By DENA POTTER
JARRATT, Va.
A man whose lawyers claimed was mentally disabled was executed Tuesday night for killing a Brunswick County convenience store owner in the first execution in Virginia in 18 months.
Kevin Green, 31, was pronounced dead at 10:05 at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. He died by injection for the August 1998 slaying of Patricia Vaughan, who operated the store with her husband.
Green shot the couple and fled with about $9,000.
Green's execution was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. but was delayed for about an hour when his attorneys attempted to get a federal judge to step in at the last minute. Once the judge declined, the execution proceeded.
Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop the execution, and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declined to intervene.
Green's attorneys had asked the Supreme Court to halt the execution. They claimed the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred when it ruled in February that Green had passed the statute of limitations for claiming ineffective counsel.
Green shot Vaughan and her husband, Lawrence, while robbing their convenience store in rural Dolphin, more than 50 miles south of Richmond. Patricia Vaughan, 53, died at the scene. Lawrence Vaughan was shot but survived.
Police say Green confessed, telling them he and his nephew took a bus to northern Virginia and blew all but $170 of the $9,000 they stole on prostitutes, marijuana and clothes.
His nephew, 16 at the time, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Green went to trial and was found guilty of robbery and capital murder and sentenced to death in 2000. A year later, the Virginia Supreme Court ordered a new trial because of juror problems. Green was convicted again in 2001 and again sentenced to death.
The Vaughan family had waited 10 years to see the sentence carried out.
"I feel like we're the puppets and they're being the puppeteers," said Marsha Brown, one of the Vaughans' two daughters. She planned to watch Green's execution with her father, sister, husband, stepmother and two local officials.
"It's just a fine line between being hopeful and helpless. I really regret that another life has to be involved - that an execution has to happen - but I just think it needs to be carried out," she said.
Kaine, a Roman Catholic, has acknowledged an objection to the death penalty, but pledged when he was elected in 2005 to carry out the state's laws.
A federal magistrate judge decided after a 2006 hearing that Green's IQ was below the mental retardation threshold of 70 but that he could perform basic functions, such as getting a job and a driver's license.
Attorneys for Green and organizations that represent people with mental disabilities argue that the judge erred because he focused on the things Green could do instead of the real-world limitations he faced, such as language deficiencies, the inability to write and to care for himself, and difficulty with simple tasks like tying his shoes or making Kool-Aid.
They claim Virginia would become the first state to execute a mentally disabled person since the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed it in 2002 in another Virginia case.
Kaine, however, said Tuesday on a monthly call-in radio show on WTOP in Washington, D.C., that the courts have found Green is not mentally disabled.
Green, through his attorneys, declined to be interviewed.
Green requested that prison officials not release the contents of his last meal, said Larry Traylor, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Traylor said Green did not meet with family or a spiritual adviser Tuesday but did speak to his attorneys.
He was the 99th person executed in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Virginia ranks second only to Texas, which has executed 405.
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Thanks, Orion
Don't know why I repeatedly confused ABA and AMA. Of course I mean ABA, The American Bar Assoc. You have a point about dragging out cases being self serving to lawyers but is there any possible business on the Planet that doesn't do the same? It doesn't mean they don't have a ligitimate concern. People talk about prisoners living a cushy life with TV and great food. These folks need to go visit a prison, especially at meal time. There are few overweight prisoners because meals are sparse. I volunteered in a prison, it's not comfy. Certainly criminals need to be punished, though as a Democrat, as Joanie pointed out, I prefer the word rehabilitated. Many criminals are actually mentally challenged and suffering from various mental disorders. As noted, our most recently executed Va. citizen had an I.Q. of 65. To murder/kill (some bloggers see a difference) a person so compromised is inhuman, to me. As with Governor Kaine's stance, I agree the law must be upheld...but I will forever oppose it. If I didn't change my view with my brother's murder last year, I guess I never will.
joanie06
It's too easy to stereotype, Joanie. I admit I am a Democrat and against the Death Penalty but I am also vehemently opposed to abortion. I know it's easy to categorize people but it's not fair. Just because you are a Republican, I shouldn't conclude you are a Hawk and war monger supporting Bush and his ill fated war should I? Or that you are a staunch Christian who detests homosexuals? We are all so much more than a tiny label.
funny
I see it funny that the same people (democrats) who are opposed to the death penalty are ok with killing babies. At least the person who was executed had a chance at life.
