PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Virginia Speaker of the House of Delegates Don Scott says faith and family forged his path to redemption— a journey he hopes inspires anyone who has ever made a mistake.
“God will take broken things and make them whole,” said Speaker Scott during a conversation with me Monday afternoon. “God does not give up on any of us.”
Sunday morning, Scott learned President Joe Biden pardoned him before ending his presidency.
Scott, a native of Houston, Texas, was a veteran of the United States Navy when he entered law school at Louisiana State University in the 1990s. During his third year as a law student, Scott said he “made the dreadful mistake of going to pick up some money, some drug money” in a CBS News report last year.
Scott, who did not have a criminal history prior to his arrest in 1994, later pleaded guilty in a drug conspiracy case and spent nearly eight years in federal prison.
Following Scott’s time in prison, he finished his law degree, opened a law practice in Portsmouth, and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2019. He became the minority leader in 2022, and in 2024, Scott made history when he became the first Black Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia’s history.
Below the full video an excerpt of my conversation with Speaker Scott following the pardon announcement, lightly edited for content.
Jessica Larché: You and I have talked a lot about faith. What does this say about your faith, this moment in time, in your redemptive arc?
Don Scott: God is true to his promises. It's just that simple. You stay faithful. God will stay faithful even when you leave him. He won't let you. He'll keep you. He'll keep you connected through the worst of times. Things that you think you can't get through. And he will pull you through. And that's what has happened with me.
I've been so blessed to have a praying mother, praying grandmother, praying aunts that just stayed in my life to me. And they were tough. But they were prayerful women. And so that faith that they instilled in me, I've been able to continue to work, keep my head up and do the work. And, gratefully, President Biden, you know, recognized the work that not only that I did, but that so many people have poured into me and the work they did.
And so it's really a reward not only for myself but for my mother, who really just, you know, we were all in tears yesterday morning because I got the call yesterday morning and it was a sense of relief for her. And so, I'm doing pretty good in life anyway. But this was like the icing on the cake and the validation, I think, a life that is pleasing to not only to God, but to now some people say I'm doing, I'm doing pretty well.
And to have the president of the United States publicly say that you have lived a life of integrity and service. That is valuable and that's redemptive. And I think it's amazing that it came on the same day that Marcus Garvey, you know, was almost pardoned and says a lot about the message that I think the president was sending about some of the wrongs that we need to correct in this country.
And I think if you believe in the American dream, you got to believe in second chances, because you gotta root for people who can pull themselves up, keep their nose to the grindstone with true grit, integrity and determination, and continue to move forward. And I'm so grateful that the President of the United States in his power said the name of Don Scott.
And it goes so far to show what God can do. Oh, God will take broken things and make them whole. And so that's the way I feel. And so I kind of walk in that through faith. And so it's fun to walk in and know that doing you did it. It actually comes true because you're so faithful and you wait.
And so it's 31 years since that fateful day in '94 when I was arrested in a law school library studying. And now, 31 years later, not only am I given a pardon, but, you know, 30 years after that, I was, you know, named as the first Black Speaker of the House in the Commonwealth of Virginia and then a year later be pardoned by the President of the United States.
So it's a very, I don't know what else God has in store. I'm just gonna continue to try to walk in his grace because that's what it is. It is grace, truly unmerited favor. And so, I'm very grateful.
Larché: And it is a story that is reaching and inspiring so many. I have a couple of other questions, but I have to ask you this because you've talked about the devastation in your mother's voice the day you were in the courtroom and you were sentenced for the drug conspiracy charge. What sound did she make when you told her about this pardon from President Biden?
Scott: She started crying, tears of joy. And every time I keep crying, I talked about it many times that I still get choked up because it was not only about me. You know, parents live through their children, and they'll be sitting in a courtroom as a, you know, Black mom, six kids, you know, none of the world's power and was not able to save her son that day. And to come back and see the most powerful person in the world say that your son is worthy, I think it took a lot of weight off her shoulders. And literally, we cried tears of joy for at least an hour. I couldn't get to church. And then she told me to get off the phone and take y'all behind the church because she would never let me get too big for my britches. She's like, This is God telling you that he has more for you to do. And so I'm just going to try to follow that voice.
Larché: What does this say about the importance of second chances?
Scott: I think it's so important. I mean, some of us, if we tell the truth, we need second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth chances before we get right. And so in this way, I think it says, what all of us people of faith believe. I don't care if you're a Muslim, Jewish, you know, whatever it is that we believe in people, we don't give up on our brothers and sisters. Not only in family but communities. And we know for a fact that God does not give up on any of us. So I think we have to stop being so judgmental.
