Jerry Givens

Jerry Bronson Givens was the chief executioner of Virginia from 1982 until 1999, during which he executed 62 people, including two of the Briley Brothers. He spent most of his career in Virginia's correctional system, and was initially a supporter of capital punishment. However, beginning in 1999, he served four years in prison for perjury and money laundering. This experience, together with the revelation that Earl Washington Jr., whom Givens had nearly executed in 1985 before his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, was innocent, transformed Givens into an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, which he spent the rest of his life campaigning against. He died from COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic.