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.

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