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Thread: Virginia Capital Punishment News

  1. #191
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    Nevada is another state that will likely repeal soon. It’s too bad we didn’t have the same SCOTUS 20 years ago when states were actually serious. Same with the 9th Circuit, it’s grown more conservative but states have moved away from the death penalty for it to matter on that one issue.

  2. #192
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
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    Unless if your in a ruby red state like Alabama or Nebraska it’s not going to last anymore. It might not even last at the Federal level. Yes we have slim majorities that are controlled by the Democrats in Congress but trusting any democrat on this anymore not a wise decision. Shep did say at the Federal level they’ll have to nuke the filibuster for it.
    Last edited by Neil; 01-18-2021 at 12:21 PM.

  3. #193
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Legislation to abolish death penalty advances in Virginia Senate

    By Ned Oliver
    Virginia Mercury

    Legislation to abolish the death penalty in Virginia cleared its first legislative hurdle Monday, passing out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on 10-4 vote, with nine Democrats and one Republican supporting the measure.

    Supporters of the bill, which include Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration and an array of faith leaders, argued the death penalty has been disproportionately used against Black defendants and noted the sentence has repeatedly been handed down in cases where defendants were subsequently exonerated.

    “Historically the use of capital punishment has been inequitable,” Northam’s chief counsel, Rita Davis, said, citing data that shows prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty in cases where the defendant is Black and the victim is White.

    Law enforcement groups and their supporters testified against the repeal, including the Virginia State Police Association and family members of officers who were killed in the line of duty.

    “If you do go down this road, at least put a provision that law enforcement aren’t out there alone,” said former Republican state Sen. Bill Carrico, a retired state trooper, calling for a death sentence to remain an option for people convicted of killing police officers.

    However, family members of fallen officers were not unanimous in their opposition. Rachel Sutphin, the daughter of a Montgomery County sheriff’s corporal killed by William Morva, called the death penalty “an ineffective and outdated measure that brings no solace to family members.” Morva was executed in 2017, the last execution carried out by the state.

    The bill still needs approval from the Senate’s Finance Committee to make it to the chamber’s floor for a full vote, but Monday’s vote suggests the measure has significantly more support than last year, when it failed to make it out of committee in either the House or the Senate. The only Republican to support the bill, Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, did not speak on the measure.

    There are currently two men on death row in Virginia. Their executions have not yet been scheduled.

    https://www.virginiamercury.com/blog...rginia-senate/
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  4. #194
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    The Senate Finance committee has now reported it to the full senate, Republican Jill Vogel, who was the 2017 GOP Lieutenant Governor nominee joined all democrats in supporting it.

  5. #195
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
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    Vogel doesn’t surprise me. She’s very iffy on crime. Goodbye to Virginia’s death penalty.

  6. #196
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    With the full senate having now passed it, the house of delegates is almost certainly a formality.

  7. #197
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
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    Virginia House joins Senate in voting to end death penalty

    RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia moved another step closer to ending capital punishment on Friday when the state House joined the Senate in voting to abolish the death penalty.

    Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam supports the legislation, which would make Virginia the 23rd state to stop executions. It’s a dramatic shift for Virginia, which has put more people to death over its centuries-long history than any other state.

    “Today, our Commonwealth took a historic step in making our criminal justice system more just,” House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn said in a statement. “The repeal of capital punishment in Virginia takes our Commonwealth out of the business of determining life and death and ends a practice that a majority of Virginia oppose.” The bill passed on a 57-41 vote, which followed a heated debate in the chamber a day earlier. The vote fell mostly along party lines, but three Republicans joined with all Democrats but one in voting for passage. Two lawmakers, one from each party, did not vote.

    Democrats favoring abolishment said the death penalty is an archaic punishment in an era when many countries have already moved away from the practice, and too costly to implement, given the litigation involved. They also said it has been applied unfairly, with people of color, the mentally ill and the indigent more likely to end up on death row.

    “The government should not be in the business of killing human beings. It’s immoral, inhumane,” Democratic Del. Marcus Simon said.

    Republicans raised concerns about justice for the victims and their family members, and warned that some killers who otherwise would be on death row could end up being released on parole.

