The day before Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine takes the debate stage in his home state, Republicans are attacking his record on the death penalty.

In a new web ad that recalls the Willie Horton attack on the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, the Republican National Committee is highlighting two of Kaine’s clients when he was a defense attorney.

Richard Lee Whitley was convicted of murdering a 63-year-old neighbor in Fairfax County, while Lem Tuggle was found guilty of raping, sodomizing and murdering a 52-year old woman from Smyth County.

While numerous executions took place on his watch as Virginia governor, Kaine had come up as a defense attorney working to keep people convicted of capital offenses from facing the death penalty.

[Banishing the Ghost of Willie Horton to Promote Criminal Justice Reform]