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Virginia Will Join 22 States In Abolishing The Death Penalty

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Bills abolishing the death penalty within the Commonwealth have passed both houses of the General Assembly, and Governor Ralph Northam has already expressed his support. His signature will make Virginia the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty.

Virginia will become the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty after two bills passed both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly on Monday. 

In a release issued earlier this month, Gov. Ralph Northam said he looks forward to signing a legislation that outlaws the death penalty. 

Under current state law, an offender convicted of a Class 1 felony who is at least 18 years of age at the time of the offense and without an intellectual disability faces a sentence of life imprisonment or death. 

The identical House and Senate bills eliminate death from the list of possible punishments for a Class 1 felony. The bills do not allow the possibility of parole, good conduct allowance, or earned sentence credits. The measures will also reclassify capital murders to aggravated murders. 

The move will change the sentence for the two remaining inmates on death row to life imprisonment without eligibility of parole, good conduct allowance, or earned sentence credits. 

House Bill 2263, introduced by Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, passed the Senate Monday on a 22-16 vote following a lengthy floor debate. While both parties reached an agreement on eliminating the death penalty, Republicans argued for a proposed amendment to remove the possibility of a shortened life sentence. 

Under current state law, judges are able to suspend part of life sentences, with the exception of the murder of a law enforcement officer. Neither bill will change this policy.

In Monday’s hearing, Sen. William Stanley, R-Franklin, argued for a floor substitute that would replace capital murder charges with a mandatory minimum life sentence. The government should not have the ability to sentence people to death due to the possibility of false convictions, but those who commit “heinous” crimes should never face the possibility of parole, he said. 

“If you kill multiple people, or under the circumstances under our death penalty statute, you should not see the light of day,” Stanley said. “You should not taste liberty and freedom again.” 

Sen. Scott Surovell

Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, who sponsored the Senate bill that passed the House, said adopting Stanley’s amendment would introduce 14 new mandatory minimum life sentences. 

“I think it’s awfully presumptuous for us to just decide that these 14 situations deserve this one and only punishment,” Surovell said. 

Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Richmond, furthered the argument against the amendment by mentioning a Washington Post article on the recent release of Joe Ligon at age 83. Ligon was sentenced to life imprisonment at 15 years old, pleading guilty under the impression that he would be eligible for parole 10 years later, Morrissey said. He was released from prison after serving 68 years. 

“That seems to be inconsistent,” Morrissey said, referring to Stanley’s argument that while juries can get it wrong, a convicted person sentenced to life imprisonment should never be able to seek parole. “If you get it wrong, and somebody is executed, you can also get it wrong when you sentence somebody to life in prison.” 

Judges currently have the authority to ensure life sentences and will have the same authority with the bill’s passage, Surovell said.

The floor substitute by Stanley was rejected. 

“Prison Bars Jail Cell” by JobsForFelonsHub is licensed with CC BY 2.0

Concluding the hearing, Surovell offered final remarks on the importance of Virginia’s step to abolish the death penalty. He believes the new measure speaks to the commonwealth’s humility and value of human life. 

“It says a lot about how our commonwealth is going to move past some of our darkest moments in terms of how this punishment was applied and who it was applied to,” Surovell said. 

Surovell hopes that the measure’s passage will “send a message to the rest of the world that Virginia is back to leading on criminal justice.”

Northam; House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn and Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw issued a joint statement regarding the legislations’ passages. 

“Thanks to the vote of lawmakers in both chambers, Virginia will join 22 other states that have ended use of the death penalty. This is an important step forward in ensuring that our criminal justice system is fair and equitable to all.”

Written by Christina Amano Dolan, Capital News Service. Top Photo courtesy of the Virginia General Assembly website.

Virginia House and Senate Advance Bills to Abolish Death Penalty

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Governor Northam has voiced his support for abolishing the death penalty in Virginia, and now both houses of the General Assembly have voted in favor of abolishing it as well.

After over 400 years of conducting more executions than any other state, Virginia may become the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. 

The Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates each passed identical bills this week to abolish the death penalty. Virginia would become the 23rd state to abolish capital punishment if either bill advances in the other’s chamber and is signed by the governor.

Under current state law, an offender convicted of a Class 1 felony who is at least 18 years of age at the time of the offense and without an intellectual disability faces a sentence of life imprisonment or death. 

The House and Senate bills eliminate death from the list of possible punishments for a Class 1 felony. The bills do not allow the possibility of parole, good conduct allowance, or earned sentence credits. Judges are able to suspend part of life sentences, with the exception of the murder of a law enforcement officer. 

Senate Bill 1165, introduced by Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, passed the Senate on a 21-17 vote. House Bill 2263, introduced by Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, passed the House Friday on a 57-41 vote. Three Republicans supported the House measure.

Any person previously sentenced to death by July 1 will have their sentence changed to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole, good conduct allowance, or earned sentence credits. According to the House bill’s impact statement, there are two Virginia inmates on death row, but no execution date has been set for these inmates as of December. 

In a floor hearing earlier this week, Mullin discussed how the measure would ultimately save money, as the death penalty is a “huge financial burden on the commonwealth.” Virginia spends approximately $3.9 million annually to maintain four capital defender offices, which only handles capital cases, according to the House bill’s fiscal impact statement. The measure will likely eliminate the need for these offices. 

