By Georgia McManus

Since first introduced in the 18th century B.C., the validity of the death penalty for crimes has been heavily debated in every society, argued about on the basis of religion, ethics, and wrongful conviction. On March 24, 2021, then Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam signed House Bill 2263 into effect, successfully abolishing the death penalty in the state. With this bill, Virginia joined the 23 other US states that do not currently use the death penalty. The ban is part of the greater national discussion over the death penalty’s legitimacy here in the US and whether it is an effective way to deter heinous crime.  

Existing for millenia, the death penalty as law has greatly changed and evolved over the years in different areas around the world. When it was first established in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, the most common means of capital punishment were far different and more tortuous than they are today. Common methods included crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and stoning. Popularity of the death penalty in the Western world eventually fell but rose again in the 16th century. King Henry VIII of England, reigning from 1509-1547, had a total of 72,000 people executed. By this time, methods had changed to burning at the stake, hanging, beheading, and drawing and quartering. Although 222 crimes were punishable by death during the 1700s in Britain, 100 of these crimes were eventually deemed illegitimate throughout 1823-1837 due to law reform over time.

The death penalty came to the United States with the first colonists and was formally established in 1608, as they carried over British laws. Capital punishment has existed in America ever since the country was first colonized. In the last 40 years, American execution rates “have declined by 75% since peaking… in 1999” and only continue to decline as more states abolish the practice. Aside from Texas, Virginia executed the most people out of all 50 states during the period 1976-2020. Until the death penalty was abolished, murder was the only crime deemed worthy enough of capital punishment in Virginia. 11 states, including New Hampshire, Kansas, and Wyoming, have the death penalty in place yet have not used it in the past 13 years or more. 

An electric chair. Photo credit: user David via flickr.com. 

Currently, the most common means of execution in the US is by lethal injection, but depending on the state, there are technically four other authorized methods in America. These methods include what some consider to be less humane, like electrocution, hanging, firing squad, and lethal gas. As of August 2021, fourteen states have secondary means of execution, with New Hampshire being the only remaining state to permit hanging, and South Carolina being the only state with electrocution as its primary execution method. Although it is typically far less likely for these methods to be administered in most states that allow them, they are still reserved for the most obscene of crimes.

A common point of debate over the death penalty is on the basis of religious reasoning. Supporters and detractors take excerpts from religious texts and use them to support their argument. Religious reasoning, both for and against capital punishment, can be found in texts like the Bible or the Torah, but these excerpts greatly rely on individual interpretation and belief. A famous quote, “Thou shalt not kill,” found in Exodus 20:13 as part of the Ten Commandments, is commonly used to argue against the legitimacy of the death penalty, as the government is only committing further killing with the sentence. Contrastingly, it can also be used in the opposite perspective to say that the government has the right to punish those that violate this holy statement. The phrase, “Justice, justice, shall you pursue,” found in Deuteronomy 16:20, is another example of possible religious support for the death penalty, yet it is not truly possible to clearly establish what defines justice and where the line is drawn around certain crimes. 

The Bible, Torah, and Quran. Photo credit: scanpix.com. 

Richmond attorney Matt Mikula of Gilliam & Mikula Law Firm sat down for an interview about capital punishment, offering professional insight into the matter. Mikula is skilled in “Personal Injury, Commercial Litigation, Criminal Law, Divorce Law, Trusts & Estates and Collections work.” 2022 is his eleventh year as a lawyer and third year working within the “limited liability company” that he founded with another attorney, Kent Gilliam. Although the pair work together as one company, they are fundamentally two separate businesses. 

When asked about his thoughts on the fairness of American democracy and the justice system, Mikula stated that while he thinks the system is fair, “the system inherently, like every system, is flawed,” but “we’re humans and humans have to decide human cases.” While Mikula acknowledges the American justice system is not perfect, and there are a number of Americans that receive unjust sentences or faulty trials, he highlights that everyone involved in such cases are human beings and can only judge every trial as fairly as possible. Human judgment and biases unfortunately play a large role in the justice system, but there is no alternative to how cases are processed. According to Mikula, compared to the rest of the world, America has “one of the more perfect systems you can find.”

Critics of the death penalty are often against it because they feel it is a violation of human rights and inhumane. Unlike sentencing someone to prison, capital punishment is irreversible once initiated, making it even more important for a fair trial. Minorities are also statistically more likely to receive the death penalty than white people, especially if the victim is white. In 2002, “12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims.” There is also no statisical evidence that capital punishment does deter crime or lower the crime rate in any state.

The book Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment? The Experts on Both Sides Make Their Best Case, edited by Hugo Bedau and Paul G. Cassell, boldly poses the statement, “The legacy of racial apartheid, racial bias, and ethnic discrimination is unavoidably evident in the administration of capital punishment in America. Death sentences are imposed in a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.” Some opponents of the death penalty and groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union think of the death penalty as a way to “assure the execution of some innocent people,” seeing that those who are white and wealthy are historically treated much better by the government and legal system than those that are not. 

A different reason people many be against the death penalty is not because they believe it to be inhumane, but because they see it from a “dollars and cents perspective,” as Mikula said. Although taxpayers’ money goes to funding prisons, it also goes to funding executions. Mikula stated, “something a lot of people don’t know is that primarily having the death penalty, or death row, and the litigation that is involved in putting someone to death, is extremely, extremely expensive.” 

Some citizens are under the false impression that funding prisons is the more expensive option, but it is far more expensive to fund a death row inmate than it is to fund the housing of individuals sentenced to life in prison. The expense mainly comes from the many years it takes for someone sentenced to death to go through the appeals process in court and be executed, with the average time for someone to be on death row being 227 months by the year 2020. The entire process involves far more expenses than widely known.

