Virginia set to execute man today

Associated Press
Published: May 27, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Barring intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court or Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a man will be executed Tuesday for killing a convenience store owner in 1998.

Kevin Green, 31, would be the first person executed in Virginia since 2006 and the third inmate to die since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection in April. Georgia became the first to execute an inmate May 6, ending a seven-month refrain on capital punishment nationwide.

Green’s attorneys have asked the Supreme Court to halt the execution while it considers reviewing the case. They claim the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred when it ruled in February that he had passed the statute of limitations for claiming ineffective counsel.

Attorneys for Green also have asked the governor to grant clemency, claiming Green is mentally retarded.

If neither stop the execution, Green will be put to death by lethal injection Tuesday at 9 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt for the killing of Patricia Vaughan, who operated the Brunswick County store with her husband. Green shot the couple and fled with about $9,000, authorities said.

The Vaughan family has waited 10 years to see Green’s sentence carried out, and as it neared they feared the court or Kaine would grant him a reprieve.

“I feel like we’re the puppets and they’re being the puppeteers,“ said Marsha Brown, one of the Vaughans’ two daughters. Brown plans to watch Green’s execution with her father, sister, husband, stepmother and two local officials.

“It’s just a fine line between being hopeful and helpless. I really regret that another life has to be involved — that an execution has to happen — but I just think it needs to be carried out.“

Kaine, a Roman Catholic, has acknowledged his objection to the death penalty, but pledged when he was elected in 2005 to carry out Virginia’s existing death penalty laws. In 2006, Kaine allowed four executions to proceed and intervened to halt the execution of one man, Percy Walton, amid claims Walton was mentally retarded. Walton is scheduled to die June 10.

A federal magistrate judge decided after a 2006 hearing that Green’s IQ was below the mental retardation threshold of 70 but that he could perform basic functions, such as getting a job and a driver’s license.

Attorneys for Green and a group of organizations that represent those with mental disabilities argue that the judge erred because he focused on the things Green could do instead of the real-world limitations he faced, such as language deficiencies, the inability to write, to care for himself and difficulty with simple tasks like tying his shoes or making Kool-Aid.

“Kevin Green is, without a doubt, a person who has mental retardation,“ the groups wrote in a letter to Kaine asking that Green’s sentence by commuted to life in prison.

They claim Virginia would become the first state to execute a mentally retarded person since the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed it in 2002 in another Virginia case.

Kaine’s office does not comment on clemency petitions, spokesman Gordon Hickey said.

Green, through his attorneys, declined to be interviewed.

On Aug. 21, 1998, Green shot Patricia and Lawrence Vaughan when he and his nephew robbed their store in rural Dolphin, more than 50 miles south of Richmond. Patricia Vaughan, 53, was shot four times and died at the scene. Lawrence Vaughan was shot in the neck and elbow but survived.

Days after the shooting, police arrested Green and David Green. Kevin Green confessed, telling police they took a bus to northern Virginia after the shootings and blew all but $170 on prostitutes, marijuana and clothes.

David Green, who was 16 at the time, pleaded guilty to murder, malicious wounding, robbery and using a firearm. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Kevin Green was found guilty of robbery and capital murder in Brunswick County Circuit Court and sentenced to death on June 22, 2000. A year later, the Virginia Supreme Court ordered a new trial because the Circuit Court judge had refused to strike two possibly biased jurors.

In 2001, Green was convicted at a second trial and again sentenced to death.

Green challenged his sentence on grounds that he was mentally retarded and that his lawyer, through failing to appeal all of his charges, was ineffective.

In February, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Green’s attorneys had not proven he was mentally retarded and he had passed the statute of limitations for claiming ineffective counsel.

Green would be the 99th person executed in Virginia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Virginia ranks second only to Texas, which has executed 405.