Virginia's Democrat Governor Pressured to Halt Execution

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The mother of Clayton Dicks, whose murder could lead to the execution of Robin Lovitt tomorrow night, will not attend.

But Mary Dicks, an 84-year-old Washington resident, thinks the execution should be carried out.

Lovitt was sentenced to die for stabbing Clayton Dicks to death during a robbery at an Arlington County pool hall in 1998. A clemency petition asking that Lovitt's life be spared is before Gov. Mark R. Warner.

"I don't want to see [anybody] getting killed," Mary Dicks said. But, she added, the death penalty is appropriate for Lovitt. "That's what Clayton got, didn't he? He was at his job and he got executed."

She said she learned of the murder while she was working at a housekeeping job in Maryland.

Lovitt "was trying to take what he could get, so he deserves it," she said.

Meanwhile, anti-death-penalty activists may engage in civil disobedience outside the prison [ED: nice company you've placed yourselves in, there, Bishops Loverde and DiLorenzo] should the execution of Lovitt proceed, said Jack Payden-Travers, director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The execution has gained attention around the world. It could be the 1,000th in the U.S. since the death penalty was allowed to resume by the Supreme Court in 1976 [ED: Only 1000? In 30 years, only 1000? How many more have been convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die in that time?].

My Comments:
Back in January, I attended the Virginia Catholic Conference's annual "Legislative Advocacy Day" at the General Assembly in Richmond. It's the last time I'll ever attend something like that. Since January, my email has been bombarded with anti-death penalty crap coming from the Virginia Catholic Conference and various other "Catholic" anti-death penalty groups (to whom, I suppose, the VCC felt at liberty to provide my email address).

In the meantime, Virginia had a gubernatorial election in which a "pro-choice Catholic" (you know the schtick - "personally opposed, but ...") Democrat promised that if elected he would veto any anti-abortion legislation that crossed his desk. And I received not a single email from the VCC regarding what the Church really teaches about abortion, and the obligation of Catholic politicians and voters to follow that teaching when it comes to public policymaking. Of course, the pro-abort "Catholic" was elected with, I'm sure, a majority of Catholic voters supporting him.

In short, the Catholic Bishops of Arlington and Richmond, having thus far done a piss-poor job of educating their flocks regarding the Church's teaching on the non-negotiable issue of abortion, have decided to apply the full-court press with regard to the Church's prudential teaching on the death penalty.