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BY D. FRENCH SLAUGHTER, JR.
THE General Assembly opened its 1975 session on January 8 with an address by Governor Godwin. The various legislative committees began meeting on the first day of the session to consider bills that had been carried over from the 1974 session or introduced by pre-filing within 30 days prior to this session.
Death penalty legislation will be one of the major issues in the 1975 session. For many years, Virginia law has provided that the court or jury trying criminal cases could impose the death penalty or imprisonment upon conviction of certain crimes such as murder in theQ first degree, armed robbery, and rape. In 1972, the L.S. Supreme Court said that such death penalty laws were unconstitutional because the court or the jury trying the case had discretion whether or not to impose the death penalty and this discretion led to arbitrary and unreasonable decisions and was, therefore, unconstitutional.
Further, there is some uncertainty as to whether under this L .S. Supreme Court decision there
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