The Daily Progress – Page 2

Capital secrets: News outlets sue VADOC to view executions from start to finish

By Spencer Philps

Four news organizations, including BH Media Group, which publishes The Daily Progress, are suing the Virginia Department of Corrections over procedures they believe violate the public’s First Amendment right to witness state executions in their entirety.

Members of the public, including the press, are allowed to witness executions. But the plaintiffs argue that restrictions put in place by VADOC prevent witnesses from observing crucial steps in the execution process, including the condition of an inmate as he or she enters the execution chamber; if there was difficulty administering the intravenous lines or completing the unknown steps in the electrocution process; or if the inmate was harmed during the procedure.

The plaintiffs in the case—BH Media Group, Associated Press, Guardian News and Media, and Gannett, are being represented by The Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School.

“Our contention is that being able to see the entire process serves an important function both in terms of ensuring that things are being done according to procedure, and educating the public about whether the procedure is working properly or is consistent with community values,” says David Schulz, the clinic’s director.

Virginia is one of the 30 states in the U.S. that allows capital punishment. Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, Virginia has executed 113 individuals, the second most in the country behind only Texas.

According to the complaint filed by the news organizations September 23, members of the public can watch the execution from an adjacent room through a window that looks into the chamber. But once the inmate enters the chamber, a curtain is drawn that remains closed until prison officials have strapped down the inmate and the lethal injection has been administered. A second curtain blocks the view of the executioner and delivery of the lethal injection throughout the entire procedure.

In the case of execution by electric chair —Virginia is one of nine states where the electric chair is still authorized—the curtain isn’t removed until the inmate is strapped to the chair and the executioner performs three actions (the specifics of which are classified and redacted from the publicly available execution manual) before the actual execution.

The inability of witnesses to see inmates entering the execution chamber is a new restriction that VADOC introduced in 2017, just weeks after the controversial execution of Ricky Gray. It took far longer than normal—over half an hour—for prison officials to set the intravenous line that would administer the lethal drug. Because the second curtain inside the chamber blocked their view, the witnesses present were unable to discern why the procedure had taken so long, or whether Gray had been harmed in the process.

“It does seem at least that there’s an inference that [the change in procedure] was motivated somewhat to prevent the revealing of the problems that could happen and the pain that can be inflicted in trying to place the intravenous tubes,” Shulz says.

William Morva, who was sentenced to death in 2008 for the 2006 murder of a hospital security guard and a sheriff’s deputy, has been the only individual executed in Virginia since 2017.

VADOC said it would not comment on the pending litigation. The Virginia Attorney General’s Office did not reply to requests for comment.

The ACLU of Virginia has been a vocal advocate in the fight against what it refers to as “execution secrecy” in Virginia. While the ACLU-VA opposes the death penalty, the group argues that, as long as the death penalty exists, it must be done in the most transparent and open fashion possible.

“It’s the most final and irreversible act a government can take, and for it to undertake that act in layers of secrecy…is unacceptable,” says Brian Farrar, ACLU-VA’s director of strategic communications.

In 2018, the group issued a letter to Governor Ralph Northam, calling on him to “lift the veil of secrecy around executions in Virginia.”

Schulz predicts the case will move quickly through the court. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, referred to as a “rocket docket,” is the fastest federal civil trial court in the country.

Greensville Correctional Center is the facility used by Virginia for capital punishment, although the state hasn’t executed anyone since convicted murderer William Morva was killed by lethal injection July 6, 2017.

Strategic voting: A guide to single-shotting

By Jake Mooney

Seventeen years ago, when I was a reporter for The Daily Progress and Lloyd Snook was the chairman of Charlottesville’s Democratic Party, he accused me of writing an instruction manual for voters to elect Republican Rob Schilling.

I was not perfect as a reporter, but I thought this was unfair because I never would have tried to get any particular candidate elected, certainly not Rob Schilling. But what also rankled, then and now, was the underlying idea that there was something wrong with voters casting informed and intentional votes for the candidates they want to win, whoever those candidates may be.

Snook was angry, specifically, that I wrote about a strategy called “single-shotting,” which Schilling’s supporters were planning to use and eventually did use successfully. This approach likely also helped Mayor Nikuyah Walker win her council seat as an independent in 2017, and it’s one that some politically minded people are starting to talk about again as the Democratic primary approaches.

In short, single-shotting is when you vote for just one candidate, even when you’re allowed to vote for more because there are multiple open seats. If you think that sounds incredibly simple, or like something that barely deserves a proper name, then I agree with you. But I’d like to spend a few more words here on the general idea: An instruction manual, if you will, for casting your smartest possible vote(s).

The first thing to remember is that, even if there are multiple seats open, you don’t have to cast all of the votes you’re entitled to. You may be allowed to vote for three candidates, but you can choose to only vote for two, or one. For some reason, people have a hard time with this: They think you’re wasting one of your votes if you decide not to cast it. I would frame it differently, and say that by voting for candidates you aren’t really excited about along with your favorites, you’re actually diluting the power of each of your votes.

The guiding principle, basically, is to vote for the person or people you most want to see win. Unsure about whether a candidate is worth one of your votes? Just close your eyes and picture that person beating your top choice, and decide if you like the way that feels. The point here is not just to vote for the people you like, but to avoid voting for people who might beat them.

Here’s how it worked for Walker in the last election: She knew a lot of people would be voting for the two Democratic nominees, Heather Hill and Amy Laufer. If some of her supporters had voted for Walker and Hill, and some for Walker and Laufer, then those votes, combined with votes for a Hill-Laufer ticket, would have buried Walker in third. In order to beat at least one of them, Walker needed to get a lot of votes, but also to minimize the number of votes Hill and Laufer each got.

In short, Walker needed her supporters to vote just for her, and not for either of the others. Just like Schilling needed his supporters to vote just for him, and not for either of the Democrats. In both of their cases, thinking about the race this way seemed to work. (It’s hard to know because the city doesn’t track single-shotting, but records show there were 5,877 votes that could have been cast and weren’t.)

This election—which is actually the Democratic primary, but will go a very long way towards deciding who gets elected in November in this heavily Democratic city—is even more complicated because it’s got three open seats, not two. In practice, I think that means it will be hard for supporters of any one candidate to shut out any one other candidate altogether; there are just too many open spots. But you can still try to make sure your top choice or choices get elected while giving the candidates you don’t like as few allies as possible.

So: Do you really like candidate A, and think your top priority is to make sure that person gets on the council? Then just vote for candidate A and leave the other spots blank. Are you really sold on candidates A and B, but not so sure about candidate C, even though C seems like a nice enough person? Well, how will you feel if C gets enough votes to finish ahead of A or B? Personally, I’d skip the vote for C—unless, of course, I was positive C wasn’t going to get that many votes, and I wanted to support that person as a symbolic gesture.

True, by casting fewer than three votes, you’re giving up your theoretical right to choose all three winners. But in practice, your top three choices likely won’t all get elected, and you want to avoid helping your third choice beat your first choice.

Back in the real, non-hypothetical world, I don’t know exactly who I’m going to vote for in the upcoming City Council primary, although I confess I have a decent idea of who I’m not voting for. (I’m part Sicilian, and don’t let go of grievances very easily.)

What I am sure about is that people deserve to elect the candidates they want, and no one else. If they need instructions to make that happen, then so be it.