AMA?
You mean ABA, Kate? I'm a member of the AMA and don't practice law. I bet a lawyer would LOVE a moratorium on the DP. He'll make more money on appeals. With the DP you are only allowed so many appeals (more than one is too many). That said:
...strongly mandates that no person be executed unless that person has a lawyer and received a fair trial. Yet when teams of experts for eight States' own legal community applied AMA protocals to examine their d.p. systems, they documented evidence of racial disparities, poorly trained or inadequate lawyers, insufficient defense resources, confused jurors, failure to preserve scientific evidence for follow-up analogies and a host of other problems.
Hell, Kate, with that rationale, no person should be incarcerated. I'm sure they could find something in that laundry list to get them out...
Flaws in Judicial Process
William Neukom, Pres. of the AMA (American Bar Assoc.) as quoted in the Charlotte Observer, May 11, 2008, calls for a Death Penalty Moratorium. Neukom noted the ABA had closely studied the death penalty systems of eight States and found repeated failures to meet minimum standards advocated by the AMA. While the AMA takes no position on whether the d.p. is right or wrong, the Assoc. strongly mandates that no person be executed unless that person has a lawyer and received a fair trial. Yet when teams of experts for eight States' own legal community applied AMA protocals to examine their d.p. systems, they documented evidence of racial disparities, poorly trained or inadequate lawyers, insufficient defense resources, confused jurors, failure to preserve scientific evidence for follow-up analogies and a host of other problems.
I second Mr. Neukom's proposed moratorium.
One more down...
Can't we take care of more that one at a time????
re: Orion, mistakes will always be made
am81430 wrote:
To imply that technology will eliminate mistakes is naive.
Then that puts every scientist and doctor in the world in the same category. If what you said was true, we'd still be in caves wearing bearskins and using stone knives.
What about medicine? 40 years ago the best tool for looking into the body was the X-Ray machine. The space program, what has it given us (Google it, it's quite staggering)? In the first two world wars we had a lot of collateral death due to imprecise bombing. Now we can destroy one building with little to no collateral damage or death. Nope, technology doesn't eliminate mistakes....
Then again, how have the 123 individuals on death row been exonerated? Through advancement in DNA technology...
Naïve? No, realistic…
ch
I hope you're not one of the 123 found "not guilty" after your fate has already been decided for you.
I won't be. I obey the law and don't put myself in situations that could perceive me as a bad guy.
And if you're innocent until proven guilty, then those found not guilty are innocent.
Incorrect. If this was the case, Ron Goldman's family wouldn't have been able to sue and win a civil lawsuit against OJ Simpson.
If one innocent person is put to death, then the entire system is flawed-neither you nor I want to be that one person.
No such thing as a flawless system. I'll take a moderately flawed system [in this case] any day.
And by the way, we're all animals in the human race.
True, perhaps I should have been more specific. When an animal is rabid you cull them.
Orion, mistakes will always be made
To imply that technology will eliminate mistakes is naive. When applying the ultimate punishment, we should be extremely careful. I would rather spend the money to ensure that we are putting the right scumbag down. It's called justice, not revenge. And for the record, I support the death penalty, and support opening it up to more sexually-based crimes as well.
