With legislation on the horizon to reinstate the death penalty in West Virginia, the widespread media coverage of the botched execution of Christa Pike, and the planned execution at Fort Hood in December, the national debate on the death penalty continues to gain attention. While public opinion in America has shifted toward protections for the guilty, historically the focus was on guarding society from cruelty and defending innocent life.

Legislation, Crimes and Justice in West Virginia

West Virginia incorporated the death penalty as punishment for rape, murder and kidnapping from the founding of the state in 1863 to 1965. Kidnapping was included after the notorious Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932. In a little over a century, the Mountain State carried out over 100 executions by public and private hanging and later incorporated electrocution.

In the 1950s, national sentiment rose in favor of abolishing the death penalty after WWII and, in part, due to the popular work of death row inmate, Caryl Chessman. He wrote several books during his incarceration that became bestsellers, drawing national attention to the debate surrounding capital punishment.

By 1965, West Virginia was one of the last states to abolish the death penalty before the 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision by the U.S Supreme Court which temporarily halted executions nationwide. In the midst of opposition, it was House Bill 517, sponsored by Democrats Jesse Barker (Kanawha County) and Robert Holliday (Fayette County) that successfully repealed death penalty provisions in West Virginia Code §61-11-2, replacing capital sentences with life imprisonment. The bill was signed into law by Governor Hulett C. Smith.

In the years and decades following the repeal, legislation has continually been introduced in West Virginia to reinstate capital punishment, beginning in 1969.

Former WV Delegate John Overington, who passed away in January this year, was known for his consistent sponsorship of bills to protect citizens in the form of reinstating capital punishment. A respected lawmaker, a Christian, and leader in the Republican Party, Overington sponsored bills to this effect for 32 of his 33 years in office.

In a 2017 MetroNews interview, Overington indicated why this was so important to him, quoting former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles:

“Of all the tasks of government, the most basic is to protect its citizens from violence”

The discussion surrounding the abolition of the death penalty in West Virginia in 1965 touched on morality, the state's image, deterrence and moved toward rehabilitation over execution. However, subsequent lawmakers working to reinstate capital punishment have cited wide public support, justice for extreme cases, and protection of the public to support their efforts.

Delegate Overington repeatedly referenced the case of Ronald Turney Williams as proof that the death penalty can save lives. Williams had been serving a life sentence for killing a Beckley police officer, but escaped from the Moundsville Penitentiary in 1979. He then killed an off-duty state trooper and committed another murder in Arizona. Overington maintained that a death sentence after the first murder would have saved later lives. He also noted that the death penalty can bring closure to the families of the victims.

Current conversations among WV lawmakers include the increased recidivism rate in the state over the past 20 years. A 2018 report by Justice & Community shows an approximate aggregate rate of 28% for violent crimes, such as assault, homicide, child abuse, kidnapping, and sexual offenses. Too many violent criminals, once released, are producing more victims. Some would argue that one is too many.

In an earlier report by the West Virginia Division of Corrections, Office of Research and Planning, it was found that nearly 73% of offenders who returned to the custody of the WVDOC in 2004-2005, did so within 18 months of their release.

As of June 2025, West Virginia had 648 inmates serving life sentences. Some of those are life without mercy (no parole) , some are life with mercy (parole typically being available after 15 years served) and others are habitual life sentences, meaning that the inmate is serving life with mercy for repeat offenses. (Source: WV Div. of Corrections & Rehabilitation 2025 Report)

It is a mistake to believe that a sentence of life without mercy always keeps a criminal behind bars until their natural death.

Eugene Blake was convicted of the 1967 murder of 18-year-old Donna Jean Ball and given a life without mercy sentence. However, seven years later, Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. commuted the sentence to life with mercy, over the unanimous recommendation against clemency by the Board of Probation and Parole. Blake was later paroled in 1979.

After he was released, he shot and killed 21-year-old Mark Withers and raped Withers’ 17-year-old companion in 1982 in Bridgeport, OH. In October of 1984, Blake raped and murdered 13-year-old Maryann Hope Helmbright in the Wheeling/Osage area of West Virginia.

He was convicted of first-degree murder and related sexual assault/statutory rape charges and received a lengthy prison term in West Virginia.

Can we honestly say that justice has been served when violent crimes are repeated after the judicial process and incarceration?

Increasing Reverence for Life

Christian societies have always incorporated capital punishment. For the better part of the past two-thousand years, a Christian ethos has served to influence the state's use of this measure. When Rome became Christianized under Constantine the Great in the fourth century, capital punishment was used sparingly but applied to the most serious crimes such as murder, rape, parricide, treason and sorcery.

Nearly two-hundred years later, Emperor Justinian I further refined prior imperial law and continued using capital punishment for such crimes as murder, rape, heresy, treason and arson as well as sexual crimes such as adultery and homosexual acts.

In both periods, the death penalty was justified as protecting the public order, and in preserving life and morality. While religious leaders such as St. John Chrysostom explicitly argued against using capital punishment for heresy, they acknowledged the use of the sword for civil authorities to judge and punish wickedness, according to the law of God.

In his Homily 23 on Romans 13, St. John Chrysostom commented on the passage about governing authorities, he describes the ruler as:

" the minister of God to execute wrath, a revenger upon him that doeth evil...You see how he hath furnished him with arms, and set him on guard like a soldier, for a terror to those that commit sin. For he is the minister of God to execute wrath..."

He treats the magistrate's power to punish, even with the sword, as ordained by God for the restraint of evil and the maintenance of order as consistent with the Word of God.

The commonly held view by not only the early Church Fathers, but many religious leaders throughout the centuries believed that the Church itself should not wield the sword, but that civil authorities may justly do so for violent crimes against humanity.