“If we keep the death penalty in place, we are prolonging an expensive, ineffective, and flawed system,” Mullin said. 

Del. Michael Mullin

Mullin said Virginia has a dark history of extreme racial bias and occasional false convictions within the judicial system. 

Referencing the 1985 case of Earl Washington, Mullin argued the commonwealth “knows the risks of killing an innocent person very well.” Washington, a wrongfully convicted death row inmate, came within nine days of his execution. 

“Perhaps the strongest argument for abolishing the death penalty is that a justice system without the death penalty allows us the possibility of being wrong,” Mullin said. 

In a debate during Friday’s House vote, defenders of the death penalty called attention to the victims of capital cases. Del. Jason S. Miyares, R-Virginia Beach, told his colleagues that “these victims are begging not to be forgotten.” He argued that executing those who commit the “ultimate crimes” is justice, not vengeance. 

“That’s what the death penalty is … it’s not revenge, it’s not eye for an eye, it’s our society, our civilization, holding someone accountable for their actions, allowing our juries to decide about the ultimate punishment,” Miyares said. 

Del. Mark H. Levine, D-Alexandria, a supporter of the bill, concluded the debate by speaking of his own painful experience. Speaking of his sister’s murder, Levine argued that the bill isn’t about him, his sister, or the victims, but about the state’s potential to kill innocent people. 

“I’ve seen evil, I’ve looked it in the face,” Levine said. “I know evil exists, there is no dispute about that. But taking an innocent person’s life — that’s evil, and it would be evil to be done by this General Assembly.” 

Gov. Ralph Northam said in a press release earlier this week that he looks forward to signing the bill into law. 

“The practice is fundamentally inequitable,” Northam said. “It is inhumane. It is ineffective. And we know that in some cases, people on death row have been found innocent.”

Written by Christina Amano Dolan, Capital News Service. Top Photo courtesy of the Virginia General Assembly website.

Advocates Call on General Assembly to Abolish Death Penalty

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A group led by family members of murder victims is petitioning the General Assembly to abolish Virginia’s death penalty, arguing that capital punishment “fails victims’ families.”

Christiansburg resident Rachel Sutphin mourns the loss of two men’s lives every day: her father, Cpl. Eric Sutphin, and his killer, William Morva. Morva murdered Sutphin, who worked for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, in Blacksburg on Aug. 6, 2006. 

On Thursday, Sutphin joined other families at a press conference to ask the General Assembly to abolish the death penalty. 

“With the abolition of the penalty, families like mine will no longer suffer through the long process of mandatory death sentence appeals,” Sutphin said, noting that these appeals could drag on for years. “Instead, a sentence of life in prison without parole offers a resolution and finality to murder victim family members more quickly than the death penalty.”

The Virginians for Alternatives for the Death Penalty, an organization advocating to end capital punishment, said that so far, 13 family members of murder victims have signed a letter for the General Assembly to consider passing legislation to abolish the death penalty.

Advocates hope that an upcoming Democratic majority legislature could help Virginia become the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty. 

“The death penalty is said to be reserved for ‘particularly heinous murders.’ We have difficulty understanding this position,” the VADP stated. “From experience, we can tell you that, to victims’ families, every murder is heinous.”

According to Michael Stone, executive director of VADP, nearly two-thirds of the state’s 133 counties have not had an execution in over 50 years. Stone said that in the last eight years, no one has been sentenced to death in the state, though there have been executions.

Virginia is one of 29 states where the death penalty is legal, although four states — Oregon, California, Pennsylvania and Colorado — have a governor-ordered moratorium, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that educates the public on capital punishment. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Virginia ranks second to Texas in executions since 1976. Morva was the last person to be executed, in July 2017, after former Gov. Terry McAuliffe declined to approve his petition for clemency. Two people are still on death row, but Stone said the Virginia Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded their cases to the lower courts to consider whether errors in each trial could result in their cases being overturned.

The official letter calling on the General Assembly to abolish the death penalty. (Image via VCU-CNS)

Along with the 13 family members, many others across the state have rallied behind the idea of abolishing the death penalty. Organizations like the Virginia Catholic Conference, a public policy agency representing Virginia’s Catholic bishops and their Richmond and Arlington dioceses, have spoken in favor of ending the punishment, along with the ACLU. Before Morva’s execution, 22 members of the General Assembly, in addition to Rachel Sutphin, wrote McAuliffe in support of Morva’s clemency.

Stone said abolishing the death penalty is a nonpartisan issue, but ending it won’t happen until legislators also see it that way. 

“We’ve been working really hard for the past four years in building support across the political spectrum for abolition,” Stone said. “We felt by 2020, we would have the most support to have a serious favor in the legislature.”

Sutphin said memories of her father and his killer stay with her to this day, and she still fights to end the “ineffective, outdated punishment.”

“Mr. Morva’s execution brought no solace to me, but, instead, it strengthened my resolve that the death penalty needs to be abolished.”

Written by Christopher Brown, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Michael Stone and Rachel Sutphin, via VCU-CNS