catholic, he came under attack dur­ing last year’s cam­paign. He assured vot­ers his per­son­al oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty would not pre­vent him from car­ry­ing out the duties of the office. He has allowed one exe­cu­tion to pro­ceed on schedule.

Walton’s stay leaves Kaine vul­ner­a­ble to ​“we told you so” rants. Those should be ignored by rea­son­able peo­ple who expect Virginia to exhib­it com­pe­tence in law­ful­ly apply­ing the death penalty.

(Washington Post, June 11, 2006 and Roanoke Times, June 12, 2006) See Mental Illness and Editorials.

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