Death Penalty Opponents Hold Vigils at Virginia Lynching Sites in Push for Abolition

As the Virginia General Assembly con­sid­ers leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the death penal­ty, oppo­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment gath­ered at lynch­ing sites across the state to empha­size the his­tor­i­cal link between lynch­ings and exe­cu­tions. Groups in Alexandria, Danville, Norfolk, Richmond, and Roanoke recalled his­tor­i­cal injus­tices, read­ing the names and sto­ries of lynch­ing vic­tims, and called for an end to capital punishment.

The vig­ils were held at his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant loca­tions, includ­ing sites of lynch­ings, the loca­tion of the for­mer Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond, and the cur­rent Norfolk jail. The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, which orga­nized the gath­er­ings, linked Virginia’s prac­tice of the death penal­ty to slav­ery and Jim Crow, and to the nation­wide protests for racial jus­tice that took place in 2020. ​“It is a flawed pub­lic pol­i­cy. It has its roots in slav­ery and lynch­ing here in the Commonwealth. We know it has dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impact­ed the African American com­mu­ni­ty so it is real­ly a racial jus­tice issue,” said Rev. LaKeisha Cook (pic­tured), a crim­i­nal jus­tice orga­niz­er with the Virginia Interfaith Center.

Faith lead­ers played a major role in the demon­stra­tions, echo­ing the state­ments of Black pas­tors who offered sup­port for abo­li­tion at an ear­li­er news con­fer­ence. ​“We feel like the whole insti­tu­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, it came out of ille­gal lynch­ing of our peo­ple. We feel like it’s time for this to be abol­ished,” said Marvin Warner, the assis­tant pas­tor for North New Hope Baptist Church in Danville. Rev. Jim Curran of the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk drew on Catholic teach­ing against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, say­ing, ​“Pope Francis repeats the death penal­ty is inad­mis­si­ble and there can be no step­ping back from that position.”

A bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 18. It must be approved by the Senate Finance Committee before it can be con­sid­ered by the full Senate. Companion bills in the House of Delegates are still await­ing com­mit­tee approval. Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring have both offered their sup­port for abo­li­tion, join­ing more than a dozen pros­e­cu­tors across the commonwealth.

Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Colette McEachin became the lat­est pros­e­cu­tor to urge the leg­is­la­ture to repeal the death penal­ty. On January 22, she announced that her office would not seek death sen­tences and said, ​“Death should not be imposed unless soci­ety can guar­an­tee that new evi­dence will nev­er prove that sen­tence incor­rect. That guar­an­tee can­not exist. Life in prison with­out parole — in effect, being sen­tenced to die in prison by the com­mu­ni­ty you harmed — is a sig­nif­i­cant and just punishment.”

The his­to­ry of the death penal­ty in Virginia demon­strates dra­mat­ic racial dis­par­i­ties. From 1900 – 1969, 73 Black men were exe­cut­ed for rape, attempt­ed rape, or rob­bery but no white men were exe­cut­ed for any of these crimes. Of those exe­cut­ed for mur­der dur­ing the same peri­od, 185 were Black and 46 were white. Virginia’s 19^th-Century laws explic­it­ly cod­i­fied cap­i­tal crimes by race: while white defen­dants could be exe­cut­ed only for first-degree mur­der, enslaved Black defen­dants could be exe­cut­ed for numer­ous non-homicidal crimes.

If Virginia abol­ish­es the death penal­ty, it will become the 23^rd state to do so, and the first in a for­mer Confederate state. No one has been exe­cut­ed in Virginia since 2017, and no new death sen­tences have been imposed since 2011. Just two peo­ple remain on the commonwealth’s death row. No Atlantic coast state north of Virginia still per­mits the death penalty.