I told our children that I wanted them to come this evening, and my daughter Elizabeth asked why. I said, "Because some people are going to say nice things about me, and I want you to hear them. You don't have to believe them, but I want you to hear them."

When I was trying to figure out what to say this evening, the one thing that became instantly clear was that I should not offer a theological discourse on why the death penalty is morally wrong. With two bishops on the program - the MOST Reverend Bishop Sullivan and the RIGHT Reverend Bishop Vest - I suspected that Marie was going to introduce me as the LEAST Reverend Lloyd Snook.

I'm not going to talk about religion this evening; I want to talk about politics.

For the last 22 years, I have dealt with the death penalty in court. I have never tried to be a political organizer for abolition.

I have been grateful for the efforts of Henry Heller and VADP for taking up that mission, and the catchphrase for this weekend - commemorating "10 years of activism" - sums up VADP's work well. Henry, I applaud you for all of your hard work over the years.

And let me tell you, I think it is having an effect, both in the courtroom and in the body politic.

Back in the 1980's, I was in a small minority. Very few people spoke out against the death penalty. Few jurors voted against the death penalty. No legislators were interested in fixing the system; indeed, they didn't think it was broken. No one ever even contemplated the idea that someone on Death Row might be innocent. Virginia was strongly pro-death penalty. That's all there was to it.

Over the last 20 years, a lot has happened. Probably the most important development has been the use of DNA to exonerate so many Death Row inmates, both in Virginia and around the country. And a very interesting thing has happened. DNA is showing us that the police get it wrong - not just once, but frequently. Eyewitnesses can be wrong. Police chemists fabricate evidence. Jailhouse snitches lie (that shouldn't be a surprise, but it seems to be). When the government spends thousands of hours and millions of dollars to investigate a case, you would think they would get it right. But many times they don't.

I think the debate over the death penalty in Virginia this fall has been intriguing, mainly for what has NOT been said. The Republicans all say that they are in favor of the death penalty, and they're opposed to a moratorium. Mark Earley, as Attorney General, never met a death verdict he didn't like. The Democrats are split - Mark Warner says he is in favor of the death penalty, and is determined to say nothing more. Tim Kaine is a civil rights lawyer who has represented death row inmates; Tim is against the death penalty and in favor of a moratorium. Don McEachin says he is in favor of the death penalty, but he is in favor of a moratorium.

And of course, the Republicans have been trying to claim that the all of the Democrats are secretly against the death penalty.

But what is remarkable is that the Virginia electorate doesn't seem to care. When you ask Virginia voters what issues they care about, you hear about education and transportation. Even after September 11, crime and security issues don't even make the top 5. The candidates' positions on the death penalty don't make the top 10. If you go to the Republicans' websites, the death penalty isn't even mentioned. The death penalty is mentioned by the Warner and McEachin sites only in that they both talk about wanting a death penalty that is fairly administered to those whose guilt is certain. While that doesn't qualify as favoring abolition, it's a heck of a change in the tenor of the debate.

This past year, a bill was introduced in the General Assembly to abolish the death penalty - by a Republican. Bills were introduced to impose a moratorium on the death penalty - sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans. Bills were introduced to eliminate Virginia's 21-day rule - sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans.

More than half of those polled support a life sentence without possibility of parole rather than a death sentence.

In the next few years, we will have the chance to nibble away at the death penalty in Virginia. There is increasing momentum to support abolishing the death penalty for the mentally retarded. North Carolina and Missouri have become the latest states to abolish the death penalty for the mentally retarded; if they can do it, so can we. The only other country in the world that executes the mentally retarded is Kyrgyzstan, and I can't even spell that. The Supreme Court may answer the question for us, but the General Assembly may strike down executing the mentally retarded if the Court doesn't.

There will be continued efforts to insure accurate DNA analysis in every case, and to allow reversals of convictions when evidence of innocence comes forward. This is all very heartening.

I am concerned, though, about one reaction that some abolitionists have. Some of us don't want to support candidates who won't come out and oppose the death penalty outright. We need to recognize that our cause will be moved forward bit by bit. When we strike the death penalty for the mentally retarded, we bring a little closer the day of abolition. When we strike the death penalty for juveniles, or when we enlarge the opportunities for appeals, we bring closer the day of abolition. When we elect a delegate, or a governor, or a lieutenant governor, or an attorney general, who has some doubts about the death penalty, we bring closer the day when at least one inmate will get a pardon, or a commuted sentence, or a fair appeal.

