Virginia, the US state with the highest number of executions, has voted to abolish the death penalty – News Sources

The U.S. state legislature voted Friday to abolish the death penalty in Virginia, sending the law to notify Governor Ralph Northam, Reuters reported.

The House of Representatives of the Democratic Majority in Virginia voted 57-41, ending the death penalty a week after the Senate passed the bill.

Governor Northam is expected to sign the law, which will make Virginia the first state to abolish the death penalty.

Virginia is the U.S. state with the highest number of executions in history – 1608 to 1,390, 68 more than Texas – last in 2017.

There are currently two convicts on death row, including Thomas Porter, who was convicted of killing a police officer in 2005.

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Voting in the Virginia Legislature came as support for the death penalty declined in the United States. According to the Gallup poll, this support has dropped from 80% in 1990 to 55% in 2020.

President Joe Biden, who was installed at the White House last month, has pledged to work with Congress to abolish the death penalty at the federal level. Democrat lawmakers recently introduced a bill.

Federal executions have been suspended for 17 years, and only three men have been executed by the federal government since 1963, when the practice was restarted last year under former President Trump. In 2020, 13 convicts were hanged in federal prisons, for the first time in all prisons in 50 states.