[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., IND., ARK., MO., WYO., UTAH, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 23




FLORIDA:

Police suspected family member in death of Davie woman before Dayonte Resiles 
was charged


Dayonte Resiles, who spent 6 days on the run after bolting from a hearing at 
the Broward County Courthouse, was not the 1st suspect in the murder of Jill 
Halliburton Su.

In the hours after the body of Su was found in the master bathroom of her Davie 
home, police first suspected a family member had a hand in her murder.

Police did not yet know that DNA left at the scene would come back to Resiles, 
21, who was recaptured Wednesday night.

On Sept. 8, 2014, before Resiles was linked to the case, police were looking at 
Su's son, Justin, who discovered his mother's body in a bathtub and called 911, 
apparently believing she had committed suicide.

When police arrived, what they found did not look at all like a suicide, said 
Davie Police Capt. Dale Engle.

Her hands and feet were bound, and she suffered multiple stab wounds. Justin 
Su, 20 at the time, was covered in blood above the waist, but there was no 
blood from the waist down - a sign he might have tried to change his clothes, 
Engle said. A security camera that had been installed by Su's husband had been 
disabled.

l Engle said it's not uncommon for murder investigations to look at family 
members, and police looked at Justin Su with considerable suspicion.

"We thought he killed his mother," said Engle, adding that Su's husband, 
renowned insect expert Nan-Yao Su, was also regarded with suspicion at the 
onset of the investigation. During a lengthy interrogation, Justin Su wouldn't 
crack, according to court records. He denied being involved with the murder and 
asked police if they would apologize for accusing him when his name was 
cleared.

By the time the interrogation was over, police were sure family members were 
innocent.

Justin Su got his wish a few days later, said Engle. "We brought him in, and 
his father, and we apologized," he said. The apology came with an explanation 
about why police initially focused on Justin Su, who moved his mother's body 
out of the bathtub after calling 911. He would not have seen beforehand that 
her hands and feet were bound, Engle said.

The layout of the bathroom made it possible for the victim's son to get his 
upper body wet while moving the victim, leaving his lower body dry, Engle said.

And the security camera showed it was not Justin Su or his father who shut it 
off.

The DNA results placing Resiles at the crime scene were available nine days 
after the murder. By then, Justin Su and his father were no longer suspects, 
Engle said.

It's still not clear how the killer got to the victim's home. The gated 
WestRidge development off Nob Hill Road a mile south of Interstate 595 is not 
barricaded in a way that would keep pedestrians out, and the back of the Su 
home faces a canal. A glass door in the back of the house was shattered.

No other homes reported robberies that day, Engle said.

Resiles had been arrested on burglary charges 9 times before the Su murder, and 
it was not unusual for him to get a ride to and from the homes and businesses 
he targeted, said Engle.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case. Resiles was scheduled 
for a hearing on the death penalty when escaped from the courtroom and eluded 
capture for nearly a week.

Defense lawyer H. Dohn Williams said he intends to challenge the accuracy of 
the DNA results that made his client the main suspect.

Prosecutor Shari Tate declined a request for comment, saying it was improper 
for her to discuss a pending case.

(source: Sun-Sentinel)






INDIANA:

The dilemma of the death penalty


19 years ago this month, on July 26, 1997, Joseph Corcoran woke up from a nap 
and thought he heard people downstairs in his Bayer Avenue home talking about 
him. He loaded his semi-automatic rifle and descended the stairs.

Within seconds, he had shot and killed his older brother, James; his sister's 
fiance, Robert Scott Turner; and his brother's friend, Timothy G. Bricker; as 
they sat on a couch in the living room. He chased Douglas A. Stillwell, another 
of his brother's friends, into the kitchen and shot him to death.

Corcoran surrendered to police and admitted his guilt.

5 years before that quadruple murder, Corcoran was acquitted for lack of 
evidence in the murders of his parents, who were found shotgunned to death in 
their Bass Lake home. But in years since he is said to have bragged of those 
murders to fellow prison inmates.

Sentenced to death in 1999, Corcoran, who has paranoid schizophrenia, has been 
on Indiana???s death row in Michigan City while the appeals process wound its 
way through the state and federal courts systems. Though the Supreme Court has 
forbidden the execution of juveniles and those with mental retardation, it 
still allows criminals with mental illnesses to be put to death.

