The General Assembly should expand the scope of next month's special session to allow the state to compensate a man who spent 22 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, a spokesman for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Thursday.
"The governor pardoned the man," spokesman Gordon Hickey said.
Suppose someone else wants to introduce a bill on another topic at the special session?
"That's pure speculation," Hickey said.
Kaine is calling the Aug. 19 session to try to react to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could have an adverse impact on Virginia's criminal-justice system. When he called the session, he said he had an agreement with legislative leaders to limit the scope to that one purpose.
Subsequently, state Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, said he also wanted to secure compensation for Arthur Whitfield, a Virginia Beach man who DNA testing showed was wrongly convicted of rape. Stolle has proposed giving Whitfield $445,703.
The parole board released Whitfield in 2004, and Kaine gave him an absolute pardon in April.
Both candidates for governor say lawmakers should take up the compensation issue Aug. 19, as do the Democratic and Republican candidates for attorney general, Del. Stephen C. Shannon, D-Fairfax, and state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax.
In a recent decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the burden in criminal trials is on the prosecution to present a witness, rather than introduce a laboratory analysis. That means forensic professionals must be on hand to testify; prosecutors say this could clog the system.
Kaine sought the special session to try to change state law to meet the requirements of the decision.
On another matter, Kaine said yesterday on his monthly radio show on WRVA that some family members of Virginia Tech victims do not want to reopen the investigation into the school massacre in light of the discovery of the killer's medical records.
"I am dealing with a situation where some of the family members are saying: 'I don't really want to go through a new investigation. We know who the perpetrator is,'" Kaine said.
Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members, then himself.
Kaine added that, in light of the recent discovery of a missing file on Cho, "obviously family members are going to want to look at that and make recommendations."
Contact Tyler Whitley at twhitley@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6780.
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