Friday’s vote on the bill in the House of Representatives was 57-41, with three Republicans joining the Democratic majority in support of the measure.
Both bills will need to be approved by the other house, and Virginia House Democrats are “confident that the two bills will be approved by both houses, as they are identical,” said majority press secretary Kate Sarna, to CNN.
But Friday’s approval in the House effectively guarantees that the legislation will reach the governor’s table.
Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam supports the abolition of the death penalty and, following the Senate vote on Wednesday, said he hopes to sign the bill.
If the bill is passed, Virginia will be the first southern state to revoke the death penalty since the United States Supreme Court reinstated the punishment in 1976.
The debate among Virginia lawmakers this week about the bill was filled with emotion.
Before the final vote on Friday, Republican state Del. Jason Miyares, who voted against the bill, argued that the death penalty is not a matter of revenge, but of justice for the victims.
During Thursday’s debate over the bill, Miyares, a former criminal prosecutor, showed photos of murder victims in Virginia, describing the horrific and violent end of their lives and arguing that “the victims were completely left out. in this debate on the death penalty. “
Defender of the House bill, Del. Mike Mullin, and other Democrats argued that the death penalty should be abolished because “it is immoral, racially prejudiced, ineffective and expensive”.
“What keeps me up at night is that we are at risk of executing an innocent person,” the Democratic lawmaker said in a statement.
Democrat Del. Mark Levine was shocked on Friday to share an emotional testimony of how his sister Janet was murdered by her husband.
Levine said the House bill is not about him, or the victims, but “about the fact that the state could end up killing innocent people”.
“Killing someone else doesn’t bring Janet back to me,” said Levine, adding that wrongfully executing an innocent person would be “bad”.
The legislation would eliminate the death penalty from July. It would also switch existing death sentences to life imprisonment without parole.
Some Senate Republicans objected to that House’s bill because it did not include a mandatory minimum life sentence for a qualified murder without the possibility of parole. There were two prisoners on death row in Virginia in December 2020, according to the Virginia Department of Corrections.
Legalization of marijuana
The House also voted on Friday to legalize recreational marijuana in Virginia by a 55-42 vote, with two abstentions, and the Senate on Friday passed its own measure by 23-15.
If the legislation is signed by Northam, Virginia will become the first southern state to legalize recreational use.
The projects would create the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority and establish a regulatory framework for the cultivation, manufacture, wholesale and retail of marijuana retail and retail marijuana products, to be administered by the authority.
The measures would also provide a process to automatically eliminate certain marijuana-related convictions.
According to their summaries, the bills have staggered the effective dates and would allow retail marijuana sales to begin on January 1, 2024, while certain provisions do not take effect unless they are enacted again by the 2022 session of the General meeting.
CNN contacted his office requesting comments on Friday’s votes.
This story was updated with the Virginia Senate vote on marijuana legalization.
CNN’s Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.