Jerry Bronson Givens (December 3, 1952 – April 13, 2020) was the chief executioner of Virginia from 1982 until 1999, during which he executed 62 people, including two of the Briley Brothers.
However, beginning in 1999, he served a four-year prison sentence for money laundering and perjury, the latter of which is a felony in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Givens was born December 3, 1952, in Richmond, Virginia, the youngest of his working-class parents' four children.
[2] He found the latter method more upsetting,[1] commenting in 2019 that "[w]hen it comes down to pushing that button, the only thing you could hear was the machine humming, but when it comes down to lethal injection you got the syringe in your hand and you're watching the chemicals go down in a plastic tube into his arm.
I tried not to think about it, but sometimes I would, and I’d think, ‘Oh, he killed 62 people.’”[4] Though he was initially a supporter of capital punishment (he had volunteered to assist in executions, prior to his appointment as chief executioner),[3] he said that executing people left him "in a daze", and that he "[felt] for the condemned man's family".
[1] He maintained his innocence, blaming a childhood friend who he said he had thought turned his life around,[3] but served four years in prison.
[1] It was also while he was in prison that he learned that Earl Washington Jr. was innocent of the crimes for which Givens had nearly executed him, and had been exonerated by DNA testing.
[1] A few years after his release from prison, Givens connected with Jon Sheldon, a capital defense lawyer who was on the board of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
[1] On his release from prison, Givens got a job as truck driver for a company that installed and repaired guardrails.
In 2012, Givens went on a speaking tour, in support of Proposition 34, a California ballot measure to abolish the death penalty.
It is thought that he potentially contracted coronavirus at a revival at Cedar Street Baptist Church in early March.