Virginia Governor Tim Kaine won his office in part because his Republican challenger revealed himself as both ethically ignorant and politically shameless by implying that Kaine's moral opposition to the death penalty meant that the Democrat was favorably disposed toward murderers. Kaine himself effectively diffused doubts about the effects of his moral convictions on his governmental duties by pledging that he would carry out the will of the people even if it meant signing a death warrant. This week Kaine reached his moment of truth: he was asked to commute the sentence of Dexter Lee Vinson, convicted of a brutal homicide. Kaine, true to his word, refused…and Vinson is dead.

Governor Kaine kept a public promise, and committed an act that he has stated that he believes is morally wrong. Was this ethical conduct or unethical conduct? It's not an easy question to answer, because this is an ethical conflict: multiple ethical principles pointing to different results. Something has to give.

Setting the ground rules for an analysis requires that the discussion pass over the question of whether the death penalty itself is ever justifiable. The Scoreboard's position on this issue is a confident "yes," but that's irrelevant to Governor Kaine. We must evaluate Kaine's conduct based on his own answer to that question, which is "no." Kaine has said that he accepts the absolutist position of the Catholic Church: "an eye for an eye" violates the teachings of Jesus Christ, and is wrong. It is, in fact, murder.

So it is honesty and promise-keeping versus compassion and forgiveness, and may the best values win.

Let's begin with the case for honesty. Kaine's promise to abide by Virginia's acceptance of the death penalty was a major factor in getting him elected. If Kaine was not prepared to follow through on his pledge, it was truly a reprehensible act, though a disturbingly commonplace one in electoral politics. Woodrow Wilson swore that he would keep America out of World War I. Franklin Roosevelt likewise assured voters that he wouldn't involve America in World War II. The first President Bush swore that he would never raise taxes, and, of course, the second President Bush foreswore "nation building." But in all of those cases and many others where campaign promises have been torn up and thrown away, the offending former campaigner could argue that situations had changed. That justification is not available to Kaine, and will not become available until, for example, there is hard evidence that Virginia's death row contains innocent inmates. For Kaine to make the assurances he did and then turn around and commute the sentence of the first condemned murderer about to die on his watch would have meant that he either intentionally deceived the Virginia electorate to reach office, or that he was unable to accept the consequences of his own pledge when it became reality. To follow the principle of honesty, Kaine had no choice, for he had left himself none. Kaine had to keep his promise, and Vinson had to die.

The case for Kaine's sparing Vinson is powerful, however, and can be stated simply: can it be ethical to be complicit in a murder in order to keep a promise? Absolutists and the disciples of Emmanuel Kant hold that considerations of human life always trump all others. You don't have to agree with the absolutists (the Scoreboard doesn't) but the point is that Kaine does. His Catholic Church-nourished moral opposition to the death penalty means that he believes there is no justification for taking a human life…not war, not murder, not the "right to die with dignity", not a woman's "right to choose."

Except, apparently, keeping a campaign promise so you don't look like a lying political opportunist. For that, Vinson deserves to die. Kaine's balancing of values seems severely askew.

Kaine's supporters could make the argument that the Governor's personal beliefs are not germane to the issue of Vinson's execution. Virginia's legislators approved capital punishment and its legal system determined that Vinson had earned it; Kaine's only obligation was to do his duties as governor and let the law do its work. But Virginia's Constitution gives its governor the power to commute death sentences for any reason. Commuting a death sentence when he feels it is unjust is Kaine's duty.

It appears that Governor Kaine is traveling the same pot-holed ethical dead-end road as Senator John Kerry, who continues to say the he believes human life is created at conception, that it is wrong to take such a life and that he aggressively and actively wants to support those who insist on the right to end those human lives for any reason whatsoever. Like Kerry, Kaine can't escape his own definition of the problem: the unjust taking of a human life.

Kaine, like most politicians, doesn't seem to be exactly a deep thinker on the matter of capital punishment, and may well be akin to the muddled Americans who tell pollsters that they "oppose capital punishment" and would support the execution of Timothy McVeigh, Osama Bin Laden, and Adolf Hitler. He gave a hint that he doesn't quite follow Jesus and Kant on the meaning of "absolute" when he answered a reporter's question of whether his decision to let Vinson die was "political." No, Kaine answered, because Vinson's crime was "gruesome." Someone may need to explain to the governor (along with those confused poll respondents) that when you oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle it doesn't matter how extensive, cruel or gruesome the crime is.

But the Scoreboard has to evaluate Kaine's choice based on his stated principles, and put aside its growing suspicion that he may not have thought them through. The Governor required a great deal of courage to risk the political attacks and media criticism that surely would have followed had he broken his highly-publicized campaign promise, but leaders are supposed to have a great deal of courage. It would have taken even more courage not to make the promise in the first place, and risk defeat. But lack of fortitude is no excuse for unethical conduct, only an explanation for it. The Scoreboard's verdict is that Tim Kaine decided that keeping a tactical political promise was a higher priority than stopping an execution he believed was wrong. He traded his moral integrity and the life of another man for political integrity.

That is an unethical trade.