UPDATE - Other Deep South States Should Follow Virginia's Lead To End Death Penalty - Senator

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th March, 2021) After Virginia, the first Deep South state to abolish the death penalty, other states in the region should follow its lead, Mamie Locke, a Virginian senator from the Democratic party, told Sputnik.

On Wednesday, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed a historic bill putting an end to the death penalty in the state which has a long history of carrying out executions. Virginia became the first southern state and the 23rd US state to end the practice.

"This is a big step for Virginia to eliminate this barbaric practice that is not in keeping with the values on which the state was founded... Virginia is the first Deep South to eliminate the death penalty and others should follow Virginia's lead," Locke said.

The Deep South, a cultural and geographic subregion, includes Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Sometimes, Texas, Florida and Arkansas are also included due to their common history.

When asked if the legislation may stir an uproar among the victims of the criminals who would now not be on death row, Locke replied that many Virginians support eliminating the measure.

"There are only 2 individuals currently on death row and those sentences will be commuted. There is nothing for which to be in an uproar about," she said.

Overall, some 1,400 people have been executed in Virginia since the colonial era. In modern times the state is the second on the list of states performing death penalties, following only Texas.

For years, many human rights groups have been drawing attention to the alarming cost of the death penalty for the American taxpayers. The death penalty cases are much more expensive than non-death penalty cases, according to numerous studies and statistical data.

"It means they [Virginia]'ll now free up millions of Dollars that can be directed towards programs that actually prevent violence in the first place, solve more crimes, provide victims' services, and actually make communities safer - all of which the death penalty prevented and limited," Hannah Cox, a senior national manager for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty group, told Sputnik.

She recalled that there are 23 US states that have repealed the measure and 3 more with moratoriums.

"[This means that] nearly half the country still needs to repeal their statutes. Ohio, Georgia and Wyoming are all states to watch, but there are close to a dozen others working on these efforts," she added.

The death penalty is a false promise of healing that prosecutors tell to the families of murder victims, Kathleen Lucas, Executive Director of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told Sputnik. When a prosecutor announces the death penalty verdict, they guarantee that the whole process will cost more, and puts the state at the risk of executing an innocent person, she added.

"No one should be asked to accept that risk. As long as there is a death penalty there will be a chance of executing an innocent person," she said.

As a Pennsylvanian, she hopes that her state will be next in line to abolish the practice.

"When we ask which one should be next, the only answer is that whichever state can get it done first. There are active abolition movements in every single state that still retains capital punishment. The death penalty is circling the drain. It isn't a matter of "if" it will end up on the trash heap of history; it's only a question of when," she said.

Capital punishment is legal in Pennsylvania. Yet since 1999, there have been no executions in the state and only three were carried out since 1976.