3/27/2021 The death penalty ended sooner than expected in Virginia — and not soon enough - The Washington Post
The death penalty ended sooner than
expected in Virginia — and not soon
enough
By Theresa Vargas
March 27, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EDT
When it came time for him to watch a man die, Steve Corbally didn’t sit in the front row.
He sat a row behind volunteers who had signed up to watch an execution in Virginia. That night in 2006, Corbally
was one of them.
He was one of the people who stepped into the Greensville Correctional Center, sat in a room separated by a window
from the electric chair and listened to the last words of a 27-year-old man convicted of rape and murder: “I pray for
the people who believe in Jesus Christ in heaven, and I pray for the unsaved, for they know not what they do. I’m
ready to go now and be free.”
Some of the people in the room had witnessed other executions, according to a Washington Post article that ran at
the time. But that night marked Corbally’s first time volunteering — and his last, he tells me when we talk on a recent
afternoon.
“I would never go again unless I needed to, unless I had to be with somebody who wanted me with them,” he says.
On Wednesday, outside that same correctional center, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) signed a bill that ended the death
penalty in Virginia. It was a move that came sooner that even people who have long been fighting to abolish the
practice expected.
It was also a move that came not soon enough.
It came nearly a year after the death of a former Virginia executioner who had become one of the country’s most
vocal opponents of the death penalty.
It came 14 years after a Virginia man who was almost executed was granted an absolute pardon, acknowledging he
was wrongly convicted.
It came 15 years after Corbally walked into that death house, already convinced that what he was about to see
shouldn’t happen.
Ireached out to Corbally after seeing his name in that 2006 article because I was curious whether witnessing that
execution had shifted or solidified his views of the death penalty. What altered his perspective more, he says, was
seeing up close how many lives get tangled up in each death row case. When he volunteered to be a witness, he was
working as a criminal defense investigator for death row cases, which meant looking into each closely. He is still in
that field.
“It’s a losing situation for everyone involved once they make the decision to execute,” he says.
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3/27/2021 The death penalty ended sooner than expected in Virginia — and not soon enough - The Washington Post
Wednesday will go down as a historic day in Virginia. With Northam’s signature, it became the first of the old
Confederate states to abolish the death penalty, stirring hope that other states and the federal government will do the
same.
“There is no place today for the death penalty in this commonwealth, in the South or in this nation,” Northam said
outside that correctional center, which has seen more than 100 executions.
He’s right. Only it isn’t just time for other states and the federal government to abolish the death penalty. It is past
time.
Growing up in Texas, which has led the country in modern-day executions, I never even questioned the death penalty
as a punishment. What later solidified my views against it was seeing the criminal justice system up close when I
worked as a reporter covering cops and courts in New York and Virginia. I have interviewed people accused of
horrific crimes, including a man in Virginia who showed glimmers of glee while confessing a chilling murder to me,
and I have knocked on the front doors of too many relatives of homicide victims to count. I can still feel the weight of
some who hugged me as they cried.
They deserve justice. I believe that. I also know — we all know — that our criminal justice system too often doesn’t
dole that out fairly or flawlessly. It is filled with examples of racial bias, flat-out mistakes and differential treatment
based on a person’s resources. There is no question that someone who can afford a high-cost lawyer is likely to fare
better than someone who has to rely on an overworked, underpaid public defender.
One of the people who fought for years to get Virginia to abolish capital punishment was someone who knew better
than anyone who ended up on death row. Jerry Givens was the state’s chief executioner for 17 years, and in that time,
he was responsible for 62 executions.
Abraham Bonowitz, founder of Death Penalty Action, recalls traveling to different parts of the country with Givens,
who would talk about his experience. He was the one who pulled the lever that powered the electric chair and pushed
the syringe when prisoners chose lethal injections.
“When you put him in front of anybody, the audiences were usually very, very quiet,” Bonowitz recalls.
In April 2020, Bonowitz noticed that photos from a trip he and Givens had taken in 2012 were getting likes on social
media. When he looked into why, he learned that Givens had died of complications related to the coronavirus.
Bonowitz says the 67-year-old, who was a friend, had been looking forward to witnessing the historic moment that
came Wednesday.
“I would like to think if the spirits intervene in these sorts of things, then Jerry was one of them,” he says. “He wanted
this and was excited about the possibility.”
The signing came more than 30 years after Bonowitz started working toward trying to get the country to abolish the
death penalty.
“It is one of those moments when you realize there is an end of the tunnel,” he says.
Michael Stone, the executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, describes the moment as
“surreal.”
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3/27/2021 The death penalty ended sooner than expected in Virginia — and not soon enough - The Washington Post
“I thought we would begin the debate this year, but I didn’t anticipate we would win,” he says. “I thought it would
take another two or three years.”
At the signing ceremony, tears filled his eyes. Hovering over the moment were two realities: In 413 years, there had
been 1,390 documented executions in Virginia, and some of the people who fought to end that practice weren’t alive
to see that happen.
Stone thought of three in particular: Givens; Catholic Bishop Walter Sullivan, who led prayer vigils on execution
days; and Marie McFadden Deans, who lost a family member to murder and dedicated much of her life to helping
men facing the death penalty get legal representation. One of the men she is credited with saving is Earl Washington
Jr., who came within nine days of being executed by Givens. Biological evidence later led to his pardon and release.
Stone imagines that if the three activists had been at the signing ceremony, Sullivan would have invited people back
to his house to celebrate, Givens would have prayed, and Deans “would have snarled and said, ‘What are you guys
celebrating for? We have so much work to do.
When I talk with Corbally, I ask him whether ending capital punishment in Virginia will put him out of work, since he
is in the business of investigating death penalty cases. He reminds me that the federal government still puts people
on death row.
“Virginia took a big step,” he says, “but there are still a lot of death penalty cases.”
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