I have been asked a number of time how the events of the last month change things. I think that the terrorist attacks may make it easier to oppose the death penalty for average crimes. I predict that we will get politicians - and jurors - who can say, "I'm in favor of the death penalty. I think if we capture Osama bin Laden, he should get the death penalty." But those politicians and jurors might not be willing to impose the death penalty for lesser crimes. Even good abolitionists may justify killing Osama bin Laden as self-defense for the country, whereas executing Shawn the drug dealer who could otherwise do a life sentence seems unnecessary by comparison.

There are many people of good will in politics these days who harbor doubts about the death penalty. Those candidates need to know that it is OK to admit those doubts - that they won't get clobbered in November if they rethink how we are doing things. And I hope that you here will help the candidates who are just a little bit better than their opponents, without insisting that they go with us all the way to abolition.

Our successes have taken us from the fringe of the political spectrum to a position that is at least within striking distance of the center. Ten years ago the challenge was to attract the liberals who seemed embarrassed to admit that they opposed the death penalty. Now the challenge is to attract people who are questioning their long-held assumptions that they support the death penalty. I will leave specifics to the experts, but I think that we need to refocus our efforts with the notion in mind that we are part of the mainstream now. That is an entirely different message from the message that we have carried over the last 10 years.

For example, if we base our argument on sympathy for a convicted murderer, we will lose. We already know that most jurors really don't care that a murderer had a lousy childhood. In the battle for emotion, the grieving family wins out over the murderer every time. We won't get a majority of Americans with such a message.

The changes in poll results in recent years are coming because we are adding those for whom the issue of "getting it right" is paramount - they are seeing that we don't, and can't, get it right all the time. This is the audience that would feel, as Yale Law professor Charles Black wrote in 1974, that "While the justice of God may be sufficient to decide who lives or dies, the justice of man can never be." But that pitch has a problem too - there will always be people who will say, "OK - I agree that we shouldn't have the death penalty unless we're positive. We've got DNA here. That's good enough; kill him." As the use of DNA grows, the number of men on death row who are in fact innocent will probably drop as well - and the force of the argument will drop too.

We will not reach a majority until we craft a message that persuades Americans that basic notions of human dignity - ours, not the murderer's - require that we abolish the death penalty. During the 1948 debates that led to the abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom, this position was summed up by the member of the House of Lords who said, "The reason why we don't execute traitors is not out of sympathy for those who betray us; it is out of respect for ourselves."

Let me tell you a true story. I was standing outside the Richmond Penitentiary when James Briley was executed in April, 1985. Those of us who were there to protest the execution were gathered on the grass next to the prison, holding candles and singing and praying. On the opposite side of the street a crowd had gathered, some of whom were waving Confederate flags, giving Nazi salutes, and holding up signs that read, "Fry the Coon," and other similar slogans. It was ugly. At one point a man walked across the street toward us, leaving the noisy crowd. He walked up to one of the organizers and asked if she had another candle that he might hold. She gave him one, and he said simply, "I wasn't sure where I belonged, but then I asked myself, 'Which side of the street would Jesus be on?'"

This is a debate for which religious institutions are well-equipped. It is a debate that people like Bishop Vest and Bishop Sullivan have been conducting for many years. It is a debate that will result in our religious leaders having to persuade their flocks of a politically touchy position. Aside from the Southern Baptists, who, alone among major Christian denominations, support the death penalty, every other major denomination is on record as opposing the death penalty. Yet the members of those congregations don't agree with the stated position of their churches. Indeed, in many cases the clergy of those congregations don't agree with the stated position of their churches. There is much work to be done, and churches, synagogues and mosques are the proper places for that debate.

Three wise philosophers have summed up the problem neatly. First, Sister Helen Prejean writes that "all of us are better than the worst thing we have ever done." Second, Albert Camus wrote in The Plague that "there are more things to admire in man than to despise." Third, an elementary school child said, "God made me, and God don't make no junk."

We will not abolish the death penalty, I am convinced, until we find the common ground between the nun, the atheist and the small child and make it the center of the debate.

As I said, I will leave the details to the experts. But Henry, VADP has done good work in bringing the debate along this far. In 10 years of activism, the progress has been enormous. I look forward to the next 10 years.

Thank you for the award.

Editor's Note: Lloyd Snook has been working on death penalty cases since 1979, just months after graduating from law school. In his first 7 months at the firm of Lowe & Gordon in Charlottesville, he was working on 4 different appeals cases. In June of 1980, his firm took up the case of Joe Giarratano when they had heard that Joe was refusing to continue his appeals. Lloyd made many trips to Death Row to try to convince Joe to resume his appeals. In 1985, Lloyd started his own practice and continued representing his clients. On the trial level, Lloyd has represented 24 men who have been facing capital murder charges on both federal and state levels. Of the four cases that have gone to trial, 3 have resulted in acquittals on capital murder, and another was dropped on a preliminary hearing.