From its inception, Virginia’s death penalty
has been shamefully tarnished by racial bias.
If Virginia values Black lives, it must repeal
its death penalty. Virginia’s death penalty
continues a shameful history that devalues
Black lives and makes other harsh sentences
seem merciful.
Early Virginia statutes reserved death primarily
for Black people; white people often received
lighter sentences. Executions were later
extended to white people, but only for murder,
while Black people were executed for various
crimes.
Today, race remains a major factor in who is
sentenced to die.
In 1908, Winston Green was executed for
frightening a 12-year-old white girl.
+ In 1848, a Black Virginian (slave or freeman) + From 1800 to 1900, Virginia executed 538
could receive death for any offense for which Black people, 45 white people, and eight
a white man might be sentenced to three or people of unknown races.
more years in prison. . .
¢ The execution of white people was so
« Atthe same time, the law prohibited any rare in far western Virginia that in 1858
Black person from acting as a witness against when Preston Turley, a white man, was
a white defendant. Crimes such as the rape hanged, the Charleston Star reported “it
ofa Black woman by a white man were rare- was the first occurrence of the kind ever
ly prosecuted, and never resulted in a death known to have taken place within the
sentence because the victim could not testify country.”
against her attacker.
In the late 1800s, Virginia responded to increasing lynchings
by promising use of the death penalty; they tried, convicted,
and executed Black men, all in a few hours.
In 1899, a Black man named Noah Finley was convicted of robbing a white businessman.
As the jury deliberated over a sentence, a party of citizens notified them that, if a verdict
was not rendered by 10:00 am, “the Negro would be lynched.” The jury delivered their ver-
dict at the appointed time, and Noah Finley was promptly hanged.
- From the Richmond Planet
In 1908, Virginia moved from outdoor public hangings to
private, government-sanctioned electrocutions. Segrega-
tionists praised the move because it prevented Black peo-
ple from gathering to witness and pray at executions.
« Winston Green, a 17-year old mentally « An 1894 law made the attempted rape
disabled teenager from Midlothian, was of a white woman by a Black person
executed by electric chair in 1908 for the punishable by death. Legislators claimed
crime of frightening a 12-year-old white girl. the law was necessary because otherwise
white Virginians would “take matters into
oI , Clifton Breckenrid indicted
see on Te enncee was nate their own hands” and lynch the accused.
at 11:00 am for the “attempted criminal
assault” of a six-year-old white girl in « A1908 editorial in the Richmond Times-
Staunton. By 3:37 he had been tried, Dispatch praised the state’s secretive
convicted, and sentenced to death. His use of the electric chair, saying it was
execution was held 31 days later. “calculated to inspire terror in the heart of
the superstitious African.”
The introduction of the Electric Chair began the deadliest
execution years in VA history. From 1908 to 1920, 87
Black people and 13 white people died by electrocution.
* Virginia Christian (left) was the
first woman executed in Virginia
since 1896. She was a teenager
who killed her white employer in
self-defense. With mob violence
looming, the prosecutor and
governor used her case to remind
the local Black community that
“the consequences of killing a
white person would always be
death.” The unspoken message
was that execution might be
legal, or ifnecessary, it might be a
lynching.
At the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, in 1949, seven
Black men from Martinsville were convicted of rape.
All seven were executed in 1951. It was the largest mass
execution in Virginia history.
« Instark contrast, the Norfolk Journal and Guide
: reported on the 1948 conviction of a farmer who
raped a pregnant nineteen-year-old Black woman
He was fined $350.
« Even more egregious was the rape of a “feeble-
minded” Black woman by a white man, Murrel
Dudley, near Glasgow. On August 29, 1948, the
Journal reported that Dudley was convicted and
fined $20.
« From 1900 to 1969, Virginia executed 68 men for rape
or attempted rape. All were Black. No white man
was ever executed in Virginia for rape or attempted
rape.
Virginia resumed executions in 1982, following a 20-
year moratorium. Since then, Virginia has executed 113
people, second only to Texas for most in the nation.
The state still values speed above accuracy and fairness: ever since the days of Jim
Crow, the state has had the fastest execution process in the US.
¢ Race remains a major factor in who is « A Black defendant is three times more
sentenced to die. Black people make up likely to be sentenced to death if the
about 20% of Virginia’s population, but victim is white rather than Black.
6% of i ted si 82.
AQF DEOHNE SRSEMIES SUES TS ¢ As of 2020, Virginia has two men on death
¢ Virginia did not execute a white person row. Both are Black. Both of their cases are
for a crime against a Black person until under review for possible misconduct at
1997. the trial stage.
Sources: Death Penalty Information Center, “Enduring Justice” report, and Deathpenalty.org; 2020 Death Penalty Fact Sheet, Virginia Interfaith
Center; Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty website (VADP.org); the “The Espy File,” Fourth Edition, Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university
Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2017. “The Capital Laws of Virginia: An Historical Sketch,” Virginia State Crime Commission Advisory
Committee on Capital Punishment, 1973; Oyez.org, “Gregg v. Georgia;” “Railroaded: the true stories of the first 100 executions in Virginia's electric
chair” and “Virginia State Penitentiary: a Notorious History,” by Dale Brumfield.
