This week marked a sad and tragic milestone as our nation exceeded 500,000 deaths in the COVID-19 pandemic. Death on such a massive scale is nearly unimaginable, yet each life represented a unique and beloved child of God. While vaccines and other mitigation efforts hold out promise for the end of the pandemic, we cannot forget or ignore the suffering and loss experienced by the families and friends of those who died.
On the same day we reached that horrific milestone, there was a milestone of a different kind in my home state of Virginia. The state legislature passed a bill to abolish the death penalty, and the governor has agreed to sign it. In the face of so much death, this was a vote for life. Historically Virginia was a leader in using the death penalty with over 1300 people executed. Yet this ultimate penalty has never been ultimately just or fair. Both in Virginia and throughout the country, racial bias has been clearly demonstrated in deciding who is charged with and sentenced to the death penalty. Especially since the development of DNA evidence, there are many cases in which innocent people were wrongly sentenced to death. We will never know how many people were wrongly convicted and executed, because they did not have access to adequate legal defense or DNA evidence. Two people who have been at the forefront of working to abolish the death penalty are Bryan Stevenson ( subject of the book and movie Just Mercy) and Sister Helen Prejean (subject of the book and movie Dead Man Walking) . Both are people of deep faith who believe in the sacred value of every person and who believe that we cannot have true justice through using the ultimate penalty of death that cannot be administered in a way that insures ultimate fairness. Take a few minutes to watch the short videos below in which Bryan Stevenson shares his commitment to abolishing the death penalty, and Sister Helen Prejean reflects on the abolishment of the death penalty in Virginia.