Photo credit: Steve McGrady.

Along with many arguments against the death penalty, there are some arguments for the death penalty as well. When he was younger, Mikula did not originally believe in or support capital punishment, but with more experience in law, he has changed his mind in favor of it. He states, “I do believe it’s something that should be legal, not because I think people should very often be dealt that sentence… but because the law reserves the death penalty for the most extreme and disgusting murders.” Like other supporters, Mikula believes the death penalty is a valid sentence only in the most heinous cases, not something to be frequently handed down. 

Because every American citizen is guaranteed the right to a fair trial and people cannot be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” some people think that by abolishing the death penalty, the government is making for an unfair justice system. If the trial is a jury trial, there are 12 jurors who unanimously have to decide upon guilt or innocence, which is an example of what some call democratic justice. For so many people to agree upon serving someone capital punishment, the jury trial can sometimes be seen as more fair by citizens and more carefully considered in some ways. By abolishing the death penalty, the government is taking the choice away from the jurors, which could be argued as taking away that democratic process from the people. Although in several states a jury decides on both guilt and punishment, other states, along with Virginia, have a jury decide on guilt, and the judge chooses the punishment. 

Mental health and competence also play a key role in a person’s sentencing. If a person is declared incompetent, then they are, by law, unable to testify or participate in their defense due to their impaired mental well-being and decision-making abilities. Disorders like schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, or bipolar disorder commonly cause a defendant to be declared incompetent, as their mental capacity is restricted without proper medication or treatment. Especially since “the minimum legal standard for competency to stand trial was set by the US Supreme Court in Dusky versus United States” in 1960, the courts have become more considerate of these disorders and potential incompetence, as they could potentially influence the defendant to lash out with false information or a false confession. Mikula says, “10 or 15 years ago, if someone had been found guilty of capital murder, then there were two options: life imprisonment or death.” Now there are more options, such as rehabilitation centers and professional mental help. 

Mental disorders are not the only thing that can cause someone to be incompetent. Sexual or physical abuse as a minor can also heavily change the trajectory of a person’s life and mental health. It is proven that abuse as a child is strongly tied with a greater likelihood of arrest for violent crimes later in life. A significant number of laws have been passed in the past few years that have helped alleviate or reduce sentences and the severity of punishments for people with mental health issues. Although the government has not banned the imposition of capital punishment on individuals with severe mental illnesses, many Americans advocate for it to be illegal. The American Psychiatric Association and the American Bar Association, along with multiple other groups, have formally requested that the death penalty not be given to people with severe mental health disorders to avoid flawed, unjust trials.

There are a number of botched and gruesome executions that have occured in America. Arrested for the murder of Joseph Nagy, a strip club manager, during a robbery, Angel Nieves Diaz was ordered to be executed by lethal injection on December 13, 2006. He endured a botched execution in which the medical team had to inject him with a second dose. The first IV had been pushed so far into his arm that it entered soft tissue. This caused severe eleven-by-seven inch chemical burns on his arm, causing a large layer of skin to rip, disattach, and fall off. It took 34 minutes of suffering and gasping for air before Diaz was pronounced dead, compared to the usual 15 minutes of an average execution by lethal injection. 

A lethal injection table. Photo credit: Ken Piorkowski.

Another famous botched execution was that of Doyle Lee Hamm, arrested for the murder of Patrick Cunningham during a robbery, who survived his scheduled execution by lethal injection in 2018. He was stabbed with a needle eleven times over the course of two and a half hours before the execution team had to stop, as they did not meet the execution deadline. Hamm described the event as “torture” and ended up with a perforated bladder that caused him to urinate blood afterward. Hamm had also battled severe lymphatic cancer since far before his execution date, which eventually led to his death on November 28, 2021. His lawyers argued that he never should have been sentenced to death in the first place due to the cancer that had slowly been overtaking him. 

There are currently two men remaining on death row in Virginia after the death penalty was abolished. Anthony Juniper was sentenced in 2011 and Thomas Porter in 2005. Juniper was convicted of four capital murders. He killed his then girlfriend, Keshia Stephens, her younger brother, Rueben, and her two daughters, Nykia (four years old), and Shearyia (two years old). The murders are said to have been “jealousy-fuelled” after a brief argument with Keshia, resulting in him stabbing and shooting Keshia three times before shooting the kids several times each too. 

Contrastingly, Porter shot a police officer in Norfolk, VA, killing him, after the officer approached him in a park. The officer was responding to a complaint at the time he was at the scene. Porter’s current girlfriend, Jaunice Hendricks, still advocates for and supports him, despite his crime. To the family of the officer, Porter stated, “I can pretty much understand what you’re going through… because I go through it every day myself.” In response to his pleas for a life sentence rather than capital punishment, Judge Chuck Griffith stated, “One chose being a law enforcement officer… you chose — from your criminal history — being predatory,” ultimately sentencing Porter to death.

Many Virginias are now left wondering what will happen to Porter and Juniper and what the abolishment means for them. The new policy “commutes the death sentences of Porter and Juniper to life without the possibility of parole, the maximum penalty in Virginia under the approved measure.” It is unclear what the future of the death penalty looks like in America, but more states are still continuing to abolish it as time goes on. There are endless factors to be considered when deciding one’s stance on capital punishment that should be further researched. No single scientific deduction can be made about the humanity or religious background of the sentence, but it is important to understand all arguments both for and against it.

Featured image credit: ISSIA HK.