On September 5, the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Due Process Review Project released its latest report, focusing on the fairness and accuracy of Virginia’s death penalty system. The assessment recommended changes to the way the state handles defendants with mental retardation and severe mental illness. It also recommended requiring prosecutors to disclose additional information about testifying witnesses and allowing prosecutors to withdraw the death penalty even after charging a defendant with capital murder. The report was critical of the state’s practice of setting an execution date before all appeals are complete because it “effectively provides less due process to those under a death sentence than that which is afforded to non-capital inmates.” The report praised recent improvements in documenting police procedures for eyewitness identification and accreditation of crime laboratories, but recommended additional reforms. The assessment found the state to be not in compliance or only in partial compliance with many of the ABA’s protocols for the death penalty. The assessment team included Mark Earley, the former Attorney General of Virginia, John Douglass (Chair), the Dean Emeritus of the University of Richmond Law School, and other leaders from the judicial and legislative communities.
(Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Report, American Bar Association, August 2013; DPIC posted Sept. 5, 2013). See Studies for other states given assessments by the project.
