The Virginia Parole Board has issued a report that outlines its past problems and the steps it could take to rebuild public trust. The work began in 2021, when Governor Glenn Youngkin issued an Executive Order firing the previous parole board and requesting a review of its duties, procedures and administration. Chadwick Dotson, Virginia Parole Board chair and report author, said the biggest issue is the parole board s lack of transparency in decision making - in part because other reports about its investigations had been heavily redacted by the State Inspector General s Office. .
Virginia is the only Southern state to have abolished the death penalty, and there s a new push in the new year to end it nationally as well. Almost 300 organizations are demanding that President Joe Biden abolish the federal death penalty. This comes as members of Congress have sent a letter to that effect to both Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland. .
Kentucky became the second state in the nation this year to pass an exemption to the death penalty for people with a serious mental illness. Signed into law by Governor Andy Beshear in April, House Bill 269 requires that a defendant must have had a documented diagnosis and active symptoms of mental illness at the time of his or her offense. Research suggests 43% of prisoners executed between 2000 and 2015 were medically diagnosed as mentally ill at some point in their lives. .