Virginia, which has the record of executions on American soil, abolished the death penalty on Wednesday March 24.
It is the first state in the former segregationist South to renounce the death penalty.
"Today there is no place for the death penalty in this state, in the south and in this country," Democratic Governor Ralph Northam said in a ceremony at Greensville Prison, where the executions had taken place so far.
Abolition of the death penalty is "the right thing to do," he said.
"You cannot inflict this ultimate punishment without being 100% sure that you are right and you cannot inflict this ultimate punishment on someone knowing that the system does not work the same for everyone. ", he explained, pointing out that 296 of the 377 prisoners executed in the 20th century were African Americans.
Virginia's "long and complicated" history
After very tense debates, both State Chambers voted in favor of a law to abolish the death penalty earlier this year.
Virginia joins 22 other American states where the death penalty has already been abolished, but its decision is all the more symbolic since no state in the former Confederate South has yet taken this step.
Governor Northam pointed to Virginia's "long and complicated" history where "the racism and discrimination of our past is repeated today in our justice system."
European settlers established in Jamestown carried out in 1608 what is considered the first execution on American soil, that of a captain accused of espionage.
Since then, Virginia has executed 1,391 convicts, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), more than any other U.S. jurisdiction.
It was also in Virginia that the first slaves captured in Africa landed in 1619.
With AFP
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