Virginia Governor stops milestone US execution

WASHINGTON - Virginia Governor Mark Warner will halt the execution of a convicted murderer who would be the 1000th person put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, CNN reported.

Warner said he could not be absolutely certain that Robin Lovitt was guilty because DNA evidence in his trial had been illegally destroyed, according to CNN.

Lovitt was scheduled to die by lethal injection in a state prison on Wednesday. Warner is a Democrat considering a run for the presidency and facing an issue that has figured prominently in many past campaigns.

Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 and executions resumed in 1977, 999 people have been executed in the United States. North Carolina and South Carolina have scheduled executions later in the week.

Lovitt's case has attracted worldwide attention. Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said the governor had received roughly 1500 phone calls, letters and emails from across the United States and several foreign countries, almost all urging clemency.

Prominent conservatives have said the case could undermine public support for the death penalty. Former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who investigated then-President Bill Clinton's extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, argued Lovitt's case at an appeals-court hearing in February.

Lovitt was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing a night manager in a pool hall the previous year. He claims another man committed the murder and his lawyers argued he could have proved his innocence if DNA evidence used at his trial had not been illegally destroyed.

Warner has denied each of the 11 previous clemency petitions that have come before him as governor.

The death penalty has loomed large for Democratic presidential candidates. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis was widely criticized as "soft on crime" in the 1988 election after he said during a debate that he would not support the death penalty for someone who raped and murdered his wife.

Clinton interrupted his campaign in 1992 to oversee the execution of a mentally retarded man in Arkansas, where he served as governor.

The death penalty was also a major issue in the recent election to succeed Warner in the Virginia governor's mansion. Democrat Tim Kaine won that race despite charges from Republican Jerry Kilgore that he would commute executions.

If Lovitt is not executed, Kenneth Boyd, scheduled to die on Friday in North Carolina and Shawn Humphries on the same day in South Carolina, could be the 1000th and 1001st executions since the end of what amounted to a decade-long moratorium on executions by the states as the Supreme Court wrestled with the issue.

- REUTERS