Martin Luther, the great Protestant Reformer of the 16th century also questioned the use of capital punishment for heresy but strongly supported the state's use of the death penalty for criminals. In his 1523 treatise Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, Luther insists that the secular authority, "the sword" is necessary in a fallen world.

Pointing to Genesis 9:6 :

“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man."

Luther defends civil authority as a restraint against evil, believing that neither the spiritual nor the temporal government is sufficient by itself, for true Christians are few and wickedness will reign without the use of force to preserve outward peace.

Many modern-day Christians argue against capital punishment in favor of preserving the life of the guilty in order to allow time for repentance. However, when the Church of England was established after the Protestant Reformation, they not only endorsed the death penalty, but argued that it could lead to repentance and the salvation of the accused.

In his Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, Bishop of Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet, wrote that capital punishment was compatible with Christian charity and necessary for the order and safety of society. He believed that charity does not abolish justice or the duty to restrain violence.

"It is highly probable, that as nothing besides such a method could stop the progress of injustice and wickedness, so nothing is so likely a means to bring the criminal to repent of his sins, and to fit him to die as a Christian, as to condemn him to die for his crimes. If any thing can awaken his conscience, and strike terror in him, that will do it. Therefore as capital punishments are necessary to human society, so they are often real blessings to those on whom they fall." - Bishop of Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet, Article 37 (published in 1699)

Current Considerations on the Death Penalty

The botched execution of Christa Pike on September 30th has been a top news story around the nation. She was sentenced to die by lethal injection after serving more than 30 years at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, TN for the torture and gruesome murder of Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

After surviving two doses of pentobarbital, the execution was halted and Pike was transported by ambulance to a Nashville-area hospital for care. In an article by WPLN news, her attorneys are considering "the long-term effects of what she endured."

What?

She was sentenced to die. There are babies who have survived abortions that are denied such care, which is why The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act was introduced to the U.S. Congress over a decade ago, but has never passed both the House and Senate.

In the chaotic atmosphere that pervades much of life inside the United States, the fundamental task of identifying the guilty versus the innocent should be paramount, as this is an anchor to maintaining a moral and thriving social order.

Governor Bill Lee has ordered an investigation into what went wrong with the lethal injection procedure and has paused future executions for 2026. At the same time, Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada is stepping down. Currently, as of this writing, Pike is alive and back in prison. Tennessee is contemplating what to do next and significant legal challenges lay ahead for them.

Normally, in civil societies where capital punishment exists, when the primary method of execution fails, the officer in charge is authorized to complete the sentence with a firearm. Apparently Tennessee does not include this measure in their protocol. Instead, they were left in a quandary that seemingly negated a legal ruling made in 1996.

Pike has been incarcerated for more than three decades at an approximate cost of $750,000 to $1.2 million, allowing for a blended average that considers increased costs over the years. The expense covers her food, housing, security and routine medical care inside the prison system.

The people of Tennessee have been punished twice for the crime of Christa Pike. First for shock of the pre-meditated murder and loss of an innocent teenager in their community and twice in the thousands of tax dollars spent on supporting her life behind bars.

As American culture has shifted toward protecting those guilty of heinous crimes over valuing the victims, it would be prudent to encourage media to continually honor those innocents whose lives were cut short by violence.

The names of Cora, Dawson and Callan should be more readily recognized than their mother, Lindsay Clancy, for example. Likewise, Colleen Slemmer should come to mind first when reading about the failed execution of her murderer.

When too much time passes between the crime and punishment, apathy can set in for those not directly affected by the transgression; legal loopholes may be pursued to delay the sentence.

It should be remembered that Christa Pike pre-meditated the murder of Colleen Slemmer because she believed Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.

On January 12, 1995, Pike (18), along with Tadaryl Shipp (17), and friend Shadolla Peterson (18) lured Slemmer to an isolated wooded area on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus under false pretenses.

Over the next thirty minutes to an hour:

They beat, kicked, and slammed her head against concrete/asphalt.
They slashed her with a box cutter and a small meat cleaver, including multiple cuts to her throat and body.
A pentagram was carved into her chest (Shipp later admitted doing this).
Slemmer repeatedly begged for her life and tried to escape; Pike later told police she told the victim to “shut up” because it was harder to hurt someone who was talking.

Pike delivered the fatal blows by smashing Slemmer’s skull with a large chunk of asphalt. She then took a piece of the skull as a “souvenir,” showed it to classmates, and boasted about the killing. The body was so badly mutilated that it was initially mistaken for an animal. Pike confessed within days. (Source: Christa Pike v Gloria Gross, US Court of Appeals)

Photo: Colleen Slemmer

Pike received the death penalty because Tennessee allows for it when the jury finds statutory aggravating circumstances that outweigh any mitigating ones. The jury found two:

-The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel because it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death.

-The murder was committed to avoid, interfere with, or prevent a lawful arrest or prosecution.

As West Virginians are asked to consider reinstating the death penalty in the Mountain State, hopefully citizens will pursue conversations with their state representatives to voice their opinions and ask questions. It is a weighty decision that carries ethical and moral implications for safeguarding the public. What is the state's role in protecting innocent life in society? How are repeat violent offenders harming West Virginians? What improvements, if any, are needed for the appellate process? How many prisoners are rehabilitated versus those who are not?

Finally, we ought to consider: what do the families of the victims of violent crimes say? What does closure mean to them? Does the state "owe" a long life with natural death to the guilty when they have denied their victims such mercy?

May our beautiful state pursue justice by the light of truth and always honor God's laws to protect the innocent and issue fair judgements against the guilty.

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Legislation, Crimes and Justice in West Virginia

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