Virginia Becomes 23^rd State and the First in the South to Abolish the Death Penalty

Saying “[t]here is no place today for the death penal­ty in this com­mon­wealth, in the South, or in this nation,” Governor Ralph Northam (pic­tured) signed his­toric leg­is­la­tion mak­ing Virginia the 23^rd U.S. state and the first in the South to abol­ish capital punishment. 

Governor Northam signed the bill in a March 24, 2021 cer­e­mo­ny at the Greensville Correctional Center, where the commonwealth’s exe­cu­tion cham­ber had been locat­ed since 1991. With Virginia’s abo­li­tion, a major­i­ty of U.S. states (26) have either abol­ished the death penal­ty or have a for­mal mora­to­ri­um on executions.

“Signing this new law is the right thing to do,” Northam said. ​“It is the moral thing to do.”

Northam was joined at the bill sign­ing by leg­is­la­tors, anti-death penal­ty activists, cap­i­tal attor­neys, and faith lead­ers. Delegate Mike Mullin, a crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tor and spon­sor of the abo­li­tion leg­is­la­tion, spoke about the racial bias in Virginia’s use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“We’ve car­ried out the death penal­ty in extra­or­di­nar­i­ly unfair fash­ion,” he said. ​“Only four times out of near­ly 1400 [exe­cu­tions] was the defen­dant white and the vic­tim Black.” Rev. LaKeisha Cook, jus­tice reform orga­niz­er for the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, said at the cer­e­mo­ny, ​“Today, we start a new chap­ter, embrac­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a new, evi­dence-based approach to pub­lic safe­ty: one that val­ues the dig­ni­ty of all human beings and is focused on trans­form­ing the jus­tice sys­tem into one that is root­ed in fair­ness, account­abil­i­ty, and redemption.”

On February 3, the Virginia Senate vot­ed along par­ty lines, 21 – 17, in favor of abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Two days lat­er, three Republicans joined all but one Democrat in the Virginia House of Delegates in a 57 – 41 vote to repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Each leg­isla­tive body approved the oth­er house’s bill on February 22, mark­ing the final step before the leg­is­la­tion moved to the governor’s desk.

The repeal effort was sup­port­ed by Governor Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring. Northam issued a call to abol­ish the death penal­ty dur­ing his January 13, 2021 State of the Commonwealth address mark­ing the open­ing of the 2021 leg­isla­tive ses­sion. ​“It’s time to change the law and end the death penal­ty in Virginia,” Northam said. ​“We’re tak­ing these actions because we val­ue peo­ple and we believe in treat­ing them equi­tably.” According to a Wason Center for Civic Leadership poll released in February, a major­i­ty of Virginians (56%) sup­port repeal of the death penalty.

A group of twelve reform pros­e­cu­tors, from juris­dic­tions rep­re­sent­ing 40% of Virginia’s pop­u­la­tion, urged the leg­is­la­ture to pass the bill. ​“The death penal­ty is unjust, racial­ly biased, and inef­fec­tive at deter­ring crime,” they wrote. ​“We have more equi­table and effec­tive means of keep­ing our com­mu­ni­ties safe and address­ing society’s most heinous crimes. It is past time for Virginia to end this antiquated practice.” 

In 1608, Virginia was the first European colony to car­ry out an exe­cu­tion in what is now the United States and the 1,390 exe­cu­tions it has con­duct­ed are the most of an U.S. juris­dic­tion. It has put 113 pris­on­ers to death since exe­cu­tions resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s, sec­ond only to Texas. 

“Virginia’s abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is tremen­dous­ly sig­nif­i­cant, both in terms of the death penalty’s con­tin­u­ing nation­wide decline and as an his­tor­i­cal mark­er of race rela­tions in the United States,” said DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham. ​“No state that has relied so heav­i­ly on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has ever before repealed its death penal­ty. Going back to colo­nial times, Virginia has con­duct­ed more exe­cu­tions than any oth­er U.S. juris­dic­tion and, in the mod­ern era, it trails only Texas in the num­ber of peo­ple it has put to death.”

“The sym­bol­ic val­ue of a leg­is­la­ture sit­ting in the for­mer cap­i­tal of the Confederacy dis­man­tling this tool of racial oppres­sion can­not be over­stat­ed,” Dunham said.

“Virginia’s death penal­ty is root­ed in racial oppres­sion,” LaKeisha Cook from the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy said. ​“Now that it is com­ing to an end, we can start a new chap­ter that embraces an evi­dence-based approach to pub­lic safe­ty: One that val­ues the dig­ni­ty of all human beings and is focused on trans­form­ing the jus­tice sys­tem into one root­ed in fair­ness, account­abil­i­ty, and redemption.”