Riffs From The Row

By William Van Poyck - November 30, 2005

Tonight Robin Lovitt was supposed to die. The courts of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as the federal courts, up to and including the United States Supreme Court, had all placed their official imprimatur of approval on Lovitt’s scheduled execution, washing their hands of the matter and sanctioning the killing despite the undisputed fact that the clerk of the trial court, in clear violation of state law, had intentionally destroyed all of the evidence in the case immediately after trial, including DNA evidence which possibly could have exonerated Lovitt. If the courts had their way Lovitt would be dead right now. Thirty-six hours ago Lovitt’s future appeared as bleak as a baby turtle on a busy road, with death, stalking him relentlessly, breathing down his neck, knotting the noose. Surely he would follow the parade of men who had preceded him – 94 hapless souls in the few decades here in Virginia – to sit in the electric chair or lay on the gurney and satiate the voracious appetite of the machinery of death. But, it wasn’t to be. Through an unexpected convergence of events and circumstances the departing governor, Mark Warner, chose to do the right thing and granted clemency to Rob. Lovitt will live, though it will be a life without possibility of parole, buried in the bowels of Virginia ’s penal system.

This is the first clemency granted in Virginia in perhaps fifteen years or more, but even so, the governor could not do it with grace or humility. In an apparent effort to placate and reassure those elements who so desperately wanted to see Rob die, and who vigorously oppose any amelioration of the administration of capital punishment in Virginia , Warner gave a brief public statement purporting to explain his action. Speaking out of both sides of his mouth, and obvious to the inherent contradictions, Warner asserted that he was granting clemency because the state had destroyed DNA evidence which might have established Lovitt’s innocence, while in the next breath he proclaimed that he had absolutely no doubt that Lovitt was guilty. Warner specifically stated that he was “100% confident” that the jury which had convicted and sentenced Lovitt to death had rendered the correct verdict, and that the granting of clemency should not be interpreted as a Warner casting aspersions upon the integrity of the process by which the jury and trial judge had reached their result. Warner appeared downright apologetic that he was compelled to grant clemency, thereby, robbing himself of any measure of wisdom and leadership which he might otherwise have laid claim to. Even when the state renders mercy it does so grudgingly, achingly reluctant to let go of the notion of taking another person’s life. For Rob, I guess, all of that is irrelevant. The bottom line is that he survived. He is alive to see another dawn which makes everything else beside the point. Like Prometheus, who stole the ball of fire from Zeus, he’s defied the gods of the death machine, and prevailed. For me, it is refreshing to finally see a man walk out of here on his feet rather than be carried away in a hearse.

William Van Poyck was sentenced to death in Florida but was transferred to Virginia’s death row by the governor of Florida after Florida State Prison guards murdered Van Poyck’s codefendant, Frank Vales, in his death row cell in 1999.

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