Virginia Senate Passes Bill to Abolish the Death Penalty

The Virginia Senate moved the com­mon­wealth one step clos­er to becom­ing the first Southern state to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, vot­ing 21 – 17 on February 3, 2021 to approve a bill that would end the state’s death penal­ty and resen­tence the two men on death row to life without parole. 

The par­ty-line vote clears a major hur­dle in the commonwealth’s his­toric effort at abo­li­tion. The bill could see a vote in the House of Delegates as soon as February 5, after a com­pan­ion mea­sure passed the House Courts of Justice Committee, also on February 3, by a vote of 15 – 6‑1. Governor Ralph Northam, who is spon­sor­ing the leg­is­la­tion, praised the Senate vote as ​“tremen­dous step toward end­ing the death penal­ty in our Commonwealth.” In a state­ment released to the media, he said, ​“It’s time for Virginia to join 22 oth­er states and abol­ish the death penal­ty. I applaud every Senator who cast a coura­geous vote today, and I look for­ward to sign­ing this bill into law.” 

In the lead-up to the Senate vote, the Wason Center for Civic Leadership released a poll show­ing that a major­i­ty of Virginians (56%) sup­port repeal of the death penal­ty. Support was strongest among Democrats (74%), Black vot­ers (72%), and peo­ple under 45 (62%). More than one-third of Republican respon­dents (36%) said they sup­port­ed the measure. 

Despite bipar­ti­san pop­u­lar sup­port for end­ing the death penal­ty, no Republicans vot­ed for the repeal bill. In a dra­mat­ic turn dur­ing the floor debate on the mea­sure, two Republican law­mak­ers who had vot­ed to advance the bill out of com­mit­tee with­drew their support. 

Sen. William Stanley, who had ini­tial­ly signed on as a co-patron of the bill, abstained from vot­ing after express­ing frus­tra­tion that his col­leagues had vot­ed down an amend­ment that would have guar­an­teed that defen­dants con­vict­ed of aggra­vat­ed mur­der would nev­er be released on parole. Sen. Jill Vogel, who also had sup­port­ed the bill in com­mit­tee, vot­ed against the bill say­ing it left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty that pris­on­ers con­vict­ed of aggra­vat­ed mur­der could even­tu­al­ly be released. The Washington Post report­ed that the dis­pute had cost the bill three Republican votes and the man­tle of bipartisanship. 

The debate on the bill high­light­ed sys­temic prob­lems endem­ic to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includ­ing the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple, the cost of death-penal­ty cas­es, and per­sis­tent racial bias in its appli­ca­tion. ​“I can­not think of any­thing that is more awful, unspeak­able and wrong for a gov­ern­ment to do than to use its pow­er to exe­cute some­body who didn’t com­mit the crime they’re accused of,” Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell, the bill’s spon­sor, said. ​“The prob­lem with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is that once it’s inflict­ed you can’t take it back, it can’t be corrected.” 

Sen. Jennifer McClellan shared the sto­ry of Jerry Givens, who car­ried out 62 exe­cu­tions in Virginia before becom­ing an anti-death penal­ty activist and speak­ing out about the toll exe­cu­tions take on cor­rec­tions offi­cers. Several sen­a­tors said they opposed repeal because they believe the death penal­ty offers jus­tice for fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims. In response, Sen. Janet Howell gave an emo­tion­al descrip­tion of how the mur­der of her father-in-law caused her to ques­tion her for­mer sup­port of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The prospect of the death penal­ty divid­ed her fam­i­ly, she said. ​“I don’t buy the idea that we would sup­port the death penal­ty for the ben­e­fit of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. It doesn’t work that way. Trust me, it doesn’t work that way.” 

Virginia’s move toward abo­li­tion is seen as a land­mark event because of the state’s his­to­ry and its once-heavy use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. No for­mer Confederate state has abol­ished the death penal­ty. The first exe­cu­tion per­formed by Europeans in what is now the United States took place in Virginia’s Jamestown colony in 1608. In its 400-year his­to­ry, the com­mon­wealth has exe­cut­ed more peo­ple than any oth­er state, and in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty, since exe­cu­tions resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s, it is sec­ond only to Texas.