A piece from Best of New Orleans just came out and reported on the growing number of conservatives who are rethinking the death penalty in Louisiana. The article’s author, Della Hasselle, stated that as Louisiana deals with it’s enormous budget deficit, conservatives are looking at the death penalty as an example of fiscal waste. She also added,
Many in Louisiana still publicly support the death penalty, at least in concept, and experts who oppose it say it’s unlikely the state will abolish the practice any time soon.
But longtime conservatives who conclude it’s too expensive in today’s climate aren’t a political novelty. According to Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham, it’s a trend.
“If money grows on trees, what it costs to finance the death penalty doesn’t matter,” Dunham said. “But when Louisiana, for example, faces an extreme budget crisis and cannot fund basic services, the question becomes, ‘What is more important for the public good: health care and education, or death sentences?'”
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of the reform group Equal Justice USA founded in 2013, backs up Durnham. The group supports the death penalty’s growing opposition among conservative — and “very conservative” — Americans who believe in fiscal responsibility and are pro-life, yet see those qualities as incompatible with capital punishment.
“People have been against the death penalty for years, but didn’t have an outlet,” Marc Hyden, national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, told Red Alert Politics, an online publication for young conservatives, in March.