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Death penalty building force as an issue in Kaine-Kilgore race Date published: 10/14/2005
By CHELYEN DAVIS RICHMOND--As Republican Jerry Kilgore spent a third day slamming Democrat Tim Kaine on the death penalty, Kaine said a Kilgore ad on the subject is outright false. In a 2 p.m. conference call with reporters, Kaine said that a Kilgore ad claiming that Kaine volunteered to defend convicted murderer Mark Sheppard is demonstrably incorrect. Kaine said another lawyer in his firm, Dana Finberg, was asked by a judge to represent Sheppard in his appeals. He said Finberg asked Kaine to allow his name to be put on court documents and to advise Finberg if needed. Kaine agreed, and said that out of 1,000 billable hours his firm filed with the court, not one of them was billed to him. "I never met Mark Sheppard. I didn't know Mark Sheppard. I never visited him, I never spoke with him," Kaine said. "I spent 48 minutes advising [Finberg] during the course of two years he spent on this case. It is completely wrong to suggest that it was Tim Kaine that was voluntarily representing Mark Sheppard." In the ad, Stanley Rosenbluth, the father of the man whom Sheppard killed, is the one accusing Kaine of defending Sheppard. Kaine was careful not to accuse Rosenbluth of lying, saying that the man might not have known he wasn't really Sheppard's lawyer, since Kaine's name did appear on court documents. "I understand and sympathize and feel horrible about his grief and the loss of his son," Kaine said. "[But] that statement and that representation in the ad is frankly false. And without that fact, the whole ad really sort of falls apart." But he pulled no punches in criticizing Kilgore for what he said were lies and the inappropriate use of a grieving father. "Time and again in this campaign, Jerry Kilgore has been called out by the press and others for an egregious misrepresentation of facts," Kaine said. "The claim that Jerry Kilgore is carrying in this ad is the most egregious and prejudicial kind of statement by a desperate candidate. It's far below the standard that somebody should try to meet if they want to be governor of 7 million Virginians." Kaine said he did represent two other convicted murderers in their appeals. Kilgore, reacting to Kaine's accusations in a hastily called conference call at 5 p.m., said he stands by the ad.
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
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