The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2021 must be present (18). Secondly, the newly passed California Racial Justice Act prohibits prosecutors and judges from seeking a conviction or imposing a sentence, “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.” 192 This bill also includes the requirement for appeals courts to overturn convictions and sentences based on discriminatory conduct, for instance, when the judge, lawyer or law enforcement officer, expert witness or a juror used discriminatory language about the defendant’s “race,” ethnicity or national origin. Lastly, acknowledging the historical exclusion of people of colour from juries, the legislature approved a major reform on jury selection practice. In Ohio, new legislation was introduced in January 2021 to ban the death penalty for defendants whose severe mental illness at the time of the offense significantly impaired their judgment, capacity, or ability to appreciate the nature of their conduct.193 In the same vein, in March 2021 the Kentucky House of Representatives approved a bill that prohibits the death penalty for defendants who, at the time of the offense suffered from schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder or delusional disorder.194 On 22 February 2021, Virginia became the first state in the American South to repeal the death penalty, and the 11th American state to do so. In the last forty years,195 it executed a greater proportion of those it condemned than had any other American state.196 Abolition in Virginia was welcomed as a positive step towards a fairer, less discriminatory criminal justice system.197 During the reporting period, at least four prisoners were exonerated from death row after having spent between 14 and 37 years there. Some of them faced multiple trials, and in most of these cases, official misconduct contributed to the wrongful conviction, 192 Ibid., and ACLU, North Carolina, op. cit., note 190. 193 Death Penalty Information Center, Ohio Bars Death Penalty for People with Severe Mental Illness, 11 January 2021. 194 Death Penalty Information Center, With Overwhelming Bipartisan Support, Kentucky House Passes Bill to Ban Death Penalty for Defendants with Serious Mental Illness, 3 March 2021. 195 The Death Penalty Information Center refers to the modern era as any time after 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated. 196 Death Penalty Information Center, Statement by Robert Dunham, Executive Director Of The Death Penalty Information Center, on Virginia’s Abolition of Capital Punishment, 24 March 2021 and Equal Justice Initiative, Virginia Abolishes the Death Penalty, 24 March 2021. 197 ACLU, Statement on Repeal of Death Penalty in Virginia, 22 February 2021. See thematic section for indepth discussion as to how Virginia successfully abolished capital punishment. 48