Greg Underwood, former commonwealth’s attorney in Norfolk, dies at 68
Greg Underwood, who served as Norfolk’s top prosecutor for more than a decade, died Saturday. He was 68.
Current Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi wrote in a Facebook post that Underwood died from cancer.
Underwood was elected in 2009 and left the position in 2021. Before becoming commonwealth’s attorney, he served in the prosecutor’s office for more than 12 years. He was the first Black commonwealth’s attorney in Norfolk, Fatehi said.
“Greg loved a good smoke. He loved a good drink. He loved a good war story,” Fatehi wrote. “He loved a good walk. He loved a good time. But more than that, he loved his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and, of course, his wife Gracie. He loved justice. And he loved his God, and I know that he has placed himself once again in His hands.”
During his tenure, Underwood was known as a proponent of criminal justice reform. In 2020, he spoke to a crowd of hundreds at a “Park and Pray” event at First Baptist Church Lamberts Point nine days after George Floyd’s death.
Underwood said the issue of racial disparities in the criminal justice system hadn’t been discussed in the Virginia Association of Commonwealth Attorneys, a group of elected prosecutors from around the state, until he took office.
“Black people were getting treated differently,” he told the crowd. “I’m the commonwealth’s attorney, and I’m supposed to accept it? Say nothing about it? Do nothing about it? No. I will stand up to the injustices in these communities. That’s what I’ve done, and that’s what I will continue to do.”
He asked the state Supreme Court to force local judges to dismiss misdemeanor marijuana cases, effectively de-criminalizing the drug. According to previous reporting from The Virginian-Pilot, the majority of people charged with marijuana possession in 2016 and ’17 in Norfolk were Black. In his letter to the court, Underwood said prosecutors would not handle misdemeanor marijuana appeals when simple possession is the only charge. Instead, simple possession charges were treated similarly to traffic offenses.
The petition was later dismissed, but Fatehi said Underwood’s efforts triggered major change in how Virginia handles marijuana policies.
“Within a year, marijuana was decriminalized and then legalized, and a new law reaffirmed and codified the very authority to dismiss cases that had been at issue in Greg’s policy,” Fatehi wrote.
In 2014, Underwood was charged and later acquitted of driving under the influence. Fatehi added this was a “dark period” for Underwood’s career.
“What impressed me about Greg was not the particular decision he made on his case,” he wrote. “It was that, during the pendency of the trial and for the year when he had no driver’s license, he came to work every day and worked hard, as if nothing had changed. He left his personal difficulties at the door, and he did his job. Most people do not have that kind of guts.”
Fatehi, who immediately followed Underwood in the top prosecutor position, said he would not be there without Underwood’s guidance. Underwood was the “single most underestimated person” Fatehi has worked with, he said.
“Greg was a good man who believed in doing the right thing, and, and in the need, as he liked to say, to ‘keep it moving.'”
Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com
