Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, when Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law. The law took effect on July 1, 2021. Virginia is the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, and the first southern state in United States history to do so. The first execution in what would become the United States was carried out in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608, when Captain George Kendall was executed in Jamestown for spying. Since then, Virginia has executed more than 1,300 people, the most of any other state. In the modern, post-Gregg era, Virginia conducted 113 executions, the third most in the country, behind only Texas and Oklahoma. The last execution in the state was on July 6, 2017, when William Morva was executed via lethal injection for murder. Early history The first recorded execution in the United States took place in 1608 at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. Captain George Kendall was executed for treason. Hanging was the predominant method for executions before 1909. Other methods had been used during this time — three people convicted of piracy in 1700 were gibbeted, four pirates were hanged in chains in 1720, and a female slave was burned in 1737. From 1910 until 1994, the electric chair was used for all executions. On February 2, 1951, four African Americans (of the Martinsville Seven) were executed for rape in one case and another was executed for murder in an unrelated case—the most executions held on a single day in Virginia. On February 5, 1951, the remaining three defendants in the rape case were executed. The case of the Martinsville Seven led to scrutiny of racial bias in death penalties for rape in Virginia. Only Black men were executed for rape, de jure through the end of the Civil War, and de facto since the introduction of the electric chair. The last execution for rape took place on February 17, 1961. The youngest person to have been executed in Virginia was Percy Ellis, who at the age of 16 was electrocuted on March 15, 1916. Only two women, Virginia Christian in 1912 and Teresa Lewis in 2010, were put to death by the state, when it took over executions from the counties. Modern era post-Gregg After the Supreme Court of the United States upheld Georgia's "guided discretion" laws in Gregg v. Georgia, Virginia's laws were modified along the same