For nearly 300 years following its founding until 1909, Virginia’s capital punishment preference was hanging. Up to 1918, another 90 individuals were dispatched by lynching, sometime characterized by the euphemistic term “extra-judicial” procedure. In a race to lead, Virginia has… Read More ›
death penalty
The Executioner’s Song
Editors’ Note: Sourced from AP News, April 17, 2020. The career of Virginia’s executioner opens questions about reasonable doubt. Jerry Givens, who served as Virginia’s chief executioner for 17 years before he himself was sent to prison and later became… Read More ›
Death Be Not Proud
Death be not proud: the opening words to Holy Sonnet X by the English poet John Donne (1572-1631) are generally interpreted by literary scholars as a prelude to the balance of the sonnet’s theme, asserting that death is truly powerless in… Read More ›
Justice Stevens and Justice in Virginia
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who passed at age 99 on July 16, insisted that he was not a liberal jurist but a conservative sitting on a bench that over time had drifted to the right, leaving him crowned… Read More ›