Virginia has become the 23rd state, and first southern state of the United States of America to abolish capital punishment.
Governor Ralph Northam was expected to approve a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, after lawmakers gave the legislation their final approval on Monday. This is a dramatic shift in politics for a state that has used the death penalty more than any other.
Virginia has executed nearly 1,400 people in total since its days as a colony according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Since the US court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Virginia with 113 executions is second only to Texas.
“Two men now remain on death row who will be resentenced to life without parole.”
Democratic Del. Michael Mullin, who sponsored to the Bill, said: “There have been people who have put abolition forward for the better part of four decades.
“But we’ve never had a Governor who went out forcefully and with a full-throated approach to abolish the death penalty”.
Two men now remain on death row who will be resentenced to life without parole. Anthony Juniper, who was sentenced to death in 2004 for the murder of four people, and Thomas Porter, who has been on death row since he was sentenced for killing a Norfolk police officer in 2005.
According to Death penalty information Centre, Virginia’s high number is the combined result of poor defence representation and strict procedural rules in the country, under which defendants can be denied any judicial reviews of legal claims if their lawyers missed a filing deadline.
This meant that poorer defendants, who couldn’t afford more experienced attorneys were more likely to be executed without ‘any meaningful review of their cases’.
Historically, Virginia’s death penalty has been applied disproportionately to people of colour.
A substantial body of academic research confirms a persistent racial bias in which defendants charged with killing white victims, blacks are more likely than whites to receive a death sentence.
A study conducted by North Caroline and Georgetown Law Centre confirms there are a disproportionately higher number of cases in which blacks are executed for killing whites, and very few cases in which whites are executed for killing blacks.
The abolition of capital punishment Virginia also comes at a time of renewed debate in the US.
Former President Donald Trump’s decision to resume capital punishment resulted in 13 people put to death in a matter of months during his final year in office – six of which were carried out after the 2020 election in the months leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“capital punishment in the US may become a thing of the past.”
However, research suggests that growing awareness of the role race plays in the criminal justice system has helped decrease support for capital punishment in the American public.
In May 1995, Gallup found that 77% of American’s were in favour of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, compared to 55% in 2020.
If conversations of abolition spread further to other southern states, capital punishment in the US may become a thing of the past. Joe Biden may be able to uphold promises he made in his presidential campaign to end the federal death penalty.
Millie Lockhart
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