    Del. Jason Miyares described the crimes committed by several of the men recently executed by the state in graphic, heartbreaking detail and argued that certain crimes are so cruel and depraved that the perpetrators deserve “the ultimate punishment.”

    “If there’s one word to describe what happened to these victims, it is just cruelty. Unimaginable cruelty on a scale that’s hard to even process,” he said.

    Only two men remain on death row in Virginia. The legislation would convert their sentences to life in prison without parole.

    Each chamber’s bill now moves to the other side for votes that should be perfunctory. Should the legislation become law, it will mark a substantial policy shift for Virginia, which has executed nearly 1,400 people since its days as a colony, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In modern times, Virginia trails only Texas in the number of executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

    Virginia’s pace has significantly slowed in recent years, but executions proceeded in the past decade under both Republican and Democratic governors. And the state legislature and state officials have acted in recent years to preserve Virginia’s ability to carry out executions and limit transparency around the process. When GOP lawmakers controlled the General Assembly in 2016, they advanced a measure that would have forced inmates to die by electric chair if lethal injection drugs couldn’t be found.

    Then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and Catholic who said he personally opposed the death penalty, objected to that bill but introduced a substitute proposal to keep secret the identities of pharmacies that supply lethal-injection drugs for executions.

    In 2017, prison officials revised their procedures to remove more of the execution process from public view after attorneys raised concerns about how long it took to insert intravenous lines into the body of convicted killer Ricky Gray for his execution that January. Last year, death penalty abolition bills in the General Assembly went nowhere.

    Michael Stone, the executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, attributes the dramatic shift to a new focus on racial disparities in the criminal justice system. He credits the Black Lives Matter movement and related protests in response to the death of George Floyd last year.

    “The energy behind that movement and the desire for reform really animated our effort to a significant extent,” Stone said.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/wtop.co...h-penalty/amp/
    Last edited by Neil; 02-05-2021 at 12:50 PM.

  8. #198
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
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    With Northam’s signature, Virginia will become first Southern state to abolish the death penalty

    Virginia is on the verge of becoming the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty after lawmakers gave final approval Monday to a bill that would repeal capital punishment, sending the legislation to the desk of Gov. Ralph Northam (D).

    The Virginia Senate passed a House bill that removes executions from the list of punishments in Virginia Code and makes life in prison without the possibility of parole the maximum sentence the commonwealth can implement.

    The Senate voted 22-16 on Monday, with state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (R-Fauquier) joining Democrats, to approve the measure. The House approved the state Senate’s own version of the bill, 57-43, not long after senators voted.

    Northam, who endorsed the effort before the 2021 General Assembly session, seems poised to sign the legislation as he released a joint statement with the state’s Democratic leadership, House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) and Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw (D-Fairfax), moments after the state Senate approved the House’s bill.

    “It is vital that our criminal justice system operates fairly and punishes people equitably. We all know the death penalty doesn’t do that,” they said. “It is inequitable, ineffective, and inhumane.”

    “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,” the statement continued. The legislation would commute the death sentences of the two offenders currently on death row in Virginia to life without the possibility of parole. It redefines capital murder as aggravated murder and requires a judge to sentence every person convicted moving forward to life in prison.

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court let states resume the death penalty in 1976, Virginia has conducted the second most executions at 113, behind only Texas. Despite this, the last execution in Virginia was in 2017.

    According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 25 states still have the death penalty, 22 don’t and three have moratoriums imposed by their governors.

    https://www.wric.com/news/politics/c...h-penalty/amp/

  9. #199
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Wasn’t West Virginia the first southern state to abolish?
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  10. #200
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
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    This is going to aggravate Heidi and I the most. My former state which was the strongest execution state in the country for many years will now lose the ultimate punishment. One thing though Virginia did accomplish with their super speed appeals, they essentially executed everyone they put on death row.

    No other state can say they executed close to the amount of people they put on death row. Not even Texas can. While Texas might’ve had over 1100 death sentences and they executed so many relative to Virginia. Texas only executed half the eleven hundred death sentences they had. Virginia on the other hand executed 113 out of 149 death row inmates they put on death row.
    Last edited by Neil; 02-24-2021 at 12:59 AM.

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