The Washington Post reports this morning that Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the only governor facing a clemency decision, but the politics involved for Mark Warner of Virginia are much different. Warner is the current favorite of the centrist, "faith-based" Democrats lining up for the 2008 presidential primaries, who’s political success has been predicated on his ability to reach out to the culturally conservative swing voters who’ve been supporting Republicans in recent years.
Let’s assume that Warner, like Schwarzenegger, will not allow political motivations to influence his decision over a man’s life. But both governors are certainly aware of the political ramifications of
their respective decisions. And Warner’s advisors must remember another southern governor who flew back to Arkansas from the campaign trail in 1992 to personally oversee the execution of a mentally retarded criminal.
But what’s most interesting about the debate in Virginia isn’t the political impact on Warner, but rather on how the proponents of clemency there are are making their case. In California, the opposition to Tookie Williams’ execution is led by celebrities, rap singers, and longtime death penalty opponents, who have alternately argued that Williams has redeemed
himself through his efforts to rehabilitate other gang bangers, or that the death penalty is immoral and should be abolished altogether.
In Virginia, though, the defendant’s lawyers make the case that granting clemecy to convicted murderer Robin Lovitt will help maintain support for the death penalty in that state. From the Post story: "Clemency will help ensure that the death penalty retains the support of Virginia’s citizenry," Lovitt’s attorneys wrote in their petition for clemency. "Indeed, commuting Mr. Lovitt’s sentence to life in prison is vital to demonstrating that, in Virginia, society’s
ultimate sanction will be used only when every precaution has been taken to ensure that innocent persons are never executed."
I’m not a criminologist or an ethicist, just a political hack. And there is no link whatsoever between the effectiveness of a public argument in support of clemency and a governor’s decision to grant it. If I had to guess, it’s unlikely that either governor will grant clemency.
But it seems to me that the approach Lovitt’s lawyers are taking in Virginia has a much better chance of attracting popular support than the way Williams’ supporters here are going about it. It’s much less ambitious in that they are not trying to reverse public opinion on the death penalty, but only to keep one individual from being executed. But regardless of the ultimate fate of either Robin Lovitt or Tookie Williams, there’s a lesson in political commincations to be learned by this comparison: sanctimony is rarely as effective a weapon in the fight for public opinion as humility.
The link to the Post’s story is here.