Today, Governor Ralph Northam signed the bill to repeal Virginia’s death penalty, enacting it into law. Virginia is officially the 23rd state to end its death penalty.
The work on the ground to achieve this victory was amazing, including our partners from Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the Virginia Interfaith Center on Public Policy.
The signing ceremony was the final action of a crushing blow against the death penalty, one of our nation’s most visible and egregious responses to violence. But what happened in Virginia in recent months, and stretching back well into 2020, is about so much more.
This victory you helped make possible is part of our country’s reckoning with a deep and wide legacy of injustice. Virginia is the first former Confederate state to abolish capital punishment. It comes after a year that saw the dismantling of 168 Confederate symbols across the nation. Nearly half of those symbols were found in the commonwealth.
Our national tolerance of hatred and racism is weakening. There is a renewed urgency to end mass incarceration, police violence, and all existence of systemic racism.
Given the historical context, we should not underestimate how important the repeal of Virginia’s death penalty is to that larger movement.
You make victories like this possible. People like you are the ones that take actions, spread the word, and make the donations that give this movement its strength.
Please take a moment to relish this winning campaign and the movement you’re sustaining.