A friend of mine said, you know, a lot of people who wouldn't be qualified to judge in a pie-eating contest, judge us sometimes and take their words to heart. So what I've tried to do is not take any of those words to heart that people use to try to judge me throughout these 30 plus years and stay focused on what God says about me. To win the day to day.
And so I'm grateful to see that man caught up to what God had told me, you know, 30 something years ago for the mistake that I made.
Larché: Oh. That's powerful. You know, Speaker Scott, a lot of the work that I focus on here at News 3 is about telling stories about people who are trying to make the most of their second chances, people who feel they deserve a second chance. One of those people is Ronald Davis. As you're aware, I did several stories as he was trying to get a pardon [...] and we've been able to do several stories [now that he's been set free].
You were an advocate for Ronald Davis, and he has expressed to me his gratitude to you. Why is that important for you to also shine a light on people who have had what many call excessive sentences for crimes that did not end in any deaths or injuries? Why is it important to you to also shine a light on those cases?
Scott: Well, you know, I was sentenced to a ten-year sentence for a nonviolent drug offense.
And I always thought that the punishment did not fit the crime. I was a college graduate. I was in my last year of law school. I actually ended up finishing law school when I was sentenced. I was a law school grad when they sentenced me, and I got a ten-year sentence, never having hurt anybody, and I was a former naval officer.
So I was like, man. And then I started seeing more and more people like me in this system who had not harmed anybody, getting these crazy sentences. And so I'm hopeful that, you know, people like me and others in positions of authority, and especially folks like me who had that experience, we have an obligation to speak up for those who don't have that power.
We have an obligation to speak up for what people call the little guy, you know, and, you know, the Bible always tells us, you know, we're supposed to speak up for the least of these. And so I think those in power, they have a responsibility, an obligation to do more to help everybody, those who have made mistakes in the past, those are the folks who may be marginalized.
We need to be speaking up for all those marginalized communities as best we can, because I believe everybody deserves a chance of whatever God-given ability they have.
They should have a [second] chance to use it and prosper and pursue their life, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness. So I'm excited that we got this opportunity. I'm excited for Mr. Davis. And I'm gonna continue to fight for those folks who, I think, especially nonviolent offenders where nobody was hurt. But it may have been a crazy charge or a lot of charges piled up to give them a second chance, to get an opportunity.
And if I'm ever in a position to do that, I hope that I will grant even more mercy and grace because that's what I told someone the other day in a speech. I was talking about from my heart in the speech, but I looked out over the audience, I don't know, maybe 5 or 600. And I said, if we all got what we deserve, none of us would go to heaven. So there are people in, you know, in the room who feel real comfortable telling that they deserve something. Well, what do you deserve?
And so I think we have an opportunity to extend grace when we can, especially if it doesn't impact public safety. And then something like this, to give someone a chance to communicate, participate in civic life, to vote [...] but there are those in society that think it's their job to continue to punish people forever. And I'm just not one of those people.
And I will always speak to the goodness of the human heart. And I believe that we have an opportunity to continue to exemplify that. And I want to do that in each and every way that I can.
Larché: Wow. Exemplify the goodness of the human heart. Wow. That is beautiful. You know, I try to picture you as a 20-something year old going through this, being sentenced. Was there any moment when you were in prison that you had given up hope? Did you imagine that this would be your life now?
Scott: I never gave up because [...] I had too many people in my head that wouldn't allow me to give up anytime. If I even thought about having a pity party, I just had some very tough people in my life: family, my mother, aunt, grandmother at the time when she was living, my father when he was living. You know, I lost my father while I was in prison.
And so I got a lot of angels up there, you know what I mean? And a lot of angels. And that's my power. That's where my strength comes from. So every time I take the gavel, every time I do this work, I'm so strong because it's not just me. I got a squad around me. Right? And so, no, I never gave up. I couldn't do it. I got too many people in my life that wouldn’t let me.
And I want people to know that this is doable. And so I want to, you know, some people kind of say, you know, that I'm a little cocky or arrogant. No, no, I'm not. I'm just confident, you know, and I know who I am. So I'm never going to walk around with this so-called shame that people want you to have because you've been to prison. I'm never going to do it because I don't see myself that way.
So I just don't believe what people say about me. Somebody told me that if you knew how important you were to God, you wouldn't be able to stop being blessed. So I just walk around with that kind of language, that kind of energy, that God energy that I have. And so, yeah, I'm not going to walk around and looking defeated like you want me to. I'm not going to do that.
Larché: Wow. You stand on the shoulders of giants.
Scott: You do. Shoulders of giants. And some that were not giants by the world's standards, but they were giants in God's standards, you know what I mean? And my family’s, you know, my grandmother, my father, my uncle. All this stuff is happening for a reason. All those people that was in my head, they’re still in my head.
Larché: So beautiful. What is next for you, Speaker Scott?
Scott: Only God knows. We'll see.
