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Virginia law, March 2021

Virginia ended the death penalty, the first Southern state to do so

Ink drawing of Mike Mullin
Ink drawing of Scott Surovell

Carried by

Illustrations from photos.See the photo of Mullin (Virginia House of Delegates)© Virginia House of Delegates, used as a drawing reference.See the photo of Surovell (WrenFalcon, via Wikimedia Commons)CC BY 4.0.

  • 113 people Virginia executed from 1976 to 2017, more than any state but Texas
  • 2 death sentences changed to life without parole

Working now. In effect since July 2021.

What it means for you

Virginia executed 113 people from 1976 to 2017, second only to Texas. A 2021 law abolished capital punishment as of July 1, 2021, and changed the two existing death sentences to life without parole.

Who benefits: People who otherwise could face a death sentence under Virginia law, including the two people under death sentences when the law passed.

Virginia courts can no longer sentence anyone to death under state law. The identical 2021 laws ended capital punishment for state crimes and applied to people already sentenced, so the two men then on death row had their sentences changed to life in prison without parole.

This was a big shift for a state with a long history of executions. Since 1976, Virginia carried out 113 executions, more than any state except Texas. By the time of the vote, executions had already slowed: the last one was in 2017, and the last new death sentence came in 2011.

Del. Mike Mullin and Sen. Scott Surovell sponsored the identical bills, and Gov. Ralph Northam pushed for abolition in his 2021 State of the Commonwealth speech. The House passed HB 2263 by 57–41, with three Republicans voting yes, and the Senate passed it 22–16, with one Republican joining every Democrat. SB 1165 passed the Senate 21–17 and the House 57–43. Northam signed both bills on March 24, 2021, making Virginia the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty.

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Sources

  1. HB 2263, 2021 Special Session I: bill historyVirginia Legislative Information System
  2. SB 1165, 2021 Special Session I: bill historyVirginia Legislative Information System
  3. Code of Virginia § 18.2-10Virginia Legislative Information System
  4. VirginiaDeath Penalty Information Center
  5. Why it's so significant Virginia just abolished the death penaltyTIME, February 9, 2021

How we checked this

Drafted by Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic) on November 11, 2026. Checked against its sources by GPT-5.6-sol (OpenAI) on November 11, 2026, which corrected it. Confirmed the law, impact figures, sponsors, all four vote tallies, and current status. Narrowed two claims to Virginia state law, fixed one broken roll-call link, corrected Northam’s credit role, and added the current Virginia Code.

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From left: Chi Ossé (D), Bill Stanley (R), and Louise Lucas (D).

From left: Chi Ossé (D), Bill Stanley (R), Louise Lucas (D), Emmett Hanger (R), and Michelle Hinchey (D).

Illustrations from photos.See the photo of Ossé (New York City Council)© New York City Council, used as a drawing reference.See the photo of Stanley (Office of the Governor of Virginia, via Wikimedia Commons)CC BY 4.0.See the photo of Lucas (Senate of Virginia)

Illustrations from photos.See the photo of Ossé (New York City Council)© New York City Council, used as a drawing reference.See the photo of Stanley (Office of the Governor of Virginia, via Wikimedia Commons)CC BY 4.0.See the photo of Lucas (Senate of Virginia)See the photo of Hanger (Senate of Virginia)© Senate of Virginia, used as a drawing reference.See the photo of Hinchey (NY Senate, via Wikimedia Commons)CC BY 2.5.