Kaine Dubious on Death Penalty Expansion

In an Interview, the Governor Is Steadfast on an Aboveground Tysons Rail Line

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine also addressed plans for a Northern Virginia power line, saying an alternative route along existing lines should be explored. (By Gary C. Knapp -- Associated Press)

RICHMOND, Feb. 1 -- Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who ran for office pledging to enforce the death penalty despite his personal opposition, said he has strong reservations about efforts by the General Assembly to expand the crimes that are eligible for capital punishment.

Kaine (D), speaking to Washington Post reporters and editors, questioned the need for new laws that would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for those who are accomplices to murder, such as Washington area sniper John Allen Muhammad, and for people who kill judges.

"I do not look at the expansion of the death penalty with a favorable eye," Kaine said of legislation moving through both houses. Noting that Virginia is second to Texas in the number of executions, Kaine said, "I would not say that the problem in Virginia is that the death penalty is not applied enough."

Kaine made the comments during a wide-ranging two-hour interview Wednesday evening in which he also discussed two contentious Northern Virginia issues: his decision to build an aboveground Metrorail line through Tysons Corner, and Dominion Virginia Power's plan to erect a high-voltage transmission line across scenic land in the outer suburbs.

The governor said he does not intend to revisit the idea of constructing a Metro tunnel under Tysons, despite efforts by community and business groups that fear the traffic and development effects of an elevated track. Although the tunnel is the best option, Kaine said, he thinks that pursuing that option would risk the loss of nearly $1 billion from the Federal Transit Administration, which would kill the project.

"Unless [the tunnel advocates] were to get the FTA to say, 'We'll give you the $900 million either way,' we're just going to be delay, delay, delay," Kaine said. "And then potentially not get the money. . . . Time is not our friend on this."

Scott Monett, head of a McLean-based group pushing for a tunnel, disputed this, saying that the FTA has not said outright that reconsidering a tunnel would cause the loss of federal funding. The timing issue is less pressing, he said, because his group has paid $3.5 million to produce engineering plans for a tunnel.

In the debate over plans for a 240-mile power line through rural Frederick, Warren, Fauquier, Prince William and Loudoun counties, Kaine said Dominion should "absolutely" find a place to build the $1.4 billion line other than the proposed route, which has provoked anger from many residents and environmental groups.

Kaine was reluctant to suggest an alternative. Asked where the route should go, the governor paused, chuckled and said: "Well, yeah. Darn."

But then Kaine said he is encouraged by a new proposal in which Dominion could build the line along existing power lines, using a circuitous route that avoids the most sensitive parts of the countryside.

"I have spoken with the Dominion folks, and I have spoken with the folks up in Northern Virginia," Kaine said. "The notion of following some existing right-of-ways . . . might actually be a real possible one."

But the Piedmont Environmental Council, the main group opposing the line, argues that Dominion has failed to prove that Virginia needs the additional electricity and does not support any of the alternatives proposed by the company. "Our position is and has been that pushing it into someone else's back yard isn't a solution," said Robert W. Lazaro Jr., the group's spokesman.

The death penalty has been a sensitive subject for Kaine since he took office about a year ago.

During the campaign against former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore (R), Kaine pledged to carry out executions even though he said his Catholic faith leads him to oppose it. Kaine has let three executions stand and has granted one stay of execution.

"Fidelity to the rule of law is a very important moral virtue," Kaine said in the interview. "Wrestling with how you balance these things out, there's no easy answer to that."

Kaine noted that Muhammad, the convicted sniper, still received the death penalty under a terrorism statute even though prosecutors didn't prove that he pulled the trigger.

"I go back to my question: 'Where's the problem' " with the application of capital punishment? Kaine asked. "It's like how many ways can you ban gay marriage? Virginia would like to do it nine times rather than eight times. The death penalty statute is kind of the same way."

Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), sponsor of the bill to repeal the law that makes only the person who carries out a killing eligible for execution, said a Kaine veto would be "a direct affront to victims" of crimes that involve more than one perpetrator. "When you have two people committing an act that brutal and heinous, they should be treated the same by law," Gilbert said.

Despite his skepticism about the need for an expansion of the death penalty, Kaine said it is possible that he could be persuaded to sign one of the bills this session.

He said, for example, that he might be able to accept the argument that judges are members of the law enforcement community and that killers of judges should be treated the same as killers of police officers.

"Are there really instances where there have been murder of judicial professionals but they haven't been able to be charged with capital crimes because they . . . are not law enforcement professionals?" Kaine asked. "If there is some weird gap that wasn't intended, I could see someone saying, 'See, this is a problem.' "

But, he added, "You know, I've got to be convinced there is a problem, and I've got to be convinced that the bill fixes a problem."

Staff writers Tim Craig, Alec MacGillis and Sandhya Somashekhar contributed to this report.