Capital punishment in Virginia

Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, when Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law. The law took effect on July 1, 2021. Virginia is the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, and the first southern state in the United States to do so.

The first execution in what would become the United States was carried out in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608, when Captain George Kendall was executed in Jamestown for spying. Death penalty researcher Daniel Hearn has placed the number of executions in the state as over 2,000. In the modern, post-Gregg era, Virginia conducted 113 executions, the fourth most in the country, behind only Texas, Oklahoma and Florida. The last execution in the state was on July 6, 2017, when William Morva was executed via lethal injection for murder.

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