Orion
I hope you're not one of the 123 found "not guilty" after your fate has already been decided for you. And if you're innocent until proven guilty, then those found not guilty are innocent. If one innocent person is put to death, then the entire system is flawed-neither you nor I want to be that one person. Even DNA doesn't offer a 100% guarantee, so that will not eliminate human error, as you claim. I understand putting yourself in the shoes of the victims, but put yourself in the shoes of all those who didn't deserve the death penalty. And by the way, we're all animals in the human race.
Kate
Kate said:"And what about that fundamental commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."
Actually, if you go back to the original text, it says "Thou shall not MURDER".
There is a very clear distinction between murdering and killing.
There are (biblically) acceptable instances to kill. This is one of them.
Orion I salute you. If it
Orion I salute you. If it actually costs more to eliminate a person that doesn't want to abide by the law of life, then it's being done wrong. On the other hand, our courts need to actually find the truth and not be so bungled up in two lawyers flexing their testosterone levels at one another regardless of innocence or guilt. Find the truth to the best of current technological capabilities, sentence the individual and carry it out.
Anti-Execution protagonists...(Part 2)
4) I accept the statistics and can live with it (123 have been found not guilty after a conviction). You aren't found innocent in court, you are found not guilty...BIG difference (ask OJ). Even if the individuals are eventually found not guilty, they were locked up for some reason.
You'll find, in the future, more non-guilty verdicts in the courts if the wrong person was nabbed due to technology. DNA has exonerated many people because the technology has only existed for 20 or so years. Mistakes will be all but non-existent in the future.
Anti-Execution protagonists...(part 1)
...much can be said about execution. It's more costly, it's cruel, two wrongs don't make a right and the ever-used INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE BEING EXECUTED! Well there are things that can alleviate your arguments:
1) Do away with the multiple appeal process. You get one appeal. When you lose you're executed immediately.
2) Cruelty? What do you say of the victims? Wasn't what happened to them and their families cruel?
3) Two wrongs? No, ONE wrong, the murderer killing the victim. His execution culls an animal from the human race.
You have got to be kidding me
There are always two sides to any story. In this case, by his own admission, the killer admitted that he did the (brutal, heinous and unremorseful) crime and yet people believe he should simply he should be incarcerated for the rest of his life? As a taxpayer, I say execute him immediately! Don't waste money on appeals and other technicalities... unless there is doubt. There should be no doubt about this one.
As far as the Innocence Project, that would be for innocent people, of which Kevin Green was not a member of the club. Great idea for those who may have a shadow of the possibility of doubt. Not so much for this cold-blooded murderer.
boohoo
I only have one thing to say. If the man is handicapped mentally, and they are using that as his defense, then how come he knew how to pull a trigger on a gun, and rob a store? If he knew how to do that, then he knew what he was doing and isn;t as handicapped as they say he is. Get real, people!!!
Correction for some of you . . .
A viable alternative to the death penalty is life without parole, which is actually cheaper than the judicial process required for capital cases. Therefore, it is not hurting us more as taxpayers to give someone life over executing him/her. Also, perhaps this guy was guilty without a shadow of a doubt, but the reality is that it is impossible to eliminate human error in many capital cases. Check out the Innocence Project, an organization that dedicates its time to proving the innocence of convicted persons. Judges, jurers, lawyers do make mistakes. But most importantly, citizens complain nonstop about how hypocritical our government can be, but refuse to acknowledge the greatest hypocricy of all-killing people in order to make a point that killing is wrong.
This guy did deserve to die, but none of us should have the right to make that determination just like he didn't have the right to determine when his victim's life would end.
AN IDEA
Here's an idea for all the "do gooders"...the next time someone murders someone and you don't want them executed why NOT invite them into your homes amd live with them? Maybe they can hang out with your kids and grand kids?
I Agree With All Of You
Kill someone else, DIE!
I don't care if his I.Q was 35, he needed to die!
Kill a 53 year old lady for $9000.00 and the admit to blowing it all on drugs, clothes, and hookers? What a waste of flesh that man was. And people actually are against the death penalty? Pleeeeze! He wouldn't even make good fertilizer!