Not only is the death penalty not a deterrent, but sometimes innocent people get killed (I don't know whether that's the case here, since I haven't followed this.) So why have it? For "closure" for the family of the victim? Is that moral? (We're talking about state-sanctioned murder.) Full AP story here.
An inmate declared his innocence Thursday after he was forcibly carried into Virginia's death chamber, where he was executed for gunning down a police officer. . . .
"To the Timbrook family, you definitely have the wrong person," Bell said in the death chamber, addressing the victim's family. "The truth will come out one day. This here, killing me, there's no justice about it." . . .
"Eddie's case is an example of how the system does not catch and correct errors," said attorney James G. Connell III.
Bell, 43, was condemned for shooting Winchester police Sgt. Ricky Timbrook as the officer chased him down a dark alley on Oct. 29, 1999. . . .
Bell was the 103rd Virginia inmate executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Virginia ranks second only to Texas in the number of executions since then.
I attended college there for two years and have family there going way back. "Virginia [was] for lovers" at the time. (What would Jesus say now?)
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