Gov. Kaine vetoes death penalty expansion that would’ve included murder planners

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Gov. Timothy M. Kaine vetoed bills Wednesday that would expand the death penalty to include people who assist in a murder, not just the primary killer.
    Kaine’s veto of House and Senate bills now sends both back to the legislature for override votes before Saturday’s scheduled adjournment.
    “Virginia is already second in the nation in the number of executions we carry out,“ Kaine said in a message explaining his veto.
    In the Democrat-controlled Senate, the legislation passed with 24 votes, three short of the two-thirds margin necessary to override the Democratic governor.
    In the House, however, it passed with at least 12 more votes than the 67 necessary to pass the bill over the governor’s veto.
    The expansion of the so-called triggerman rule is an effort to expose close accomplices in murder cases to capital punishment.
    In Virginia, only the person directly responsible for a homicide can be executed for it. There are exceptions for murders for hire, hits ordered by drug dealers and killings that result from a terrorist plot.
    The state Supreme Court has also repeatedly held that if there is more than one “immediate perpetrator” of a capital murder, all involved may receive the death penalty.
    The court cited that theory and the terrorism exception in upholding the death sentence of John Allen Muhammad, one of two snipers whose October 2002 attacks killed 10 people, wounded three and terrorized the Washington, D.C., area.
    The bill’s supporters cited several cases in which a killer was not sentenced to die because of the death penalty.
    Kaine, a Roman Catholic who acknowledged his personal aversion to the death penalty while running for governor three years ago, had vetoed similar legislation last year, and the veto stood.
    “I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life,“ he said.
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    On the Net:
    Track HB 933 and SB560: http://leg1.state.va.us/081/lis.htm