This. Is. Big.
Virginia, a former Confederate state that has executed more people than any other state in the country, just just voted to end the death penalty, with the House of Delegates passing an abolition bill 57-41.
Virginia’s achievement today once again sounds the death penalty’s demise. But it does more than that. It shows the nation what must be done to reckon with our justice system’s deep-rooted racism.
Over the past year, millions of Americans witnessed the murders of Black people by police, violent suppression of protests, and finally a spree of vicious executions by the last presidential administration. Virginia is taking action on our collective horror and will become an example for a nation that needs to reconcile.
Lawmakers — from both sides of the aisle — came together at the request of murder victims’ family members, civil rights leaders, clergy, and thousands of Virginians to put an end to the broken, failed, racist relic that is the death penalty. They did it in the memory of Jerry Givens, a former Virginia executioner who died last summer of COVID-19 after years of sharing his story of the trauma and regret of participating in executions. And they did it the name of Earl Washington, Jr, a man with an intellectual disability who came with eight days of execution before he was exonerated — cleared of the crime for which he was about to be put to death.
With the Senate passing a different, but identically worded, bill earlier this week, lawmakers will have to come together for the formality of a reconciliation sometime in the next week. Then the bill will go on to the governor’s desk, where he has promised to sign it.
We are so grateful to our partners in Virginia for their hard work in making this victory possible, and for people like you who stand with us to do this work toward a more equitable and healing justice system.
