Смертная казнь в Вирджинии: от первых казней до отмены (1608–2021)

Executions (1608–2017)
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 United States history 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. Since then, Virginia has executed more than 1,300 people, the most of any other state. In the modern, post Gregg era, Virginia conducted 113 executions, the third most in the country, behind only Texas and Oklahoma. The last execution in the state was on July 6, 2017, when William Morva was executed via lethal injection for murder.

The first recorded execution in the United States took place in 1608 at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. Captain George Kendall was executed for treason. Hanging was the predominant method for executions before 1909. Other methods had been used during this time — three people convicted of piracy in 1700 were gibbeted, four pirates were hanged in chains in 1720, and a female slave was burned in 1737. From 1910 until 1994, the electric chair was used for all executions. On February 2, 1951, four African Americans (of the Martinsville Seven) were executed for rape in one case and another was executed for murder in an unrelated case—the most executions held on a single day in Virginia. On February 5, 1951, the remaining three defendants in the rape case were executed. The case of the Martinsville Seven led to scrutiny of racial bias in death penalties for rape in Virginia. Only Black men were executed for rape, de jure through the end of the Civil War, and de facto since the introduction of the electric chair. The last execution for rape took place on February 17, 1961. The youngest person to have been executed in Virginia was Percy Ellis, who at the age of 16 was electrocuted on March 15, 1916. Only two women, Virginia Christian in 1912 and Teresa Lewis in 2010, were put to death by the state, when it took over executions from the counties.

After the Supreme Court of the United States upheld Georgia's "guided discretion" laws in Gregg v. Georgia, Virginia's laws were modified along the same lines. The first person executed after being sentenced to death under these laws was Frank J. Coppola on August 10, 1982. He was the first person executed by the state in the modern era. The electric chair continued to be solely used until 1994, when legislation was enacted giving inmates the choice of lethal injection or the electric chair, with lethal injection the default method if no decision was made. Seven inmates opted for the Virginia electric chair; the last to do so was Robert Gleason on January 16, 2013. Former Governor Tim Kaine has also stated that he opposes the option of the electric chair, but did not move to drop it as an option while in office. Executions were carried out at Greensville Correctional Center near Jarratt, Virginia; the men's death row was located at the Sussex I State Prison near Waverly, Virginia and the women's death row was at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. The execution chamber moved from the former Virginia State Penitentiary to Greensville in 1991. On August 3, 1998, the male death row moved from Mecklenburg Correctional Center to Sussex I. In 1992, Roger Keith Coleman was executed by the state for the 1981 rape and murder of his sister in law Wanda McCoy. Coleman's case drew national and worldwide attention before and after his execution because of his repeated claims of innocence: Time magazine featured Coleman on its May 18, 1992, cover. After his death, his was the second case nationally in which DNA evidence was analyzed of an executed man. In January 2006, Virginia Governor Mark Warner announced that testing of DNA evidence had conclusively proven that Coleman was guilty of the crime. On November 10, 2009, Virginia executed spree killer John Allen Muhammad for the 2002 D. C. sniper attacks during which he killed 10 people. He was tried in Virginia rather than the District of Columbia in order to establish an impartial jury pool, and his death sentence was finalized in six years. The last person to be sentenced to death in Virginia was Mark E. Lawlor, sentenced June 23, 2011, by the Honorable Randy I. Bellows of Fairfax County Circuit Court. In 2020, however, Lawlor won a federal appeal which required a retrial of the sentencing phase, and the new commonwealth attorney chose to reduce the sentence to life in prison without parole citing their personal beliefs regarding capital punishment.

In February 2021, the Virginia General Assembly voted to abolish the death penalty, and Governor Ralph Northam signed the bill into law on March 24, 2021. The bill took effect on July 1, 2021. Only two people were on death row in Virginia at the time of the abolition: Anthony Juniper and Thomas A. Porter. Their sentences were commuted to life without parole. The last execution in Virginia occurred in July 2017, when William Morva was executed for two murders he committed in 2006. The daughter of one of his victims supported the bill to end capital punishment, calling the practice outdated, ineffective, and failing to provide her any closure.

Before abolition, when the prosecution intended to seek the death penalty, the sentence was decided by the jury and had to be unanimous. In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence was issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there was no retrial). The governor held the power of clemency with respect to death sentences. The method of execution up until abolition was lethal injection, unless the condemned requested electrocution instead. State law specified that at least six citizens who are not employees of the Department of Corrections were required to serve as witnesses to the execution. Since Governor George Allen signed an executive order on the matter in 1994, relatives of the victim(s) in the case had the right to witness the execution. Relatives of the condemned inmate were barred from being present. Virginia was the state with the shortest time on average between death sentence and execution (less than 8 years).