As The Journal Gazette's Rebecca Green recently reported, Corcoran's attorneys 
seem to have run out of appeals. Though his execution has not yet been 
scheduled, it may go onto the calendar soon, especially if a lawsuit seeking to 
block Indiana???s use of a 3-drug execution method is resolved.

The perpetrator of such horrendous crimes should never be set free to kill 
again.

But even those who still defend the concept of state-sanctioned execution have 
difficulty defending its use on seriously mentally ill prisoners such as 
Corcoran.

(source: Editorial, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette)






ARKANSAS:

Arkansas Supreme Court Grants Stay, Keeping Executions On Hold----A decision by 
Arkansas' chief justice almost certainly means there will be no executions in 
the state through the rest of 2016.


Arkansas Chief Justice Howard Brill on Thursday provided the 4th vote needed to 
grant inmates' request to keep executions on hold while they ask the U.S. 
Supreme Court to hear their appeal.

Brill's procedural ruling was also favored by the 3 justices who have disagreed 
with the court's rejection of death-row inmates' challenge to Arkansas' death 
penalty secrecy law.

In June, the state Supreme Court rejected 9 inmates' challenges to the secrecy 
law in a 4-3 vote. On Thursday, the same 4 justices - Brill included - rejected 
the inmates' request for the court to reconsider their decision.

However, Brill joined justices Paul Danielson, Josephine Hart, and Robin Wynne 
in granting the inmates' request to grant them a stay pending the outcome of 
their petition for the Supreme Court to grant certiorari and hear their appeal 
in the case.

Justices Karen Baker, Courtney Hudson Goodson, and Rhonda Wood - all of whom 
had, like Brill, voted against the inmates' challenge and the rehearing request 
- would have denied the stay request.

The inmates now have 90 days to file their certiorari petition at the U.S. 
Supreme Court. A response from the state could be filed by the state or 
requested by the court after that - a process that takes additional time before 
the justices would consider the petition.

Given that timeline, it is unlikely the justices would consider the request 
before December - meaning executions are almost certainly on hold in Arkansas 
through the rest of 2016 due to the fact that, even if the U.S. Supreme Court 
denies cert, advance notice then needs to be given for any execution dates set 
at that point.

While the state has not held an execution in more than a decade, Gov. Asa 
Hutchinson attempted to restart them in 2015, but has so far been stymied in 
carrying any out.

(source: buzzfeed.com)






MISSOURI:

Why are public defenders in Missouri asking to delay justice?


On Thursday, public defenders assigned to Craig Wood asked the judge to delay 
the jury trial by 10 months.

Wood is charged with the kidnapping and murder of 10 year-old Hailey Owens.

Her family is waiting for justice, and the trial is set to begin in September.

In a court document filed by the public defenders, Thomas Jacquinot writes, 
"there is no reasonable likelihood that Mr. Wood will receive competent and 
effective representation... if this case's trial begins in September 2016."

The prosecutor has called it a delay tactic.

The judge is considering postponing the trial until next May.

But the public defender's office says they can't do their job correctly because 
they are understaffed and facing an excessive case load.

It's a problem Jacquinot, the district defender, says goes back to 2003, when 
the division that handles death penalty cases was shrunk.

Then in 2012, Jacquinot says the office of 8 people had their case load 
doubled, with no staff increase.

"To keep up the caseload we have now I would, as a rough estimate, think we'd 
need to go from our current 8 to at least 12," Jacquinot said in a telephone 
interview with KY3.

Michael Barrett, director of the Missouri State Public Defender system, says 
across the state, they need at least 30 attorneys.

"Well we are 2nd to last in the United States in the funding we get for public 
defender funding," Barrett told KY3.

Barrett says the lack of sufficient funding for public defenders hurts people 
who can't afford to hire a lawyer.

"As a result, the clients tend to have their cases take longer and they sit in 
local jail longer and unnecessarily," Barrett says.

People waiting for trial are contributing to overcrowding problems in county 
jails around the state. Barrett says it is more expensive for local and state 
government to have people charged with crimes sitting in jail rather than tried 
and either moved into prison or set free, depending on verdict and punishment.

Barrett says the cost of defending cases is growing faster than the rate of 
inflation and gradual budget increases.

Adding to the problem, Governor Nixon recently cut the public defender budget 
for fiscal year 2016-2017 by withholding $3.5 million.

