Florida’s death penalty has remained in the national spotlight as of late. In January, the Sunshine State’s capital sentencing scheme was ruled unconstitutional because it gave judges, rather than jurors, too much power in the death penalty sentencing process. As a result, Florida’s legislature passed a bill requiring at least a 10-2 jury vote in order to sentence someone to die, but this statute was quickly deemed unconstitutional by a Miami-Dade judge.
However, the courts didn’t settle the matter until recently when the decision was appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, which agreed that Florida’s sentencing statute was a constitutional violation. Until the legislature addresses this issue, Florida is effectively without a death penalty, which should be a welcome hiatus given the state’s poor record with capital punishment.
Meanwhile, the campaign to retain the end of Nebraska’s death penalty is going full-steam and gaining support from all constituencies. Many murder victims’ families, law enforcement officers, religious groups, death row exonerees, and well-known conservatives have all called on Nebraska to keep the death penalty a thing of the past.
Last September, I was in Oklahoma participating in press conferences and speaking engagements to educate individuals on the broken death penalty and why Oklahomans shouldn’t pass SQ 776, which would add the death penalty to their Bill of Rights. While I was in the Sooner State, I interviewed with Kate Greer from KOSU, and we discussed SQ 776. You can listen to the interview here, but below are some of the highlights:
State Question 776 says the death penalty does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment or violate any other part of the state constitution. Dunham says the referendum would strip those condemned to death of Constitutional rights, including their protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
“That strikes me and many other observers as violating the federal Constitution’s right to equal protection,” Dunham says. “And states are free to provide rights to defendants but states are not free to discriminate between classes of individuals and say that some have some rights and others have other rights.”
I recently returned as a guest to Joe Cristiano’s Liberty Talk Radio to give his listeners an update on the newest developments in the death penalty world. If you missed the segment, you can watch it here.
Late last month, we were treated to big news when another national organization came out in support of repeal. The National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL), which is a bipartisan group representing 320 state legislators, adopted a resolution calling for the death penalty to be repealed. In a written statement, NHCSL’s President, Ángel Cruz said, “We cannot allow more government dollars to be diverted to killing people, instead of investing them in prevention, rehabilitation, and effective crime fighting measures that ensure greater safety in our communities.”
Conservatives Concerned in the field
CCATDP had another busy month. After crisscrossing the country for the past several weeks, I arrived in Oklahoma to participate in two press conferences on SQ 776, which is a measure seeking to add the death penalty to Oklahoma’s Constitution. One of the events was in Oklahoma City and the other in Tulsa. I was joined by death row exonerees, Randy Steidl and Kwame Ajamu, as well as a host of political and religious leaders from across the state who believe that the proposal will undermine our system of checks and balances and create costly litigation.
Earlier this week, I participated in two press conferences in opposition to Oklahoma’s State Question 776, which aims to circumvent Oklahoma’s Judiciary and unilaterally declare the death penalty constitutional. I was joined by many area leaders, including conservatives and libertarians, and two death row exonerees, Kwame Ajamu and Randy Steidl, also spoke.
The press conferences were covered by a host of outlets including, News on 6, Fox News 23, ABC News channel 8, NBC channel 2, Tulsa World, and the Red Dirt Report.
News on 6 reported,
A group called Think Twice Oklahoma rallied against State Question 776 in Tulsa on Wednesday. The amendment seeks to add the death penalty to Oklahoma’s state constitution, giving lawmakers the power to try out any legal method of execution that isn’t banned by the U.S. Constitution.
Opponents say that means Oklahoma could someday utilize the firing squad method, as is used in Utah.
“Really, there’s no telling what kinds of possible methods could be attempted,” said Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a national advocacy group.
I recently spoke at the Oklahoma Republican Liberty Caucus where I presented the conservative case against the death penalty. Death row exonerees, Kwame Ajamu and Randy Steidl, also spoke at the event.
The Edmond Sun’s James Coburn covered the event and wrote,
Logan County Commissioner Marven Goodman is chairman of the group and said the group represents a group of disenfranchised conservatives who are not satisfied with the direction many conservatives have taken in state government.
Goodman said he does not place much trust in government regulations. So he questioned why he should trust the government to execute people.
Coburn said,
Oklahoma has wrongly convicted 10 death penalty survivors since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, said Marc Hyden, advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. The group is a project of Equal Justice USA.
Oklahoma has among the highest per-capita death penalty rates in the nation with 112 executions since 1976, he said.
“We don’t know how many innocent people might have been executed because there is no method in the criminal justice system to go back and try them,” Hyden said.
Yesterday, an article I wrote for the Albuquerque Journal was published. I penned it in response to Governor Martinez’s decision to attempt to reinstate the New Mexico death penalty. I explained,
Last week, Gov. Susana Martinez expressed her desire to reinstate the New Mexico death penalty. While she’s a leader in many ways, Martinez is an outlier when it comes to capital punishment. Conservative and liberal states are moving away from it.
Executions are at a 20-year low and death sentences are at a 40-year low. Furthermore, Republicans are increasingly spearheading efforts to end the death penalty.
The Nebraska legislature voted to abolish capital punishment. The Utah Senate did the same and conservatives have sponsored repeal bills in more than a half-dozen states.
Moreover, public opinion is starkly turning against capital punishment. Just in the past month, polls have shown that the majority of Kentuckians, Floridians and Oklahomans prefer alternatives to the death penalty. I suspect New Mexicans likely feel the same because they understand what is at stake.
The latest sign that the death penalty is falling out of favor comes from Delaware, where earlier this month, the State Supreme Court struck down Delaware’s capital punishment statute as unconstitutional. The Court found that judges rather than juries wielded far too much power in determining who received a death sentence. The Delaware Attorney General has announced that his office will not appeal the ruling, which makes Delaware the latest in a growing number of states to scrap capital punishment.
Support for the death penalty is also shrinking across the United States. Two recently released polls show how unpopular capital punishment is becoming. According to the surveys, around 72% of Kentuckians and 53% of Oklahomans prefer alternatives to the death penalty.
The increasing support for ending capital punishment should not come as a surprise considering the death penalty’s constant problems that continue to come to light. On August 15, a conservative Nebraska economist released his findings on the cost of the Cornhusker State’s death penalty.
I was recently interviewed by Will Wright of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting to discuss the conservative push to repeal the death penalty in Kentucky and elsewhere.
Wright wrote,
In red states both big and small, bills to abolish the death penalty are becoming more common.
“There’s been a complete change of discussion nationally,” said Marc Hyden, the national advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. “These are some very strong feelings of fiscal responsibility and pro-life views.”
Wright discussed Rep. David Floyd’s 2016 bill to repeal the death penalty that was narrowly defeated in the Judiciary Committee:
When Floyd brought House Bill 203 to the Judiciary Committee in March, he was joined by Hyden — a former National Rifle Association field director — and former Jefferson County Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Joe Gutmann. Each of the three men used to support the death penalty.
Hyden said many conservatives who support the death penalty are holding onto the same theoretical view of capital punishment that he once did: one without wrongful convictions, and one that actually executes those it sentences to die.
Questioning a system marked by inefficiency, inequity, and inaccuracy.
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is a network of political and social conservatives who question the alignment of capital punishment with conservative principles and values.
We are a project of Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty in the United States.
Test the popup