Poll Question

Posted to: News

Do you agree with Gov. Kaine's decision to give three members of the Norfolk Four conditional pardons?

Disclaimer: This is an unscientific sampling of users.

We weren't in the courtroom

Submitted by cFrederick on Fri, 08/07/2009 at 1:12 pm.

Billy1116 comments:

"From everything I have read, and heard...all accused had, at least, knowledge of this crime...The jury passed judgement on these individuals and now Kaine (who obviously sees himself as a higher being) has decided the jury didn't know what they were doing."

None of us here was present for the whole trial. We didn't heat all the evidence. The jury had confessions before them. Those confessions are now known to have been shams. Another person admitted to the crime. (Knowledge of the crime, by the way, is not basis for life terms.) Members of the jury are among those who asked that the case to be reviewed.

Our Governor is a highly moral person. Governmentally speaking, he IS the highest power in Virginia. Only he has the ability to pardon. As you'll note if you read the whole story, these are not complete pardons. To pardon these men does not send a weak sign to criminals. Rather, it tells the rest of us that our justice system is fair more than it is not and that it still works.

Normally the system works in the end

Submitted by Bob Farinelli on Sat, 08/08/2009 at 7:42 pm.

I agree that for the most part our justice system fair most of the time. The process is set up so that is is the burden of the state to convict someone and even when convicted, one person such as an appeals Judge, Governor or the President can free them if he/she feels that they do not believe the system made a mistake. I was not there at the crime nor the trial so I have to rely on what the governor has for information to make him give a pardon. Yes, normally the system works well but there was an appeals process put into place along with the power of pardon by the Govenor and President to correct any obvious errors.

Gov Kaine

Submitted by wayneasmith on Fri, 08/07/2009 at 1:06 pm.

I've always known that Governor Kaine was a bleeding-heart Liberal. He has now displayed his bona fides.

Wonderful

Submitted by billy1116 on Fri, 08/07/2009 at 12:31 pm.

From everything I have read, and heard of this case since 1997, all accused had, at least, knowledge of this crime. As one other person recently put it "you can't stop the crime until you stop the criminals". The jury passed judgement on these individuals and now Kaine (who obviously sees himself as a higher being) has decided the jury didn't know what they were doing. One must now ponder what his approval rating is in light of this.

Pardon

Submitted by bowtie 3 on Fri, 08/07/2009 at 12:27 pm.

Gee, I wonder if the $175,000 Kaine got from author John Grisham [ who thinks these criminals are innocent ] has anything to do with his decision. Not surprisingly it's called " political corruption "!

I voted no opinion...

Submitted by prophelicious on Fri, 08/07/2009 at 11:13 am.

...only because I don't know if they should have or not. I do know what was missing is the option that says yes it was stupid to give a conditional pardon. Either these men get a full pardon or not one at all. It seems our governor's spine went all rubbery when decision time came. Instead of politically pleasing both sides, he winds up drawing the deserved criticism of both.