A spokesperson for the governor says the legislature had budgeted a $4.5 
million increase for the Public Defender program, meaning a $1 million increase 
was left in the budget. The governor's office says he elected to make the cut 
in order to balance the budget.

The public defender system is suing to get that money back.

"There's a Department of Justice civil rights division finding that we 
systematically deprive people of their right to counsel in this state because 
of a lack of public defenders," Barrett says.

(source: ky3.com)






WYOMING:

Judge rules Wyoming may continue to seek Eaton death penalty


The state of Wyoming may continue to seek the death penalty against a man 
convicted of the 1988 murder of a Montana woman.

U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne has ruled that Wyoming's failure 
to appoint lawyers for Dale Wayne Eaton last year as Johnson had ordered 
doesn't preclude the state from seeking to execute him.

Johnson in 2014 overturned Eaton's original death penalty in the murder of Lisa 
Kimmell of Billings, Montana. Eaton's lawyers don't dispute that he killed her, 
but Johnson ruled Eaton didn't receive a fair trial because the jury didn't 
hear adequate information about his background.

A federal appeals court this week ordered proceedings to continue in Eaton's 
appeal of Johnson's order allowing the state to seek the death penalty against 
him a s2nd time.

(source: Associated Press)






UTAH:

Suspect in killings of Utah siblings may face death penalty


Charging documents show a man accused of killing a teenage brother and sister 
in Utah shot them multiple times during a group fight and warned others as he 
drove away that "they would be next" if they said anything.

Prosecutors have charged the 28-year-old Mario Cervantez-Angel with 2 counts of 
aggravated murder, which carries the possibility of the death penalty.

Witnesses says a fight broke out on July 6 in a Salt Lake City suburban 
apartment complex when Cervantez-Angel and three others showed up to confront 
Jose Izazaga and Abril Izazaga. Authorities said previously the fight started 
over a T-shirt.

They were shot when Jose Izazaga pulled out a knife to defend his sister after 
authorities say Cervantez-Angel slammed her against a brick wall.

Cervantez-Angel is being held in jail on $2 million bail. He doesn't have an 
attorney yet.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Paper wrong recommendations on death penalty


This may serve as a response to the East Bay Times (July 18) editorial asking 
voter approval of Proposition 62, abolishment of California's Death Penalty, 
and to vote no on Proposition 66, a measure designed to eliminate delay and 
modernize appeal procedures that would hasten execution of vicious murderers.

The paper suggests, "Speed [in executions] is the hallmark of places like China 
...."

Recall the 2008 rape-murder conviction of Daryl Kemp, the Contra Costa jury 
recommending the death penalty. Kemp's victim was a 42-year-old Lafayette woman 
savagely killed in 1979.

? These crimes had been committed four months following Kemp's release from San 
Quentin where he had been serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of 
another woman.

The original sentence, imposed in 1959, was death. However, in 1972 the Supreme 
Court found the death penalty unconstitutional, resulting in hundreds of 
murderers having their sentences reprieved.

While legislation successfully reinstituted the death penalty, Kemp was paroled 
in 1978 when a prison psychiatrist determined he no longer constituted a danger 
to anyone. When DNA evidence linked Kemp to the Lafayette murder, he was in a 
Texas prison, convicted of raping three other women.

The paper argues that Prop. 62 would impose life without possibility of parole 
(LWOP). We all should recognize that little is certain, and in California's 
criminal justice system, nothing is forever.

Note realignment that has provided early release for thousands of felons who 
today are among us, as well as California electorate approving the proposition 
that reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors.

I hasten to add that death penalty opponent, Gov. Jerry Brown (who appointed 
California Chief Justice Rose Bird, later recalled by the voters) now wants 
voters to approve Proposition 57, which would allow criminals convicted of 
"non-violent" felonies to be considered for early parole.

We are not informed that violent priors don't count for otherwise "non-violent" 
convicts.

It's only a matter of time when those who advocate leniency under the guise of 
saving money and humanitarism will legislate and litigate that life without 
parole is "cruel and unusual punishment."

There are consequences of LWOP. As a prisoner with that sentence has only the 
possibility of escape to look forward to. That convict takes a hostage, perhaps 
custodial personnel or another prisoner and threatens death unless freedom is 
granted.

If the hostage is killed what penalty could be imposed? Remember, in this 
scenario there is no longer a death penalty only LWOP. Taking hostages is not 
limited to convicts.

