The Death Penatly was reintroduced all over the US in 1977.  Since that time, Virginia has been one of the most active states in this regard.

Now the Democrats control the governor's mansion and the control the legislature for the first time in decades.  They are abolishing it.

The stated reason is that black criminals get sentenced to death, way out of proportion to the number of crimes they are convicted of.

I think that's a serious problem, but isn't this the wrong solution? If the steps of prosecuting/ convicting/ sentencing are somehow racist, eliminating one type of penalty obviously won't fix it.  I suppose we need more black prosecutors and black judges, but I don't know.

I think the death penalty is the right punishment for certain offenses.

The other reason the death penalty is going away is that it's become hard to get the chemicals for lethal injection mixed right, with pharmaceutical companies backing out of participating.  That's also a serious problem, but it seems no one is serious about solving it.  The simplest, most foolproof, and most painless way to execute a person is to make them breathe pure nitrogen.  Much simpler than injecting them with cocktails of proprietary drugs.

I get depressed thinking about how there are real problems in government, but also simple solutions, but people just want to blame the other party instead of figuring out a solution that could work for everyone.

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