Kaine’s move is a bold one not merely because he is the leader of a Commonwealth where the death penalty is quite popular, but also because as the Washington Post points out “Kaine’s move is largely symbolic because the Supreme Court hasn’t allowed an execution to move forward since it took up the Baze v. Rees case in September” and “Kaine’s decision probably will become fodder for his political opponents.”  Kaine openly explained his opposition to capital punishment when he ran for governor in 2005 due to his Catholic faith, but he has not stayed every execution, deferring to the ruling of the courts.  In staying this most recent execution Governor Kaine took a stand based on principle and not political calculation – and for that he should be congratulated.

Yet, while these stays of execution provide hope for those fighting for an end to the death penalty once and for all the United States, we have to be careful of putting too much stock in just ending a particular way of implementing the death penalty.  As long as the practice is on the books in 36 states and carried out by the federal government, it will continue, perhaps just with a new method.  As Ray Krone, the 100th man exonerated from Death Row and the individual who strengthened my personal passion for ending the death penalty recently explained in op-eds in the Arizona Republic and San Francisco Chronicle, “as the Supreme Court contemplates whether killing a person with a particular combination of chemicals is cruel and unusual punishment, all of us should recognize a much larger, more obvious fact. If sentencing to death and possibly executing an innocent person isn't cruel and unusual punishment, nothing is.”

So while I congratulate Governor Kaine for his active approach on the issue, I also hope that this country will use this break in executions as an opportunity to discuss the need to end capital punishment, not just the way in which we do it.