A 3-time-loser, cornered and taken a hostage, has little to lose if he kills or 
harms that person or a police officer.

The death penalty serving as a deterrent to homicide has been debated for 
years. To believe that innocent lives have not been spared because of the death 
penalty is nonsense.

An outstanding example already referred to is the Supreme Court's 1972 decision 
abolishing the penalty of death; prisoners were released only to murder again.

A deliberate vicious killing, subject to a death penalty verdict can be a 
thoughtful process. Not all, but surely some would weigh the ultimate penalty 
and spare the victim.

A long-ago example but one that makes the point happened April 21, 1959 at San 
Quentin. Two convicts had just escaped. They were pursued to the end of a 
fishing pier in San Francisco Bay, where the prisoners took an elderly couple 
hostage, holding knives against their throats and threatening their lives.

After several hours of negotiations the convicts surrendered; the couple was 
unharmed. During their debriefing, the pair related that the escaped prisoners 
discussed their dilemma: harming their hostages or surrendering. The prospect 
of the death penalty was part of the discussion but giving up became their 
choice.

The couple believed the specter of the death penalty may have saved their 
lives.

(source: Commentary; Peter A. Meredith is a retired police lieutenant with the 
Berkeley Police Department. He has been a resident of Contra Costa County since 
1957----East Bay Times)






USA:

Donald Fell hearings close


After 2 weeks of hearings on the constitutionality of the death penalty, all 
eyes are on District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford who will issue a decision 
that could have far-reaching implications.

In his opening remarks, Crawford said the hearings in the Donald Fell case 
presented an opportunity to "create a rich factual record for higher courts 
with broader authority to rule on the big questions."

For the U.S. Supreme Court there are few bigger questions than the 
constitutionality of the death penalty. According to Robert Dunham, Executive 
Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, the Supreme Court has had the 
opportunity to review decisions that uphold the constitutionality of the death 
penalty, but has elected not to do so.

However, he said, the Supreme Court has never been presented with a lower court 
ruling declaring the death penalty unconstitutional.

"It is the kind of decision you typically would expect the Supreme Court to 
review because if they didn't the status of death penalty cases across the 
federal system would be in doubt," he said.

Former director of the center, Richard Dieter, testified in the Fell hearings 
but Dunham said that the organization does not take a position on the death 
penalty, nor does it take a side in this lawsuit.

Even if Crawford rules the federal death penalty unconstitutional, the case 
would almost certainly be appealed and there's no certainty that it would reach 
the nation's highest court.

Over the past 2 weeks, the defense called 11 witnesses to testify on everything 
from the growing number of exonerations in death row cases to the uneven 
application of capital punishment and the role that race, gender, and geography 
can play in sentencing.

The government wrapped up its testimony one day early after deciding to cancel 
its last 2 witnesses, Matthew Harding, an associate professor of economics at 
the University of California Irvine, and Hashem Dezhbakhsh, a professor of 
economics at Emory University. Government witnesses testified on the deterrence 
effect of the death penalty, public perceptions of capital punishment, and 
housing conditions on death row. A witness for the defense, Lauren Bell, who 
was unable to attend the hearings, will testify during a separate motion in 
August.

The hearings stem from the murder of North Clarendon resident Terry King in 
November 2000. Fell and Robert Lee, who later committed suicide in prison, were 
accused of kidnapping King in the parking lot of a Rutland Price Chopper and 
driving her to New York before killing her.

Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death the following year but the 
verdict was overturned due to juror misconduct. His retrial is scheduled to 
begin early next year.

It is not the 1st time a federal judge has held hearings on the 
constitutionality of the death penalty. In July 2002, Jed Rakoff, a district 
court Judge in Manhattan, declared the death penalty unconstitutional based on 
the growing number of exonerations of death row inmates due to DNA evidence and 
other factors. Since 1973, according to Dunham, 156 death row inmates have been 
exonerated.

2 months later federal Judge William Sessions of Burlington also ruled the 
death penalty unconstitutional in a pre-trial hearing on the Fell case on the 
grounds that it denies due process protections and fair trial guarantees.

"We now know, in a way almost unthinkable even a decade ago," Rakoff wrote in 
his decision, "that our system of criminal justice, for all its protections, is 
sufficiently fallible."

Both rulings were overturned by appellate courts.

