Lunenburg Accused of Banishment

The Lunenburg County chapter of the NAACP and the ACLU of Virginia are currently complaining regarding the Lunenburg County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s policy of allowing those charged with a crime access to plea bargains that require them to agree to remain out of the county for a specific period of time in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Alleen B. Moorman, President of the Lunenburg County Branch of the NAACP, has repeatedly claimed that the Lunenburg County Sheriff’s Office has “staked out funerals” and prevented individuals who agreed not to return to Lunenburg from attending funerals of family members. Moorman says that “banishment is a barbaric practice.”

Clair Guthrie Gastanaga of the ACLU offered the following statement:

“The ACLU of Virginia has serious concerns about the use of banishment as a criminal sanction. Our courts traditionally have required that there be a reasonable relationship between a criminal offense and the punishment imposed. In Loving v. Virginia, for example, the VA Supreme Court held that punishing a violation of the ban against interracial marriage (later held unconstitutional) by forcing a couple to choose between going to prison or leaving the state for 25 years was “so unreasonable as to render the sentences void.” The court couldn’t find a rational relationship between the offense and the banishment, and the fact that initially the couple agreed to the deal didn’t matter. Suspended sentences and probation usually are structured to serve the goal of rehabilitation. Making someone leave his or her community to escape going to jail threatens rather than serves the goal of rehabilitation. Moreover, it does nothing to promote public safety, if that’s an issue, because the person simply goes somewhere else where he/she isn’t known. Puritans did use exile and banishment to punish unwanted behavior in the earliest years of our country, but such sanctions have no place in our current time when we should be using only evidence-based practices in our criminal justice system.”

Commonweath’s Attorney Robert Clements stated: “This is simply a condition of a suspended portion of sentence in a plea agreement which is occasionally offered by me or requested by a defendant and his attorney in which he agrees to stay out of Lunenburg County, usually for five years, in exchange for a lesser jail or prison sentence and/or conviction of fewer charges.”

“It sounds to me that the local NAACP wants to take away this option from a grown man or woman and his or her attorney and force him or her to serve a longer jail or prison sentence. I bet there are a lot of defendants out there who would strongly disagree with the NAACP.”

“The county gains an advantage that a criminal felon will stay out of the county longer than the jail sentence he may get. The defendant gets the advantage that he does not sit idly in the jail, but can try to make a fresh start and prove he has learned from his mistakes.”

“I have never had any attorney question the option. To condemn the policy is to insult them, including attorneys who have provided legal counsel to the NAACP. It is completely voluntary, and no one is pressured to agree to it. As soon as a defendant says his family is in Lunenburg and he does not want to leave them, it is agreed that it is not an option for him, and we move on with negotiations.”

“I have even had defendants write to me from jail or prison and request a resentencing to gain a lesser sentence in exchange for staying out of the county.”

“As for the allegation that a few individuals have been unable to attend family funerals, I would say that it is rare. More often I have provided letters to allow them to return for funerals but there have been occasions in which the victim of the crime is contacted to determine his or her position on it since the victim is also aware of the agreement to stay out of Lunenburg, and the victim objects to the defendant coming back to the county. I simply feel I should not ignore the victim’s wishes.”

“The spokesman for the NAACP also alleged that the Lunenburg Sheriff’s Office has surrounded funerals and churches to attempt to catch persons who had agreed to stay out of the county. Sheriff Townsend, who has been sheriff since 2006 and in law enforcement in Lunenburg for 31 years, has stated publicly and strongly that such a thing has never happened.”

Lunenburg County Sheriff Arthur Townsend says he doesn’t have a problem with the situation. “This is not banishment. This is a choice. Banishment is forcing people to leave.” “I don’t know why anyone would want to take away peoples choices. This is an agreement between an attorney, his client and the commonwealths attorney. No one is forced to do this. It is their choice. I don’t know why anyone would want to take this option away from them.”

Regarding the accusation that Lunenburg stakes out funerals in an attempt to apprehend those banished, both Clements and Sheriff Townsend emphatically stated this is untrue.

“We have never arrested anyone for returning to Lunenburg (after agreeing to remain out of the county),” said Townsend. “We have arrested people for committing new crimes in the county but never for simply returning.”

The NAACP is encouraging people to attend a meeting in opposition to this policy.