I spent half of last weekend at the annual Board Retreat for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. It was my first Board Retreat, since I only joined the board last September. But the retreat was a deeply moving experience, that made me really glad I accepted the invitation to join the board– and that I have come back into working closely with this inspirational group after a few years of putting more of my energies into other matters.
However, one of our first activities coming out of the Board Retreat is to organize around our state’s upcoming execution, planned for May 20, of Darick Walker, the 107th person to be executed by the state since the death penalty was reinstated here in 1976.
Reinstated! Imagine that!
Is the United States the only country that has been traveling back in time to the Middle Ages on this important question of capital punishment?
I’m sure that if you were to compile a list of the countries that since 1970 have struck the death penalty off their lawbooks, it would be pretty lengthy. I certainly hope it would include countries that between them have a far larger population than that of the United States.
I’m planning to write more here about VADP over the weeks and months ahead. The main thing I want to write now is that, though we have a really excellent board and a great workplan, we desperately need more funds! Recently, our great Executive Director, Beth Panilaitis, moved to another job because we could not offer her a minimum of financial stability. Now, we’ve decided not wait to hire a replacement until we have the funds to attract and retain a good new person– which we want to be able to do as soon as possible.
So if you are able to make a donation of any size from large to small, please do so.
One thought on “Virginia planning an execution May 20”
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It is indeed shocking. But it shouldn’t be: they are executing people in their dozens, men, women and children, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, every day.
They executed more than a thousand refugees in Gaza, last year.
It would be the height of hypocrisy for Virginians to pretend that the old game of stringing up black men, to terrify the others, had lost its charm, while the entire state vibrates with the constant din of sadistic apologia for co-lateral killings in Palestine and in the ever expanding killing zones that have radiated outwards from it during the past decade.
Nothing would be more confusing to the young GI taking his first steps towards Kandahar, or listening to the veterans tell of Fallujah in the mess, than to be told that all human life is precious, that scrupulous fairness and due process is the pre-requisite of justice and that capital punishment is barbaric.