Since Rakoff and Sessions issued their rulings, 7 states have banned capital 
punishment; a total of 19 states now outlaw the practice. (Vermont banned the 
death penalty in 1965.) The Supreme Court has also ruled that the death penalty 
cannot be applied in cases involving minors, the mentally disabled, and those 
convicted of a crime other than murder. During that same time, the number of 
death sentences and executions has also declined.

"At this point, it's becoming more and more unusual for a country like ours to 
sanction state murder, which is what it is," said Allen Gilbert, Executive 
Director of the Vermont Chapter of the ACLU. "I think it's inevitable that at 
some point the U.S. will abolish the death penalty."

Many observers point to a 2015 dissent from Justices Breyer and Ginsburg in a 
case challenging lethal injection in Oklahoma, Glossip v. Gross, as opening the 
door for a review of the death penalty's constitutionality. Citing the growing 
number of exonerations since the introduction of DNA evidence in the early 
1990s and growing evidence that the death penalty is unevenly applied, Breyer 
wrote, "the death penalty, in and of itself, now likely constitutes a legally 
prohibited 'cruel and unusual punishment.'"

The hearings before Judge Crawford are the first to take place since Justice 
Breyer's dissent, which Dunham characterized as a "call to defense lawyers to 
raise the issue so that the court may have the opportunity to review it."

The particulars of the Fell case rarely came into play during the 2 weeks of 
hearings in Rutland District Court. The Fell case was however used to 
illustrate the arbitrariness of death sentencing. Fell's is 1 of only 2 cases 
in modern history in which local prosecutors had reached a plea deal in 
exchange for a life sentence that was then overturned by the attorney general. 
The defense argued that this is one of the features of the federal death 
penalty that has contributed to its overall administration in an arbitrary and 
capricious manner.

The Fell case is also an example of how long death penalty cases can drag on in 
the courts. The crime Fell is charged with committing took place nearly 16 
years ago.

(source: vtdigger.com)

****************************

VP Pick Sen. Tim Kaine Seeks to Balance Catholic Faith with Democratic Politics


With news Friday that Hillary Clinton picked Tim Kaine as her Democratic 
running mate, the U.S. Senator from Virginia finds him, and his faith, back in 
the national spotlight. Like many other Democratic politicians who are 
Catholic, Kaine struggles with the challenge of living out his personal faith 
in a party that doesn't always share his church's views on complicated issues.

As a young attorney in Virginia, Tim Kaine offered his legal services free of 
charge to death-row inmates seeking exoneration. He has said for decades that 
he is against the death penalty and that he is uncomfortable with the idea of 
abortion. Both positions are informed by his lifelong Catholic faith, but he 
nonetheless eschews the label of "pro-life," a view he made clear as recently 
as last week.

When Kaine ran for governor of Virginia in 2005, anti-death penalty advocates 
were hopeful that should he win, he might follow the lead of other Catholic 
governors and halt executions. The commonwealth had killed more criminals than 
any other state, save Texas, according to a 2012 profile of Kaine in The 
Washington Post.

But political realities set in. An anti-death penalty crusader would have a 
hard time winning statewide office in Virginia.

. So Kaine promised that, even though he was personally opposed to the death 
penalty, as governor, he would enforce the laws. He kept his word and 11 
people, 6 of them black, were put to death during his tenure.

Kaine's position, of being personally opposed to a practice but not willing to 
prohibit it by law, is a standard refrain among some Catholics active in 
Democratic politics, though more commonly it is applied to abortion rather than 
the death penalty.

It was in part this view that prompted some liberal activists to complain in 
the days leading up to his selection by Clinton that Kaine is not one of them, 
that he is too boring and perhaps too moderate for Democrats in 2016. (He 
admitted as much to the first charge on Meet the Press, stating quite 
succinctly, "I am boring.")

But if he lacks a certain pizazz, what Kaine does bring to the ticket is a 
worldview shaped by the Catholic faith.

Born in Minnesota and raised outside Kansas City, Kaine said his church was an 
important part of his upbringing. He told C-SPAN earlier this year that if his 
family "got back from a vacation on a Sunday night at 7:30 p.m., they would 
know the one church in Kansas City that had an 8 p.m. Mass that we can make."

He went on to attend the Jesuit Rockhurst High School, which is where, he said, 
he first started "talking about faith and spirituality."

"That high school experience with the Jesuits was a key part of my transition 
into an adult life where instead of just accepting the answers of my parents or 
others, I've been a person who wants to go out and find the answers on my own, 
and the Jesuits get credit for that," he said.

