from Williamsburg, Jane Barnard, who's a friend, a colleague, and an amazing person as well.
So thank you very much for being here, Jane.
And a constituent.
And a constituent.
I'm here even shorter than everybody else to speak on behalf of Virginians for alternatives
to the death penalty.
And I'm proud to be able to do that as its Board Vice President.
I'm sorry that our Board President is not able to be here.
She just had a baby.
It was too far and too complicated.
So I am honored, honored to speak in her stead.
30 years ago, in 1991, the Virginia death chamber was moved to this site, as the governor
mentioned, for Richmond.
101 people were put to death in this facility.
100 men and one woman.
Later the same year, 1991, the founders of what is now VADP took their first steps toward
ending state-sponsored killing.
The steps were slow.
The steps were arduous.
But our journey at VADP is now over.
Thanks to many, many people who have supported us in many, many ways over these 30 years.
I want to begin by acknowledging the essential role of Marie Deans in founding Virginia's
death penalty abolition movement.
Her work as a volunteer on death row in the battle days resulted in the exoneration
of Earl Washington.
Her work to get attorneys to represent the men on death row saved lives and helped to
humanize a brutal, awful environment.
She was also a key figure in the creation of this organization.
Virginia's faith community was the backbone of the early abolition movement, religious
leaders like Bishop Walter F. Sullivan, Reverend Fletcher Lowe, and many others spoke out
publicly in opposition to the death penalty and provided spiritual comfort to those on
death row and their family members.
Local religious leaders all over the Commonwealth led execution vigils in their communities
and their communities provided crucial funding in the early years of VADP.
We had other and have other allies and I'm glad to see that several of our strongest
allies are here and I want to highlight their presence again.
The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.
There you go.
The Virginia Catholic Conference and the Virginia ACLU.
Together we were able to accomplish what none of us could have done alone.
Now it would be impossible to discuss even the possibility of death penalty abolition
if it were not for the extraordinary work of the capital defense attorneys before and
after 2002.
We know the General Assembly created the capital representational centers in 2002 and since
then the work and the successes of the attorneys have been remarkable.
Attorneys, mitigation specialists, investigators all have worked together.
All like David Brock, Jerry Zirken, Rob Lee and many others have represented indigent
defendants accused of capital crimes for almost 20 years and that work has come or will
come to an end.
But before we leave those professionals we should note that they were responsible for a 90%
decrease in death sentences during the 20 years they did their work.
And no one, no one in Virginia has been sentenced to death in the past 10 years.
Another key group of advocates for death penalty abolition has been murder victim family
members, people like Rachel Suckvin and Lynelle Patterson and others.
These courageous women and men have shared their intensely personal stories of loved
ones lost and gone in order to educate the public in order to educate members of the General
Assembly in order to let people know that the death penalty often fails victims and their
families.
Many of these victims' advocates became opponents of the death penalty because of their own
negative and sometimes traumatic experiences with a criminal justice system that they felt
was more interested in retribution than in meeting their personal needs and the abolition
of the death penalty will make it possible to serve more effectively the needs of victims
with resources that here to four have been allocated to expensive trials, expensive appeals.
That will now be able to be redirected.
And another group that has helped us get where we are at this moment.
Powerful floor testimony by legislators themselves who had lost loved ones to homicide helped
secure the final votes.
All seven of the murder victim family members who serve in the General Assembly, seven, all
seven of them voted to end capital punishment.
And finally, of course, we've heard the story, we know the story, what got us to the
finish line.
Were the people who had the votes and the governor who led them?
We are very grateful to Senator Surveille, to delegate Mulling.
They worked long and hard publicly and privately to move this issue forward.
And we are most immensely grateful to Governor Northam, who himself, publicly and behind
the scenes, made this outcome possible.
This is, as we know, a historic day for Virginia.
We are the first southern state to abolish capital punishment.
But we will not be the last.