After being admitted to Harvard Law School, Kaine took a year off to volunteer 
at a Jesuit vocational school in Honduras, teaching welding and carpentry, 
skills he learned from his father. It was in El Progreso where he became fluent 
in Spanish, a skill expected to help Clinton shore up the Hispanic vote.

He told Virginia's The Daily Press last year that his experience in Honduras 
still informed his politics. "My experience working at Loyola taught me the 
importance of access to skills-based training - both in Honduras and the U.S. - 
and inspired me to pursue the issue of expanding career and technical education 
in the U.S. Senate," he said.

When he and his wife settled down in Richmond about 3 decades later, they chose 
to attend a predominantly African-American Catholic parish. There, Kaine helped 
start a men's group and joined a gospel choir. (He had to quit the choir once 
he entered politics, rehearsals becoming difficult to attend.)

He went on to become a city councilor and then mayor of the mostly 
African-American city in 1998. He was sworn in as lieutenant governor in 2002 
andbecame governor in 2006. Barack Obama considered Kaine as his running mate 
in 2008 before choosing Joe Biden. He ran the national Democratic Party from 
2009 to 2011, and he won a race for the U.S. Senate the following year.

Like his views on the death penalty, which U.S. bishops have long opposed, 
Kaine's stance on immigration are also in line with the Catholic hierarchy.

In 2013, Kaine became the 1st lawmaker in history to deliver a speech from the 
Senate floor entirely in Spanish. "It is time that we pass comprehensive 
immigration reform," he said in Spanish.

But Kaine???s'public policy positions on abortion and marriage put him at odds 
with Catholic teaching.

With speculation mounting that Kaine would be Clinton's choice, Kaine recently 
revisited his stance on abortion, recognizing that his own pro-life views were 
at odds with many Democratic activists. The party, after all, recently adopted 
in its draft platform for the 1st time a measure to repeal the Hyde Amendment, 
a compromise Kaine supports that for decades has restricted federal money from 
paying for abortions.

Speaking to CNN earlier this month, Kaine was asked if he is "pro-life," to 
which he said, "I've never embraced labels."

"I have a traditional Catholic personal position, but I am very strongly 
supportive that women should make these decisions and government shouldn't 
intrude," he continued. "I'm a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being 
able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry 
about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them."

That position has worked with voters in the past, most of whom fall somewhere 
in between the 2 parties' platforms on the abortion question. But it might not 
go over so well with some members of his church.

When John Kerry was nominated by the Democrats in 2004, the last Catholic to be 
given the nod from either party, some bishops warned that Kerry's views on 
abortion meant he could not receive Communion, including Archbishop Charles 
Chaput, who was then the archbishop of Denver. Other bishops have said the same 
about Vice President Joe Biden, also a Catholic.

This year, there has been relatively little mention from the U.S. hierarchy 
about abortion politics, perhaps because both candidates are widely viewed to 
favor abortion rights. (Trump has said in recent months he is against abortion, 
a position that puts him at odds with his own previous statements. He did not 
mention the issue during his nomination acceptance speech Thursday.)

On L.G.B.T. issues, Kaine changed his stance on marriage and gay adoption in 
recent years, like many other Democratic leaders. In 2005, he said he was 
against adoption by gay parents because he believed only married couples should 
be allowed to adopt, and gay marriage was still illegal in Virginia.

By 2013, Kaine had changed his mind publicly on marriage, saying, "I believe 
all people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be guaranteed the full 
rights to the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage under the 
Constitution." He said he hoped the Supreme Court would legalize same-sex 
marriage, which it did in 2015.

He explained his thinking with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, saying he had 
personally changed his mind on the issue as far back as 2006. "My thinking has 
evolved on it because of people I know, so many gay and lesbian folks, some in 
long term relationships who are great parents," he said.

When pressed by the Post in 2012 on how he makes peace with his personal 
beliefs and public stances, Kaine said, "I have really struggled with that as 
governor." He continued, "I hope I can give a good accounting of myself on 
Judgment Day."

Yet Kaine told C-SPAN he is constantly considering the bigger picture when he 
is voting or pushing an issue, something he traces back to his time with the 
Jesuits.

"Everybody has motivations in life," he said. "I do what I do for spiritual 
reasons."

(source: America Magazine)